Welcome back! Today we’re going over the OTHER brand-new mechanic of Shadows over Innistrad: Investigate. There’s some super spooky stuff going down on Innistrad, and nobody’s quite sure what! Everyone’s digging around for answers, and to represent that within the cards we have the Investigate mechanic. Investigate is pretty simple: When told to “investigate”, you simply put out a Clue token! This token is an artifact named “Clue”; it has the “Clue” subtype, as well, and only a single ability. That ability is “2, sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card”. Effectively, anything with Investigate comes with a potential cantrip later on if you have the spare mana. Like any activated ability that doesn’t say otherwise, you can pop your clue any time you have priority, so you can leave mana up to bluff a combat trick, and sink it into a clue if you end up not needing that trick. You do have to pay 2 mana per clue- if you want to pop 4 clues of yours, it’ll cost you 8! Clues are tokens, but they’re still artifacts, so your opponent can destroy them with typical artifact removal; either pay the 2 to draw right then (if you can!) or lose your chance.

Now, some of the cards in this set care about Clues; Tamiyo’s Journal lets you sacrifice three for a tutor instead of a draw. That’s why they have the “CLUE” subtype- so cards like the Journal and Fleeting Memories can tell you’ve done so. Also remember you can’t sacrifice something for two different costs- either pay 6 and pop your 3 clues to draw 3 cards, or feed them to the journal for a tutor; you can’t get both! I’d also advise you bring dice to the prerelease. It’s normally a great thing to have handy, but with how many clues you might have to represent, you’re probably going to run out of the tokens themselves fast! Tune in tomorrow where we go over the last mechanic of the set: Madness!

Today’s Prerelease Tip was written by Trevor Nunez