Divine Deflection vs. Olivia Voldaren (a study in state-based actions).

Times are tough for your Olivia Voldaren. She came down right on schedule on Turn 4, but your opponent immediately stabbed her with , reducing her to a mere 1/1. Fortunately, your opponent has a juicy 1/1 Human token, ripe for the plucking (and the vamping)! You untap and immediately direct your vampire queen towards […]

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How Gisela’s ability interacts with Divine Deflection.

Two of the more complicated cards from Avacyn Restored are and . When you combine the two, things get downright confusing. The complication comes from confusion about the interaction of replacement and/or prevention effects. The comprehensive rules say this: “If two or more replacement and/or prevention effects are attempting to modify the way an event […]

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Divine Deflection only has one target: where the damage will be dealt.

is a card that suffers from “wall of text” syndrome. It does a few different things all at the same time, so it’s easy to get confused. The most important thing to remember is that Divine Deflection requires you to choose only one target. Don’t choose your own creature! (Unless you want it to die). […]

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Divine Deflection prevents and deals a TOTAL of X damage.

With the new card , the wording can be a little misleading. While one might read it to mean that it prevents X damage to you AND X damage for each creature or planeswalker you control, then deals all that combined damage to whatever you targeted, it doesn’t quite work like that. When you cast […]

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