And to close out Exploit week, we finish with possibly the wackiest interaction you’ll run into during a Dragons of Tarkir involved Limited event: what happens if you steal your opponent’s creature in response to Exploit! It won’t come up much, because the majority of creature-theft is in the form of sorcery effects like Act of Treason, or the ability of a creature like Dragonlord Silumgar, not happening in response to things. But Illusory Gains mucks things up pretty well there, since it’ll trigger during your opponent’s turn quite often!

So, let’s say your opponent plays a card like Sidisi, Undead Vizier with a bunch of fun stuff to Exploit. Sidisi herself will trigger, as will your Gains- since it’s not your turn, you are the Non-Active Player, and your trigger will resolve first. It resolves, Gains attaches to Sidisi, and you steal yourself a dead snake-person (or “snerson”). Then, your opponent can choose to sacrifice a creature to Sidisi’s Exploit trigger, which we’ll say that he does. What happens next? YOU get to tutor! The rules tell us that a creature ‘exploits a creature’ when the controller of the Exploit trigger (That’d be your opponent) sacrifices a creature as that trigger resolves. So, once that happens, Sidisi has ‘exploited a creature’, and her second ability triggers. But since YOU control Sidisi when that trigger fires, YOU control that trigger, and YOU tutor! Of course, your opponent might be savvy enough to read this fine blog as well, and simply choose not to exploit anything, denying you your sweet, ill-gotten tutor. But hey, at least your opponent didn’t get to tutor, and now you have a sweet Snerson to attack with! At least until he plays a crummy creature for Gains to attach to. Oh well!

Today’s Rules Tip was written by Trevor Nunez