Welcome back. I know, it’s weird. It’s the weekend, and we’re updating! It’s not what you’re used up. But creatures transforming into planeswalkers is also weird, and we’re just so excited about these new planeswalkers that we want to talk about them

But enough about that, let’s talk about Kytheon, Hero of Akros. Or, as we know him, Gideon.

Kytheon has a delayed trigger. If you attack with Kytheon and at least two other creatures, at the end of combat, Kytheon will transform into Gideon, Battle-Forged. This trigger resolves during the end of combat step. There will be a time where Gideon is on the battlefield during the combat phase (when you won’t be able to activate one of its abilities) and your opponent will be able to kill it or use some burn spell to at least reduce the number of loyalty counters it has.

Kytheon also has to survive combat in order to transform. He does have that handy activated ability to make himself indestructible, but keep in mind that if you don’t have the mana to make him indestructible, it might not be worth it to send him in to combat if you think that he might not survive combat.

Kytheon only cares about creatures that are declared as an attackers. He does not care about creatures put onto the battlefield attacking. In Magic, “attacked” means that you declared the creature as an attacker. For instance, if you attack with Kytheon and Alesha, Who Smiles at Death, and use Alesha’s trigger to put a third creature onto the battlefield attacking, Kytheon’s ability will not trigger, since you declared an attack with two creatures, not three. Likewise, if you attack with Alesha and another creature, and use Alesha’s trigger to put Kytheon onto the battlefield attacking, his ability will not trigger for the same reason.

Alrighty everyone, thanks for the read. Join me later when we talk about Chandra

Today’s Rules Tip was written by Nathan Long