You are playing a game of standard and control two Hellion Crucibles, each with a counter. Can you use Hellion Crucible A to put a counter on Hellion Crucible B, so you can sacrifice Crucible B to make the 4/4 creature that turn? I’m afraid you can’t do that.

When a Magic card states the name of the object it wants to do something to (like putting a counter on Hellion Crucible), it normally refers only to itself. For example, Hellion Crucible’s first ability states: “Put a pressure counter on Hellion Crucible.” The ability refers to itself, since its name is Hellion Crucible, and not any other Hellion Crucible on the battlefield (you can think of the ability as saying “Put a pressure counter on THIS.”). Due to the naming rules, it is impossible for one Hellion Crucible to put a counter on another Hellion Crucible. To work the way you might want it to, the ability would have to say: “Put a pressure counter on a card named Hellion Crucible.” If you don’t see “card named” in the text (see Mirror-Mad Phantasm for an example of that kind of wording), then the object is referring to itself and not any other thing with the same name.

Today’s Rules Tip written by Michael Swager, L2 from Riverside, CA