Innistrad might not be in Standard anymore, but it is still legal for Legacy, Vintage, and Modern (as well as Commander, but that’s not very tournament-heavy!), so this is a good tip to revisit. As you may know, when Innistrad was first released, many of the booster packs had their basic land replaced with a […]
Author: tnunez
Bestow and Cost Modification
All right, the dust from Theros has more or less settled, and everyone’s got a pretty good feel for the mechanics. But there are some nitpicky things that might not come up often, that you’re unsure how to handle. For example, when does a spell cast for its Bestow cost ‘count’ as the appropriate kind […]
Devotion and Counterspells
By far the biggest chunk of questions I’ve gotten from my players and my threads the past week are all about the last mechanic we’re covering this week (sorry, Scry): Devotion. Devotion is more or less a reworking of Chroma, an ability word from back in Lorwyn block. Put simply, “Devotion to COLOR” is measured […]
Bestow and Savage Summoning
Surprise! I liked this little trick so much I decided to skip Scry’s day this week (since it’s a returning mechanic) and cover another fun Bestow interaction. is a rare from M14. It allows you to cast the next creature spell of the turn as though it had Flash, make it uncounterable, and also make […]
Heroic Triggers Resolve Before the Spell
We’re continuing with the Theros mechanic theme this week, and today we’re covering Heroic (or at least one aspect of it!). The Heroic mechanic is a lot like Batallion, Landfall, Threshold, Morbid, etc. All of these things aren’t actually keywords like Flying and Trample; they have no actual inherent rules meaning. In fact, if you […]
Monstrous Isn’t Linked to the Counters
While this didn’t come up much at the prerelease (since there’s no real way to get rid of their +1/+1 counters in Theros sealed!), I’ve seen and heard a few players thinking that “Monstrous” is linked to the counters themselves. For example, they think that if they remove the +1/+1 counters from their somehow (perhaps […]
Bestow and Illegal Targets
Now that Theros cards are in the hands of many a Magic player thanks to the prerelease, there’s plenty of questions to be had! One of the most common questions that came up over the prerelease weekend was “What happens if the target of my Bestow spell becomes illegal?” For example, I flash in trying […]
Celestial Flare after Damage
The majority of the time, you’re probably going to be using before damage goes through: for example, when your opponent attacks you with his biggest creature you can just throw out Flare right away to get rid of his biggest baddest beater BEFORE it manages to bring the pain to you or your own creatures. […]
Doom Blade and Multicolored Creatures
A common mistake I see newer (and some veteran!) players making is misunderstanding how a permanent’s colors work. For example, I’ve seen many a person think that when says it destroys a nonblack creature, what that means is that the creature has to be a color that isn’t black. So, by their logic, an it, […]