Can a fused Turn//Burn kill an indestructible creature? (Yes!)

IMPORTANT UPDATE: This article has been updated as of the prerelease of Magic 2014 on July 13; Please refer to the revisions below.

Ah, good old Indestructible. It can get kind of confusing with things like Turn // Burn, because there are essentially two kinds of indestructible! You see, being indestructible isn’t an ability. It’s just something that is ‘true’ of a permanent, like ‘is unblockable’. Normally, robbing a permanent of all abilities won’t make it stop being indestructible. However, there are things which have an ABILITY that says they are indestructible. Stop the ability, you turn off the Superman, and they can die just fine.

An example of that would be Tajic, Blade of the Legion, the new Boros legendary guy. If you Turn & Burn him, he’ll bite the dust, because Turn takes away his ability that makes him indestructible, so he can now be destroyed.

On the flip-side, we have things like Falkenrath Aristocrat, which BECOME indestructible, but do not gain “CARDNAME is indestructible”. If you aim Turn & Burn at my Aristocrat, and I feed it a 1/1 Spirit token, she’ll live on as a 0/1 indestructible red Weird for the turn, because there was no ‘I am indestructible’ ability for you to take away (that “indestructibleness” exists as a continuous effect outside of the 7-layer system, because it’s actually changing game rules rather than characteristics of an object).

Today’s Rules Tip written by Trevor Nunez

Initiating Retroactive Continuity! At the time I wrote this rules tip in early May, it was accurate; Indestructible wasn’t an ability, it was just a characteristic. As of the release of Magic 2014, however, Indestructible has become an ability! What that means is the information above is no longer true; no matter how the Indestructibility was gained, it is now an ability. Tajic has the ability of “Indestructible”, feeding a dude to your Aristocrat gives it ‘indestructible’ for the turn, casting Boros Charm makes all your stuff gain ‘indestructible’. What that means is that Turn//Burn is going to blast ANY indestructible guy, no matter what! Since indestructible is now an ability, Turn will take it away, no matter where it came from. That’ll leave you with a proper blank 0/1 Weird, who will die most spectacularly to the 2 damage from Burn. So go forth and start wiping Indestructible off the face of the earth (or at least, the face of the battlefield!)

Today’s Rules Tip updated by Trevor Nunez