Two in han…: seems pretty useless, right? Well, not necessarily. Dangerous Wager is an instant, so you can cast it in response to an opponent’s spell; but what many players don’t realize is that you can cast spells in response to your own spells as well! After a player casts a spell, priority is given […]
Author: bimmerbot
Chalice of Life doesn’t transform when you gain life from something else.
has an ability that causes it to transform if your life total is at least ten points higher than your starting life total when it resolves. In most games of magic, your starting life total is 20, which means that it can transform if you have at least 30 life. It is not a triggered […]
How Demonic Rising really works.
‘Intervening if’ clauses! Fun times. These are handy little things that can stop stuff from happening before it happens. They’re always written as “When/whenever/at…, if SOMETHING IS TRUE, do something.” These abilities check for “something is true” at two times: when the ability would trigger, and when it would resolve. The ability needs something to […]
Redirect can’t change the target of Oblivion Ring.
Oblivion. Such a fun word. I use to send your permanent into OBLIVION! It’s only natural to want to protect your permanents from this very popular enchantment. While there are lots of -style ways to get your toys back, wouldn’t it be more fun to simply use and send THEIR permanent into OBLIVION? Let’s look […]
What happens when Requiem Angel dies at the same time as other creatures.
Whenever a creature dies, the game has to “look back in time” to see if any leaves-the-battlefield abilities triggered. Sometimes you’ll have an instance where multiple creatures die at the same time; when this occurs, all of them will “see” each other leave the battlefield. This can allow a creature like Requiem Angel to trigger […]
In Limited events without decklists, you can change your deck between matches.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Slight changes to this article have been made in light of the new Magic 2014 rules update. See below. Limited can be a blast, especially at Regular REL (the Rules Enforcement Level that Friday Night Magic, prereleases, and other more ‘casual’ events are held at). At Regular REL, the rules are a little […]
Two paired Stern Mentors can only mill a total of 4 cards each turn.
Ah, this one reminds me of when Slivers were Standard-legal! This one’s pretty easy, actually. If you pair a to something, both creatures gain the ability to tap to mill 2. So what happens when you pair two Mentors together? Well, not much. A lot of people might think that the abilities ‘combine’ to mill […]
Sun Titan can get auras onto your opponent’s hexproof creatures.
I know this blog mostly covers Standard and Limited, but I personally play a whole lot of Commander. One tricky thing that comes up there a lot is how you can slap Auras onto dudes with Hexproof or Shroud. The trick to it is that Auras only target when you cast them as spells. If […]
You can animate your Inkmoth Nexus in time to cast a miraculous Revenge of the Hunted on it.
More Miracles! A frequent question about Miracles with targets is WHEN they target. For today’s question, more specifically, we’ll look at and . I’ve heard a few people think that if you top-deck Revenge, you won’t have ‘time’ to animate Nexus to get the buff. However, this is incorrect. You don’t pick a target for […]