If your opponent casts Eyes in the Skies, your first instinct might be to kill all his token creatures in response so he can’t populate. However, it’s not quite as easy as that.

Once Eyes in the Skies starts to resolve, it continues to resolve until all possible actions written on the card are taken, before being put into its owner’s graveyard. This means the Bird will enter the battlefield, then before any player gets priority, your opponent will populate a token he controls of his choice – including the Bird token that just arrived.

So while you may be able to stop your opponent from populating that scary 8/8 token he created from Grove of the Guardian by killing it in response to Eyes in the Skies, you can’t prevent him from populating something, even if it’s only a lowly 1/1 bird token (or in the case of Centaurs’ Accord, a slightly-less-lowly 3/3 centaur token).

Today’s Rules Tip written by
Jen Wong