Jace’s PhantasmAs a general rule, abilities of a creature only work when that creature’s on the battlefield, unless the rules text or common sense suggests that it works in another zone. Varolz, the Scar-Striped, for example, has an ability that gives all creature cards in your graveyard scavenge. Scavenge wouldn’t make very much sense if it applied while the creature was on the battlefield, so it has reminder text indicating that the ability can be activated from the graveyard (and only the graveyard). The flip side to this is that if Varolz dies, he can’t use his first ability to scavenge himself — the ability works perfectly fine while Varolz is on the battlefield, so there’s no reason to suppose it works anywhere else.

We can use this same rule to figure out how big other creatures will be when scavenging them. Jace’s Phantasm, for example, can be a Dragon-sized 5/5 when it’s on the battlefield, but in the graveyard it’ll always be a paltry 1/1. The ability that gives it +4/+4 won’t apply, regardless of how many cards are in your opponent’s graveyard.

That’s not the case for creatures with variable power and toughness, though, such as Boneyard Wurm. The */* in its lower right corner indicates that Boneyard Wurm’s ability is a characteristic-defining ability — a special kind of ability that works no matter what zone it’s in. For example, if you have a Boneyard Wurm and two other creature cards in the graveyard, Boneyard Wurm is 3/3. And if you use Varolz’s added ability to scavenge it, it’ll put three +1/+1 counters onto Varolz or whatever you targeted (which was its power at the time it left the graveyard, so it does count itself; it also doesn’t matter what happens to the other two creature cards in the graveyard before the ability resolves).

Today’s Rules Tip written by Jen Wong