Reader suggestion time! Sort of. We got a submission from our Suggest a Rules Tip box about Keyrunes, and some of the tricky things about them. For example: You can throw down a Keyrune on turn 3 and immediately tap it for mana, just like you could a land, or another mana rock. As most […]
Category: Abilities
Deathrite Shaman Won’t Make Mana Without a Target
is making a splash in Modern lately, and sees some play in Standard due to it helping to slow down reanimator-type strategies, as well as giving some Zombie decks an extra way to bleed their opponent for the last few points of mana. One of the reasons that it sees a good deal of play […]
Angel of Serenity “may” exile the targets if it’s killed before the trigger resolves.
has a somewhat unique ability, in that sometimes you target things that you wouldn’t mind being exiled forever at the same time that you target something you’d rather get back in your hand. So what happens if the Angel enters and you choose targets, but the Angel is ed before the ability resolves? The Angel’s […]
Undying and Ash Zealot
tends to make Zombie decks and Flashback spells sad. However, it’s not a complete Graveyard hoser like is. Cage will stop creatures from coming back from the dead even if they’re reanimated some other way, like via a , or Undying. Ash Zealot only cares if something gets cast from the graveyard. She won’t trigger […]
Redirecting a Detention Sphere Does Nothing
Much like the and Emrakul trickiness of Standard long past, this question deals with a common misunderstanding about when Oblivion Ring and actually target. While you can cast on any spell at all, it won’t actually DO anything unless that spell has targets for you to change. And neither Oblivion Ring nor its cousin Detention […]
If you control two Sublime Archangels, each has 2 Exalted abilities that can trigger.
There are many abilities where it makes no sense to have them more than once, because it’s just redundant. These include lifelink, trample, deathtouch, infect, first/double strike, among many others. However, with triggered abilities, each one is independent and can trigger separately, so it can actually be helpful to have multiple copies of that ability. […]
You don’t have to pay for your opponent’s Soul Tithe if you control Sigarda.
If you control and your opponent enchants one of your other creatures with (obviously they can’t cast Soul Tithe targeting your Sigarda thanks to hexproof), then when Soul Tithe’s ability resolves it will ask, “Wanna pay this thing’s converted mana cost?” At that point, you can pay if you really want to, but when you […]
Guttersnipe will deal damage before the spell that triggered it resolves.
Quite a few cards in Return to Ravnica trigger when you cast a spell of some sort, and is one that a lot of people are rather excited to build around. He turns all of your spells into burn, and your burn into better burn. But when does he actually trigger? When does the damage […]
Wild Beastmaster can kill your other creatures if it has negative power when its ability resolves.
This question has come up a few times recently, because the answer doesn’t seem to make sense to everyone. What happens when you attack with a and your opponent responds to the trigger by casting or targeting the Beastmaster? Well the first thing to realize is that the Beastmaster’s power is only checked as its […]