Those of you who remember Oblivion Ring might remember a little “trick” that could be used to permanently exile a permanent. What you had to do was remove the Ring from the battlefield with its enter the battlefield trigger on the stack. This would cause the leave the battlefield ability to trigger and resolve first (doing nothing), then the enter the battlefield trigger would resolve and the targeted permanent would be permanently exiled.

In Journey into Nyx, we got a new version of Oblivion Ring – Banshing Light. But just like Banisher Priest was printed as a “fixed” version of Fiend Hunter, Banishing Light is a version of the Ring that won’t let you do that permanent exile trick. The Light has a single triggered ability that exiles the permanent until the Light leaves the battlefield. You’re free to bounce the Light with the trigger on the stack. However, when the Light’s trigger resolves, since you don’t control the Light, nothing will happen. The targeted permanent will not be exiled (even for a brief time) and will remain on the battlefield. The reason for this is that the duration of “until Banishing Light leaves the battlefield” never even began in the first place! This works with all durations, by the way- if they end before they would begin, they don’t even begin.

Since the permanent never leaves the battlefield, this means that any auras or counters that are on the permanent will remain on it. And if they targeted a token creature, then your token creature will live to fight another day, since it will never be exiled.

So keep this in mind the next time your opponent tries to Banishing Light your Fabled Hero with two +1/+1 counters and an Ordeal of Heliod on it. By getting rid of the Light before the trigger resolves, not only will you save your Hero, but it’ll keep the counters and the Ordeal- which will lead to quite a different Ordeal for your opponent to deal with!