As some of you may know, there was recently a little bit of an update to the Missed Trigger rules. Nothing so far-reaching as the last few; mainly, the new rules exist to clear up exactly WHEN a trigger is considered missed, because there were some that were kind of weird with the MT rules […]
Category: Abilities
Fathom Mage and Multiple Counters
While I’m a Gruul at heart (and an Azorious on the outside), I’ve always been intrigued by the Simic guild. I wasn’t very satisfied with Simic during their first appearance during Ravnica block, but there’s quiteb a few interesting cards in Simic this time around. One that intrigues me the most is . What does […]
Flickering Aurelia for Fun and Profit
As mentioned last week, the guild of Boros has this really great leader in . I mean, she has all the abilities one looks for when attacking: flying, to soar over the heads of her opponents; haste, so she can attack as soon as possible; and vigilance, to be there to defend the fort as […]
Cipher and Extort
Two of the new guild keyword abilities in Gatecrash work really well together . No, I’m not talking about battalion and bloodrush, I’m referring to the keywords of two of Esper’s favorite guilds, cipher and extort. Extort triggers off of any spell you cast, not just spells cast from your hand. And once you’ve encoded […]
Nightveil Specter lets you play the exiled card(s), but not for free.
Unlike an explosive card such as , which exiles a bunch of cards then lets you cast them right away for free, Nightveil Specter prefers to play a slower, more gradual game. When you exile a card with the Specter, you can play it… but only at a time you could normally play it from […]
Aurelia’s Fury vs. miracles (and suspend cards!).
Every good army needs a good leader, and luckily, the Boros Legion has Aurelia, whose Fury certainly lives up to the tradition of red Mythic Rares with X in their cost being a huge blowout for the opponent. In addition to nuking creatures, has a unique effect if it deals damage to an opponent; that […]
Protection from creatures prevents targeting with Bloodrush.
To quickly remind yourself of what protection does, just think of the Orzhov guild’s favorite word: DEBT. D stands for dealing damage; E stands for enchanting/equipping; B stands for blocking; and T stands for targeting. While you might be most familiar with protection from a color, protection can also encompass a wide variety of other […]
Geist of Saint Traft and Battalion is NOT a combo.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: This article has been updated as of the prerelease of Magic 2014 on July 13; Please refer to the revisions below. This was briefly explained in the Battalion mechanic blog entry last week, but it’s still a common question, so I’m making it as a bonus entry all to itself! All the triggered […]
Prime Speaker Zegana checks its power when the trigger resolves.
checks its power when the trigger resolves, so you can use effects (or your opponent can use effects like ) to alter how many card are drawn! “But Eddie!” you ask, “why is it that evolve doesn’t work that way? Trevor last week on this blog says so!”. Very true, attentive readers! That’s because evolve […]