With the Born of the Gods spoiler season starting up, we decided that we would cover a popular topic that usually pops up around this time: discussing spoiled cards.

In general, most judges are pretty smart – we know how most of the common abilities work and most of the common interactions you might see. But every new set brings with it a few new abilities or keywords. As soon as you see that new card spoiled on the Wizard’s site, you start asking questions about how that card might work. But we have access to the same information that you do. Wizards may put out an article a few weeks before the prerelease going over some of the basics of the new abilities, but we really don’t find out the specifics about abilities until the Release Notes are released in the week just before the prerelease.

While some people might be willing to make an educated guess about how a card might work, we prefer to give out accurate information, and that information generally isn’t available until the Release Notes are released in the week before the prerelease. The bestow mechanic is a great example of this. We had the Mechanics of Theros article that briefly talked about how bestow works, so we could answer some questions, but much of the inner-workings of bestow were not available until the Release Notes were available a few weeks later. So while we could answer some questions, the answers to other questions had to wait until we had more information.

In addition, you’ll find that many judges will only discuss officially spoiled cards – cards that are spoiled on the main Wizard’s site or other site that were given an official preview cards. While it might be fun to try to decipher what a blurry image might say, words matter a lot in Magic, so unless we have the official wording of a card, we tend not to comment or acknowledge an unofficial rumored card.

So please, bear with us for a few weeks. We’re all excited for cards from the next set, but don’t be disappointed if we can’t answer your questions right away – we’d rather wait a few days and give you accurate information, rather than make a guess on how we think the cards might work.

Today’s “Rules” Tip written by Nathan Long