It’s been a rough day for the Zombies. Although you were able to field an early board presence, your opponent’s combination of paired with has been mercilessly gunning down your creatures. Left with only a pair of , you send them in on the attack, and your opponent, as expected, taps the Staticaster to kill […]
Author: bimmerbot
Shortcut directly to X-mas! (about the X-spell shortcut)
If you’ve ever played Magic Online, sooner or later you’re going to experience the frustration of clicking too rapidly through an X spell, like , and ending up casting it for X=0. Luckily, in the real world we’re a little more forgiving. If you cast an X spell without announcing the value for X, the […]
Serpent’s Gift doesn’t do much if the creature has zero power.
(Sorry for the break in our regularly scheduled programming, as a certain holiday seemed to interfere). ‘Twas the day before Christmas, and here in the US of A, shoppers were scrambling through the malls to find last-minute gifts for their loved ones. But if you’ve taken time out of your frenzied shopping to read the […]
Triumph of Ferocity’s “if” is not intervening, but it still checks at resolution.
RAWR! Looking at exhibit A, , it has one and only one responsibility: to trigger on your upkeep. Now, this triggered ability will trigger on each of your upkeeps no matter what the situation: if the board’s empty, if your opponent controls a creature bigger than yours, or if your opponent has a billion creatures […]
Sphinx’s Revelation vs. Havoc Festival – You can draw cards even if you won’t gain life.
In Magic, there is a “Golden rule” that you should always remember. Basically, it says that “can’t” overrides “can”. So lets explore what happens when Narcissa controls , and Annabelle casts . Sphinx’s Revelation says to gain X life, while Havoc Festival says players can’t gain life. Can’t > Can. No life will be gained. […]
Feeling of Dread can only stop attackers if cast before the declare attackers step.
A question that I’ve been asked a lot is, “When is the last time I can tap a creature to prevent it from attacking?” So today, let’s use as our example card. When is the last time I can cast the Dread to prevent a creature or creatures from attacking? The last chance you’ll get […]
How to combine multiple DCI numbers.
Let’s say that, over the years, you’ve received a few different DCI numbers. Maybe you forgot your number at a tournament and the tournament organizer issued you a new number. Or maybe you played in a tournament years ago and you recently came back and didn’t know you had an old DCI number. And now […]
Sphere of Safety vs. Volatile Rig
loves attacking. It fact, it has an ability that says it has to attack each turn if able. But what if your opponent has a out? Does that mean I have to pay every turn to make it attack? The answer is no. Sphere of Safety adds a cost to creatures that are declared as […]
Bloodbraid Elf can cascade into Boom/Bust and cast Bust.
Cascade and split cards are a fun little combination, both in Modern and in Commander. The reason it can be fun is that when Cascade asks a split card what its CMC is, you get two answers; one for each side. As long as ONE of those answers is ‘low enough’ for that Cascade, you […]