Welcome back! For today’s Battle for Zendikar mechanic tip we’ll be covering Converge! Converge works very similarly to the Sunburst mechanic from Fifth Dawn- the more colors of mana you sink into the spell, the stronger it gets. For Sunburst that meant charge counters and +1/+1 counters; for Converge, it just means more of everything! Normally you’re “Guaranteed” a certain amount on Converge, since the spells have a colored component. For example, under most circumstances your Woodland Wanderer should be a “minimum” 3/3, thanks to the green mana symbol giving you one towards Converge. You could make it as big as a 6/6 by spending 4 different colors, as well!

Like Sunburst, your Converge spells also normally have a “maximum” threshold due to their own mana costs. You can’t overspend, so your Woodland Wanderer can’t normally have more than 4 colors of mana spent to cast it, because it only costs 4 total mana. Similarly, Radiant Flames is normally going to top out at 3 damage. However, there’s ways to make a spell cost more! For example, Vryn Wingmare will make noncreature spells cost more, meaning you could cast a Radiant Flames off of four colors of mana to do 4 damage, or cast Unified Front for 5 tokens, or Brilliant Spectrum to draw 5 and discard 2. You can’t get Converge above 5, though, since there’s only 5 colors in Magic- a Skyrider Elf for X=4 won’t get 6 counters, because you can only spend 5 colors of mana, and Converge cares specifically how many COLORS, rather than how much colored mana.

Lastly, there’s a way for your ‘guaranteed’ amount to not be a guarantee- when you didn’t pay anything! For example, if you’re casting a Radiant Flames out of exile via the rebound from Narset Transcendent, or in any other way where you’re casting it “without paying its mana cost”, you didn’t spend ANY colored mana to cast it. That means that the Converge will be for 0! So Converge is a non-bo with things that make your spells free, but some of them get better if they cost more! Food for thought.

Today’s Rules Tip was written by Trevor Nunez