Sideboard hate: it’s a time-honored tactic to fill your sideboard with narrow cards that totally hose specific decks to improve your matchups. Some are completely devastating (Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void against a reanimation strategy, for example), while some are just really good at tripping the deck up. Dragon’s Claw is such a card- part of a cycle commonly called “Lucky Charms”, Dragon’s Claw effectively knocks 1 point of damage off of every one of a mono-red burn deck’s burn spells. That can add up to a lot over the course of a game! That said, these days mono-red players have some anti-lifegain tactics to bring against Dragon’s Claw. One such card is Skullcrack. Skullcrack turns off all damage prevention and lifegaining for a turn, meaning your opponent can crack your skull and then aim a few more burn spells at you without your Claw softening the blow at all. However, you’ll still gain at least one life that turn! Skullcrack, like the vast majority of spells, does absolutely nothing until it actually resolves. While on the stack, players can still gain life and damage can still be prevented. So, when your opponent casts Skullcrack, your Claw will trigger, and that trigger resolves and gains you 1 life BEFORE Skullcrack hits you for 3. It won’t gain you anything for the rest of the turn, but hey- 1 life is better than 0!

Today’s Rules Tip was written by Trevor Nunez