Archetype of Courage
Hello everyone! The Rules Tips Blog team is honored to have received this official preview card from Wizards of the Coast. We’re glad they picked us for this one, because it comes with a brand spanking new rules template, and we’ll help you understand what it means. Without further ado, please enjoy!
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Archetype and double strike
Gaining first strike and something else
One of the major rules of Magic states that, if a card or ability tries to do something impossible, it does as much as it can. A simple, intuitive example of this involves being hit with Rakdos’s Return for X=7 when you only have 5 cards in hand. You take 7 damage, and then the game tries to make you discard 7 cards — but, oops, you only have 5, so you discard all of those.
As a concrete example, suppose your opponent controls an Archetype of Courage, while you control just a lonely Bear Cub. You decide to bestow a Celestial Archon onto your Bear Cub, to make it more fearsome. Your Bear can’t have first strike, but it will become a mighty 6/6 and grow some cute wings (because it now has flying). Even though your creatures can’t have first strike, casting Celestial Archon as an aura is still perfectly legal, and the Aura that the Archon becomes will still pump your Bear as much as it can.
“Can’t gain or have…”
But what about something like Lightning Talons? Since that card says “has” instead of “gains,” it just keeps trying to apply (fruitlessly) until the Archetype leaves the battlefield. Then once it’s gone, the “has first strike” effect can actually do something!
If the Archetype dies mid-combat
While there is normally only one combat damage step in any given combat, first strike changes up the rules a bit. Only creatures with first strike or double strike will deal damage during the combat damage step, while the game creates a second, “regular” combat damage step where everyone else gets to deal damage.
Other than the modified damage rules, the “first strike” combat damage step plays out as normal — which means that players can cast spells and abilities after combat damage is dealt. So what happens if something causes an Archetype to die in between first strike damage being dealt, and regular damage? Your creatures won’t have first strike anymore… but they won’t get to deal damage a second time. The only creatures that are allowed to deal damage during the “regular” combat damage step are those which didn’t have first strike or double strike as the first combat damage step began, and those creatures which currently have double strike. In other words, your no-longer-first-striking creatures, because they don’t have double strike, have already gotten their one hit in, so they’ll have to sit around for a whole step while the rest of the battlefield catches up. If any of your opponent’s creatures have regained first strike at this time, they’ll also get to do their damage, because they didn’t have first strike during the “first strike” combat damage step.
If both players have an Archetype
And finally, what happens if both you and your opponent control an Archetype of Courage? Well, it’s a bit of bad news for everyone. If both players each control an Archetype, then no one’s creatures will have first strike. Each Archetype will try to give their allied creatures first strike, but the opposing Archetype will step in and prevent that, so the net result is that none of the creatures will be able to have first strike.
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Contributors to this article are Jen Wong, Nathan Long, Paul Baranay, Trevor Nunez, and Josh Stansfield