For the most part, players don’t need to read the Comprehensive Rules in order to figure out how to play their cards, especially at common and uncommon. If a card says “Enchant creature,” for example, it’s not a great leap of intuition to suppose that the card becomes attached to a creature, and from there most players will figure out that “good” Auras like Rancor go on their own creatures and “bad” ones like Pacifism go on their opponents’. However, players can fall into the trap of supposing that the cards only work this way, and that’s just not the case; unless the spell’s text itself says that it can be played on only a creature with a certain characteristic or controller, you can play it on whatever you want, however counterintuitive it may seem.

Suppose your opponent’s got a Faerie Invaders about to beat you down in the air, and all you have are Intrepid Hero and a Rancor. A 3/1 trampling creature at this point isn’t going to do you much good…but, you can cast Rancor on Faerie Invaders, then tap Intrepid Hero to destroy the Faerie, which now has power 4 or greater. Your opponent’s creature will die, while you’ll get your Rancor back, as well as keeping your precious life points. This is just one clever trick you can pull off by not always playing every card “as intended”!

Today’s Rules/Strategy Tip written by
Jen Wong, Level 1 judge from Irvine, CA