Welcome back to the Rules Blog! This particular question came up a lot during the spoiler season, and we’re still seeing it now that the whole set is out. Tamiyo, Field Researcher is a really neat card, with some interesting effects. Her -2 and -7 are both very good and very straightforward, so why is she getting a Rules Tip entry? Her +1 confuses people, that’s why! Her +1 ability is “Choose up to two target creatures. Until your next turn, whenever either of those creatures deals combat damage, you draw a card.”. The question that always pops up is, how many cards can I actually draw? If I choose my own creatures and both connect, do I draw 1 or 2? What if I choose my opponent’s creature and mine, and they trade in combat? The wording leads people to think her ability only triggers once per combat, but it does not. Because of the “Whenever EITHER of those creatures” wording, it can trigger more than once. If both of the creatures do damage, then Tamiyo triggers for each of them, and you draw 2 cards. Normally you’ll max out at 2 cards drawn per turn, but there’s ways around that. Double Strike has your creature dealing combat damage twice, so that can get you extra triggers! In older formats, getting multiple combat steps can lead to multiple triggers as well. And finally, be very aware that the duration Tamiyo is checking for that combat damage is until YOUR NEXT TURN! It’s not until end of turn, so you can put it on a creature you plan to block with, or on an opponent’s creature that you think will attack. You could even put it on one of your creatures with Vigilance and double dip, getting a card on the attack and on the block (remember, it triggers off of any combat damage, not just combat damage to a player!).

Today’s Rules Tip was written by Trevor Nunez