Most of you should know that you can’t cast a spell (or activate an ability, or place a triggered ability onto the stack) without legal targets. You can’t throw a Doom Blade at nothing just to up your storm count, for example. However, that only applies to when you’re first selecting targets. It’s true that a targeted spell or ability with ZERO legal targets will be countered by the game’s rules… but if even one target remains, the spell will still resolve and do as much as it can. Let’s look at an example: If I were to cast Hex targeting 6 of your creatures, and you sacrificed one of them in an attempt to fizzle my spell… well, you’d probably still be sad. Since Hex still has legal targets (five of ’em!), it resolves and does all it can- in this case, killing those 5 targets. So let’s look at Searing Blaze: it requires a target player, and a target creature that player controls. So, you drop your land and throw a Searing Blaze at your opponent and his creature, aiming to kill him; to save himself, he casts Abrupt Decay on his own creature. Well, again- he is sad! Your Blaze still has one legal target: your opponent. The spell will still resolve and deal damage to him, even though ONE of the original targets is gone. Do note that only the parts with legal targets actually ‘happen’; if you had a Soulfire Grandmaster on board for this, you’d only be gaining 3 life, because only 3 damage is being dealt.

Today’s Rules Tip was written by Trevor Nunez