Hey there, gang! Remember way back on Monday when I offhandedly mentioned there were some conspiracies you didn’t reveal right away? Well, now is the day that we’ll actually be talking about those!

As we covered earlier in the week, some of the Conspiracies start the game in your Command Zone, face-up, already doing something neat. 8 of them, however, start the game face-DOWN in your Command Zone, waiting for you to spring them at the moment of your choosing! These all have ‘Hidden Agenda’ abilities. As the game starts, you secretly name a card for each Hidden Agenda you have- you don’t have to name the same card for each one if you don’t want to, but you’re allowed to name the same one for every agenda if you feel like it. What are the rules on naming a card? Well, you actually have to name a CARD. For example, Immediate Action gives all the named creatures you control haste- but you can’t name “Spirit” or “Saproling” or “Soldier” to get hasty tokens, because there’s not a card with those names (There is hilariously one named Illusion though, so that’s a legal choice!). You’ll need to name an actual Magic Card.

Second- how in the Ninth Sphere do you name a card SECRETLY, you might ask? Well, there’s a few ways to do it. You could write the name on a little slip of paper and keep it face-down with the Agenda until you reveal it; you could have a little pad of paper with each Agenda you’re using and the card named for it written down; or my personal favorite, toss the Agenda into an old junky sleeve or penny sleeve and slip the piece of paper right into it OR write the card you chose on the sleeve itself with a sharpie or a wet-erase marker!

So, you’ve got your Agenda, and you’ve named your card. Now what? Well, now you wait. As a special action, you can turn that Agenda face-up and reveal your hidden plans to everyone. Special Actions like this don’t use the stack (so nobody can respond to you doing it, it just happens immediately) and can be done any time you have priority. A few of the Agendas make it easier to cast the named spells (Brago’s Favor makes the named spell cheaper, Unexpected Potential lets you spend mana like it was any color to cast it), or make it more FUN to cast it (Iterative Analysis turns the named instant or sorcery into a cantrip, Double Stroke doubles your pleasure AND your fun at no additional charge). With these Conspiracies, you’ll need to flip them over before you attempt to cast the spell, because you can’t flip them WHILE you cast it, and if you flip them after you cast it, they don’t really help much! Your last chance to tip your hand without losing out on the fun is immediately before you decide to cast your spell.

So, there you have it! That’s more or less how Hidden Agendas work. Remember that you can always submit your own questions to us, and we’ll try to answer them quickly (and may even feature them on our blog!).

Today’s Conspiracy Tip written by Trevor Nunez