Om nom nom! is coming to get you — and your commander! For today’s tip, I want to talk about a cool interaction in Commander, the hugely-popular multiplayer format where each player chooses a legendary creature, called a “commander,” to lead his or her deck. In this format, each player’s commander is subject to a […]
Category: Abilities
You can cast Krosan Grip targeting Standstill, but you won’t be happy about it.
More Double-Legacy days! I hope that many of you are safely in Denver, or on your way there for the event, and I hope you have fun and do well! On to the tips. is a lot of fun in Legacy and EDH both, because it’s very difficult to deal with. Since it has Split […]
Mishra’s Factory can pump itself when blocking, but only if it’s not sick.
When declaring blockers, the defending player can only use untapped creatures. Once blockers are declared, though, the game doesn’t care if the blocking creatures become tapped later! A useful application of this is , which has three abilities: (1) a mana ability, (2) an “animation” ability, and (3) a “pump” ability. You can use the […]
All about Lion’s Eye Diamond (yes, it’s a mana ability, but it has a timing restriction)
So is kind of a weird card. Let’s start things off by looking at its current Gatherer text: Sacrifice Lion’s Eye Diamond, Discard your hand: Add three mana of any one color to your mana pool. Activate this ability only any time you could cast an instant. So the main difference between the printed version […]
You can’t respond to Tombstalker’s Delve ability
Delve is an ability that was (so far) only printed in Future Sight, and as such most players aren’t very familiar with it. Here’s the relevant rules text for “Delve”: “As an additional cost to cast this spell, you may exile any number of cards from your graveyard. Each card exiled this way reduces the […]
You can respond to Stoneforge, Aether Vial or Miracle with Vendilion Clique
One of the strengths of is its versatility: you can surprise block an unsuspecting creature, cycle away a card in your hand, or take a peek at what your opponent is up to. Indeed, because it has flash, you can even cast it in response to an opponent’s activated or triggered ability. This is good […]
Rancor goes to the graveyard before it returns to your hand.
Normally I frown on re-gifting, but in the case of , I’m inclined to make an exception. This Christmassy colored ball of ire loves to bounce around from one creature to another. But wait, you ask, isn’t the holiday season supposed to be about peace on earth and goodwill? Well, as resilient as Rancor is, […]
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 […]
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 […]