Whip of Erebos's exile effect only matters if the card would be going anywhere other than exile. If a Whipped card is moving to exile already from its own ability, it can return normally.
Category: Abilities
Bident of Thassa + double strike = double draw.
The cycle of god weapons in Theros brings us a new combination of permanents: artifact enchantments. They have one static or triggered ability that would fit perfectly on an enchantment, but also have an activated ability that’s normally found on an artifact. The abilities are generally synergetic, with one generally helping the other out. We’re […]
If Ashiok leaves the battlefield, any cards it exiled are stuck there forever.
is one of the newest planeswalkers in Theros. Ashiok lets you exile your opponent’s cards, and then lets you put any creatures exiled by it on the battlefield with the second ability. But all good things must come to an end some time, so what happens to the cards in exile if Ashiok leaves the […]
Anthousa’s land warriors don’t gain color.
Many of you probably played with at the prerelease, since it was one of the prerelease promos that were given out. Being able to make a small army of your lands can be a strong play. But let’s take a closer look at those lands. What color are they when they become animated? Usually, a […]
Taking control of creatures with Ethereal Armor attached.
When you take control of a creature, you don't get control of the things that are attached to it. This makes a big difference in the case of certain things like Ethereal Armor.
You can activate Monstrosity abilities all you want (but only one can ever do anything).
Usually, there's no reason to activate a Monstrosity ability more than once. But if you have all the mana you need, it occasionally makes sense to thwart your opponent's removal!
You can’t ignore the trigger on that Akroan Horse your opponent so generously gave you.
If you control Akroan Horse, you control the upkeep triggers, and it's your job to point them out even though you didn't cast the card.
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 […]
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 […]