Sigarda won’t save you from sacrificing your own Phantasmal Image, even if an opponent targets it.

‘s ability is pretty cool. If an effect an opponent controls says “sacrifice a creature” Sigarda says, “No, I’d rather not.” So she keeps you safe from things like and . But what if the opponent targets your Phantasmal Image (copying something other than Sigarda) with ? On the surface, it almost looks like the […]

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Can you respond to the choice of what to copy with Phantasmal Image? It depends!

This is a very common question with any kind of copy creature. The most important thing to note is that the static ability that lets you choose to copy something is NOT a triggered ability (if it was, pretty much every Clone-type creature would die for being 0/0 before you could choose to copy something!). […]

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Sever the Bloodline will also exile clones of the targeted creature.

Cards like (with or without kicker) and that make a token copy of a card seem to be fairly intuitive to most players. What is that token? Well, it’s exactly the card that it copied! If you copy a with Cackling counterpart, the token created is still named Runeclaw Bear. On the surface, creature cards […]

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How Deadeye Navigator and Phantasmal Image interact.

A question that many judges hear nonstop is “Will X save my ?”. The answer to that is almost always no; countering the spell that was aimed at it, trying to bounce/blink your Image in response, giving it Hexproof in response, etc.; none of these things will save it from its own sacrifice trigger [or […]

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You choose something new to copy when your Phantasmal Image comes back from undying.

When a copy of a creature with the undying ability dies, the undying ability will trigger and return it to play. This is due to the last known information when the card was in play, which is what leaves-the-battlefield abilities (like undying) look for to determine whether they should trigger. When it returns to the […]

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Phantasmal Image will be sacrificed even if you counter the spell that targeted it.

The illusion creatures printed in Magic 2012— being the most notable—have a common characteristic.  They share a triggered ability that reads: “When [this creature] becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it.”  Once one of these creatures is targeted, its sacrifice ability will trigger and that ability will go on the stack before […]

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