Welcome back to our Fate Reforged Prerelease Primer! Today we’ll be covering the Mardu’s new (or old, because time travel is weird like that) mechanic: Dash. Raid rewarded you for being aggressive before casting your spells- Dash works well with that, because it makes sure you’re attacking! Dash is an alternate cost (usually a cheaper one) for casting a creature. If you cast the creature for the Dash cost, it comes down with haste… but it’ll return to your hand at the beginning of the end step. So, while it’s cheaper to Dash than it is to cast your creature (usually!), and it comes down ready to swing for the fences, you’d have to Dash it over and over- it won’t stick around, and it won’t be able to block for you. On the plus side, Dashers tend to have neat abilities that trigger when they attack, so you can get that effect right away instead of waiting for summoning sickness to wear off.

Now, onto the nitty gritty. Dash is an alternate cost, but you’re still casting the spell- it goes on the stack and it can be responded to, or even outright countered. Dash also doesn’t change the mana cost of the spell- you may only be paying 2R to cast your Goblin Heelcutter, but it still has a converted mana cost of 4 (the sum total of the symbols in the top-right of the card). That means you may be Dashing on the cheap, but your Heelcutter can still eat the business end of a Disdainful Stroke! Tune in tomorrow, where we’ll be covering the most interesting new mechanic of the set- Manifest!

Today’s Rules Tip was written by Trevor Nunez