Although Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite hasn’t been seen in a while, her image has been showing up all over Magic recently, from Conspiracy’s reprint of Rout to the head-crest on Soul of New Phyrexia. One thing Elesh is excellent at is brutally shutting down small utility creatures. Because the -2/-2 ability is a static effect, any creature that tries to enter the battlefield on an opponent’s side will immediately have its power and toughness reduced – sometimes going straight to the graveyard before its controller can even do anything with it! For example, Sakura-Tribe Elder is a 1/1 that can sacrifice itself to fetch a basic land from the library. Against Elesh Norn, it’ll enter as a -1/-1. Because state-based actions (like creature death) are checked before a player would ever receive priority, by the time its controller would be legally allowed to sacrifice the Tribe-Elder, Elesh will have already daintily swept it into the bin. At least triggered abilities will still work, like with Shriekmaw!

Today’s Rules Tip written by Jen Wong