While decks devoted to a single color, like blue or black, were already taking advantage of hybrid creatures like Nightveil Specter, the arrival of two-colored god cards should herald exciting new possibilities for Standard decks. Gods like Phenax, God of Deception require a total of seven devotion to become creatures, which is five additional devotion once you take Phenax’s own mana cost into account. Although Nightveil Specter certainly looks like it has three blue mana symbols and three black mana symbols, what it really has is three blue-black hybrid mana symbols that contribute one devotion to “blue and black”. All that’s required by devotion to two colors is that a mana symbol, or at least one half of a hybrid mana symbol, match one of the two colors required. Matching both colors is certainly flavorful, but it won’t double up on counting toward devotion. If you have a Nightveil Specter and Phenax, your total devotion to blue and black is only 5, so you’ll need 2 more mana symbols to get Phenax to materialize.

Today’s Rules Tip written by Jen Wong