Making spells go wide to hit multiple targets has been used a few times through the history of Red magic, and the most recent addition to that stable comes to us from Eldritch Moon: Mirrorwing Dragon. ON the surface this seems to function the same as Zada, Hedron Grinder; when you cast an instant or sorcery that ONLY targets your Dragon, you get a copy for all your other creatures that could legally be targets as well. Using that you can get a lot of value off of your own cards; Expedite can draw you a whole new hand of cards, buff spells like Brute Strength make your whole team very scary, and things like that. Where Mirrorwing is different from Zada however, is that the Dragon triggers when ANY player casts a spell targeting it- but don’t worry about your whole board getting hit by removal, because Mirrorwing’s trigger has the casting player make copies for their own creatures. What that means is that your opponent casting Murder on your Mirrorwing doesn’t hit YOUR whole board of legal targets, but THEIR whole board. That can make Mirrorwing a tough threat for some decks to answer all on its own! Be aware that it can backfire, though- your opponent can turn a single Might of the Masses or similar into a very scary situation, since it’ll pump their whole board because of your Mirrorwing!

Remember that Mirrorwing will only trigger if it is the sole target of a spell; you won’t be able to cast a Dromoka’s Command hoping to wipe your opponent’s board out, because there’s no way for that spell to only target Mirrorwing.

Lastly, Mirrorwing copies the spell exactly as it exists on the stack, with the same value of X if that’s relevant, the same modes, the same alternate or additional costs baked in; if you cast a kicked Rite of Replication on Mirrorwing, all the copies you get are also kicked! That’ll be pretty scary.

Today’s Rules Tip was written by Trevor Nunez