WANTED: A discreet individual interested in a rare opportunity. Must possess uncanny speed, impressive skill with a knife, and the ability to give material form to thoughts. The Gateless need not apply.

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Notion Thief! What a spiffy name for a card. Unfortunately, his rules text is a bit of a chore to read. Translated from Judge into English, I’d say it actually reads something like this: “Your opponents can’t draw cards anymore, except for the one they would normally draw for their turn. If they’re so foolish as to try and draw any cards, you get to draw those cards instead! BWAHAHAHAHA!”

*cough* Excuse me, I have no idea what happened there.

Delving more deeply into the rules behind Notion Thief, we see that he uses the crucial word “instead” in his second ability. That means his ability is a replacement effect. Replacement effects are a little like Spider-Man: whenever their spidey-sense goes off because something strange is about to happen (like a robbery), they jump in and make something else happen (like catching the robber).

Anyway, in this metaphor, Notion Thief’s spidey-sense goes off whenever one of your opponents draws a card, unless it’s the first card they draw in their draw step (which will normally be the typical “draw for turn” everyone gets). And, lucky for you, Notion Thief’s spidey-sense makes it so you get to draw the card instead.

This works particularly well if your opponent casts a big draw spell (like Sphinx’s Revelation), and you “flash in” Notion Thief in response. Your opponent will still gain X life, but now you will draw X cards.

Bonus: A common question involves “what happens if my opponent and I both have a Notion Thief?” Basically, the Notion Thieves cancel each other out. To understand why, you can think of Notion Thief like that group of guys who stole people’s lunch money in high school. I want to draw a card, so I take out my lunch money; but your Notion Thief comes along and steals my money. Fortunately for me, I also have a Notion Thief, so my Thief steals my money back and gives it to me. Each Thief has had a chance to apply to my draw — they don’t apply an infinite number of times — and now there’s no other effects to apply, so I get to draw a card.

Today’s Rules Tip written by Paul Baranay