Continuing the trend of fun one-drops that got a lot of questions, today we cover Deathrite Shaman. Shaman’s got three abilities, and each one does something based on what you exile. Exiling sorceries and instants bleeds your opponent for 2; exiling creatures gains you 2 life; exiling lands makes mana.

The problem here is, all three of those abilities target, which means they do nothing without a legal target. You can’t tap the Shaman for mana with no lands to exile, or gain life with no creatures in graveyards. Likewise, if the specific card you chose to exile isn’t there or isn’t a legal target by the time the ability goes to resolve (because your opponent exiled it with their own Shaman, or they used Cremate to exile it before you could) then the ability doesn’t resolve and doesn’t do anything.

That includes the ability that adds mana, because it isn’t actually a “mana ability” by the rules! Because it targets, it can’t be a traditional mana ability, so it doesn’t get the perk of bypassing the stack and resolving immediately. It DOES use the stack, and it can be responded to and even stopped if they make your targeted land an illegal target.

Today’s rules tip written by
Trevor Nuñez