Casting Force Away on your own creatures can have its advantages, however what happens if you cast it targeting your only 4+ power creature? Do you still get to loot?

Random Trivia: The term “loot” means to draw then discard, and originates from the card Merfolk Looter.

The short answer here is that you do not get to complete the ferocious ability that allows you to loot if you use Force Away targeting your only greater that has 4+ power.

Now for a bit more explanation as to why this happens this way. The ferocious ability only happens if certain conditions are met. This means if you don’t have a 4+ power creature at that time, this ability will not occur.

Now let’s look at how spells resolve.
When a spell resolves, it tries to complete all parts that it can in the order that it is written. Now let’s look at the text for Force Away:

Return target creature to its owner’s hand.
Ferocious — If you control a creature with power 4 or greater, you may draw a card. If you do, discard a card.

So first, Force Away will return the targeted creature to its owner’s hand. Then it will check to see if the conditions are met for the ferocious ability. If you returned the only 4+ power creature you control, then the conditions are not met. Since you don’t control a 4+ power creature the spell is looking for, the conditions aren’t met, which means no looting for you.

Today’s Rules Tip written by Angela Schabauer