Hello, intrepid adventurers, and welcome to a new Card of the Month. This time we bring you directly from the most remote borders of the realm a card you may be waiting to play that also presents us one of the new mechanics of Eldraine: Fae of Wishes (below in its frame and alternative art).

Let’s venture into unknown terrain 

Let’s start from the beginning: what is this new adventure thing? It’s a new subtype of Instants and Sorceries, but not a spell by itself: adventure spells will always go in the company of an adventurous creature. In a nutshell, we have two cards in one: on the one hand a normal creature, like the ones we’re used to, and on the other hand, within the text box of the creature, an instant card or sorcery. No, we can’t cast spells from the battlefield, the story is a bit different. When we cast our adventurous card, we can choose whether to cast the creature or send it on an adventure. Then we put it on the stack, pay the cost (which for the adventure is in the same box and may be different from the creature’s, {3}{U} in the case of our fairy), and with a bit of luck, our spell will take its course.

Once on the stack, an adventure is an instant or sorcery like we’re used to. In the case of our Card of the Month, we’ll cast a sorcery called Granted, at a cost of {3}{U}, blue, which tells us that we can pick a non-creature card from outside the game, show it, and add it to our hand. A Wish in full swing (the most careful readers will have seen it coming by its name …). “Out of the game” generally means the Sideboard, or the rest of the pool if we play limited (even if it’s limited 2HG where you play best of one), or some wishboard in Commander and Brawl, if the rules of your game group allow it (i.e. it’s a good idea to set the limits of “out of the game” before you start, if you’re playing with new faces: your deckbox, your collection, a new booster… there are no wrong choices, but we advise you to agree in advance). If we’re in a competitive tournament, we can check the content of our Sideboard before deciding whether to cast the fairy, and the Sideboard will be the only place where we can look for a card.

Just as a reminder, if you resolve Granted and do not show the card you pick from outside the game before adding it to your hand, if you are playing in a competitive tournament, you have just committed a Hidden Card Error. You will normally be given a warning by a judge and asked to reveal your hand. Your opponent will select the card you added there. If it will be a creature card, you will put it in your sideboard and chose a new one for Granted. Remember to show it this time.

Well, let’s say our adventurous spell resolved. Now we have a novelty compared to “normal” spells: if the adventure resolves correctly, the card will be exiled instead of going to the graveyard. But let’s not lose heart, because now we can cast from there our creature who was gone on adventures and who is finally returning from his journey. If an adventure is countered or doesn’t resolve correctly (e.g. its only target becomes illegal) it will go to the graveyard and normally we can’t cast any of its parts from there. To be able to return from an adventure, you must have been there before…

I feel very adventurous!

Casting a creature after it’s been exiled is again a process similar to what we’re used to by casting a creature: you put it on the stack (from exile), you pay the cost, and if it resolves it will come into play. In our case it will be a Fae of Wishes, creature – Fairy Wizard, with cost {1}{U}, 1/4, and text: 

Flying
U, Discard two cards: Return Fae of Wishes to its owner’s hand.

Wise readers will have noticed that it is a card that loops by itself: we can cast the adventure from our hand, then the creature from exile, then use its ability to get it back in hand, and start the loop again, at least while we have mana and cards to discard.

But there are a few things we need to be careful about when dealing with adventures. First, these cards are only considered creatures in every area except the stack (where they’ll be a creature if we’ve decided to cast them like that, or an instant or sorcery if we’ve sent our creature to the adventure).

In our case, for example, when our card of the month lies in the graveyard, it will be a creature, with cost {1}{U}. It will only count as a creature for our Tarmogoyf, it will not be able to grant wishes to a Snapcaster Mage who ventured around because he cannot make it a valid target for his ability, etc..

On the other hand, if we put an adventure on the stack, we’ll only see that part of the card: it won’t have strength or toughness, it won’t have the creature’s name or its type or subtypes, etc. If for example we exile our fairy with a Vivien, Champion of the Wilds, we can not cast the adventure spell, but only the creature, since Vivien only allows us to cast creatures.

 

A few other important details not to be forgotten:

• If we copy an adventure that is on the stack, the copy will go into exile when it resolves and there will cease to exist, like any good copy. We can’t use it to cast any creature.
• If instead, we copy a creature with an adventure, also the copy will have the adventure, for what we may need (e.g., Mysterious Pathlighter)
• If we have to choose the name of a card, we can choose the name of the creature or the name of the adventure. But let’s remember that the card only has the name of the creature everywhere except on the stack, where it will have the name of the adventure only if we launch the adventure. If for example Fae of Wishes has been chosen with a Meddling Mage, we can still cast Granted, but nothing more, not even the fairy from exile.
• The player who exiles the adventure after it has resolved and that may then cast the creature from exile is the one who cast the adventure, not necessarily the owner of the card (Covetous Urge, Thief of Sanity and various friends?).
• Exiling the creature after the adventure is resolved is a replacement effect, not a self-replacement one. If there are other replacements around (e.g., Feather, the Redeemed) the adventure controller chooses which one to apply first.
• Finally, let’s remember that adventure is not an alternative cost. Therefore, we can choose to cast the adventure even if we are paying an alternative cost for the card (unless the alternative cost specifies more restrictions, for example, “a creature card”).

Finally, let’s see some interesting interactions with other popular cards that you can find for the tables, even in limited.

• Snapcaster Mage or Finale of Promise do not allow us to cast an adventure from the graveyard as they need to target an instant card or sorcery and the adventure is just a creature while in the graveyard.
• Kess, Dissident Mage or Electrodominance allow us to cast an adventure instead. Let’s see what these cards say: “you can cast an instant card or sorcery…”, no target. If we choose to cast Granted from the graveyard by means of Kess, for example, once on the stack the card would actually be a sorcery card and therefore a legal choice. If it resolves in this way, the adventure will normally go into exile and from there we can cast the creature later.
• Cards like As Foretold or Fires of Invention allow us to cast the adventure, but then we will have to deal with the converted cost of the adventure, not of the creature (no “old-style” “split card” adventures). In our case, we should have at least 4 counters with As Foretold or 4 lands with Fires to cast the adventure of our fairy of desires.
• The adventures interact in a similar way with cards like Kari Zev’s Expertise: we can cast an adventure only if its CMC is 2 or less, regardless of the CMC of the creature to which the adventure belongs. In this case, no Granted, but we can cast the fairy.
• We can try some tricks with Cascade: this ability allows us to cast a card if its CMC is less than the CMC of the card with Cascade. At this time we will only control the cost of the creature, since cascade works by exiling the cards and in exile we see only the characteristics of the creature. Once we have determined that we can cast it, we can put on the stack either the creature or the adventure, as we prefer. We can then cast our Granted if we exiled the fairy with a Violent Outburst. In a similar way cards like Bring to Light work: we control the CMC of the creature when we look for it in the library (i.e. we only see the characteristics of the creature in the library) and, once determined that we can find it, we exile it and we can launch the creature or adventure as we may find more profitable.
• In the same way cards like Havengul Lich also work: we can cast the adventure even if they refer to the creature card in a specific way. Once we have determined that we can cast the card (i.e. in the graveyard it is a creature only), we can put it on the stack as we prefer since the Lich does not specify restrictions of any kind: fairy or desire, therefore.
• Interesting is the difference between Yawgmoth’s Will and Past In Flames: while in the first case we can play cards from the graveyard, and thus we can safely cast creatures or adventures, in the second case nothing for you since PiF gives Flashback to instant or sorcery cards when it resolves and adventure cards are just creatures in the graveyard.
• Finally, with Omniscience, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim and company we can freely choose whether to cast a creature or an adventure. Remember that adventure is not an alternative cost and therefore it is fully compatible with “without paying its cost of mana”.

It’s everything for today! As you can see adventures may give some headaches and sometimes they may not seem entirely intuitive, but in most cases, they work exactly as you would imagine. You can cast an adventure from your hand, exile it when it resolves and then cast the creature, or cast the creature directly from your hand. If our card is exiled for other reasons than its adventure, we won’t be able to play the creature from there, so it’s good to keep track of our exile if the situation could get confused. But since you’ll play clearly, you won’t have any problems! Have fun, adventurers, and see you next month, even if in the meantime our program will go on an adventure in an unknown land!

Acknowledgment