For nearly two decades, Magus of the Moon was the only real creature-based alternative to Blood Moon. That changed with the arrival of Zhao, the Moon Slayer from the Avatar: The Last Airbender set, a new legendary creature that eventually does something very similar.
The two cards are not identical twins. Zhao arrives cheaper and safer, but takes real setup time before it matches what Magus of the Moon does the moment it resolves.
This guide compares the two directly: cost, speed, durability, and which decks actually want one over the other, or both at once.
Neither card replaces the other outright. They solve the same problem on very different timelines.
Magus of the Moon costs three mana and makes every nonbasic land a Mountain the instant it resolves, delivering its full effect immediately. Zhao, the Moon Slayer costs only two mana as a 2/2 with menace, but its land-warping ability is not active right away.
Zhao needs seven additional mana invested into a counter before its static ability turns on, meaning the two cards are on completely different timelines even though they end up doing a similar thing to an opponent's manabase.
Even before its big ability activates, Zhao is not doing nothing: nonbasic lands enter the battlefield tapped as soon as it is in play, which is a real, immediate tempo tax on any deck relying on entering-untapped duals or fetch lands.
This gives Zhao a meaningful early-game role distinct from Magus of the Moon, taxing opponents from turn one even while its full lock condition is still many turns away from turning on.
Both cards are creatures, which means both die to ordinary creature removal in a way Blood Moon never has to worry about. Magus of the Moon's smaller two-power, two-toughness body and immediate impact make it a priority target the instant it resolves.
Zhao's menace keeps it slightly harder to block profitably, and since its full effect is not live immediately, opponents have less urgency to remove it early compared with a Magus of the Moon that is already wrecking their manabase the turn it lands.
Magus of the Moon has an established track record across Modern Prison shells, Legacy Painter and Sneak and Show decks, and Commander stax lists, giving it years of proven deck slots to point to.
Zhao is newer and still settling into the metagame, but its lower initial cost and immediate land-tapping tax make it a natural fit for aggressive decks that want disruption without committing a full turn's worth of mana to it.
Because the two cards do not compete for exactly the same mana slot or the same removal answers, some decks already run both alongside Blood Moon for maximum redundancy against nonbasic-heavy opponents, especially in Commander where singleton rules reward stacking similar effects.
Running all three does mean accepting more dead draws in matchups where the opponent's manabase is mostly basics, so this approach favors decks facing a metagame genuinely full of greedy, nonbasic-dependent lists.
For a deck that wants maximum early disruption on a budget, Zhao's lower cost and immediate land-tapping tax make it the more efficient first pickup, especially in aggressive shells that do not plan on sticking around long enough to pay the full seven mana for the counter.
For a deck built specifically to shut off nonbasic mana as fast as possible, Magus of the Moon remains the more reliable choice, since its effect is fully live the moment it resolves rather than requiring a long-term mana investment, and either build travels safely in a plastic deck box.
No, Zhao is cheaper and taxes nonbasic lands immediately, but needs seven additional mana before its full Moon effect turns on.
Yes, nonbasic lands enter the battlefield tapped as soon as Zhao is in play, well before the counter goes on.
Yes, some decks run both alongside Blood Moon for redundancy, especially in Commander.
Zhao's lower cost and immediate tapped-lands tax generally make it the more efficient early pickup for aggressive shells.
Whichever Moon effect ends up in the ninety-nine or the sixty, a card this central to a deck plan deserves to survive years of shuffling without a scratch. A magnetic card holder keeps a key disruption piece display-ready between games.
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