Today we’re going over an old favorite: Protection! It’s a fairly common mechanic in Standard lately, between all the Swords kicking around and the Crusaders and what-have-you. So what does protection ‘stop’? A lot of people wonder why it is that can kill a , but can’t. Some people think protection from white will mean […]
Category: Abilities
Havengul Lich doesn’t let you cast creatures when you normally couldn’t.
Dark Ascension added two new cards that allow you to do some odd things having to do with casting spells. One allows you to cast creatures from an unusual zone, and one lets you cast a spell at an unusual time. The first one is , which has an activated ability that lets you cast […]
When creatures “fight,” some abilities matter, and others don’t.
When a creature “fights” another creature, that means each of those creatures deals damage equal to its power to the other creature. It’s important to know that fighting isn’t considered combat damage and won’t trigger any abilities that look for combat damage being dealt. However, the creatures are still dealing the damage directly, so fighting […]
What happens if both players control a Huntmaster of the Fells and no spells were cast last turn.
A lot of people have been playing Red/Green aggro decks after their strong showing recently, especially with the power behind . So you’re likely to into a situation where both players have a Huntmaster that’s trying to transform during the same upkeep. How do you handle this? For this, we have a simple rule called […]
Phantasmal Image will be sacrificed even if you counter the spell that targeted it.
The illusion creatures printed in Magic 2012— being the most notable—have a common characteristic. They share a triggered ability that reads: “When [this creature] becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it.” Once one of these creatures is targeted, its sacrifice ability will trigger and that ability will go on the stack before […]
When an undying creature dies, it returns under its owner’s control.
When a creature with undying dies (without any +1/+1 counters), it returns to the battlefield under its owner’s control, even if it changed controllers before it died. The “owner” of a card is the player who started the game with the card in his or her deck (the legal owner of the physical card is […]
You don’t control the equipment or auras attached to a creature you steal with Traitorous Blood.
When you gain control of a creature, you aren’t gaining control of anything that’s attached to it. This can be important to know when the equipment or aura has an ability, as opposed to when it give the creature an ability. For example, Nancy has a 1/1 creature that is equipped with , and Adam […]
The two other creatures you tap for Skirsdag High Priest can have summoning sickness
“Summoning Sickness” is a common phrase to describe a much wordier rule: A creature cannot attack or activate abilities with the Tap or Untap symbol unless it has been under your control continuously since the beginning of your most recent turn (unless it has haste). This is usually pretty clear-cut. For example, you can’t tap […]
A blocked creature stays blocked for the rest of combat, no matter what happens to the blocker.
The first thing that happens in the declare blockers step is that the defending player chooses which creatures will block and how they’re blocking. Once that happens, the blocks are locked in. Attackers that had a blocker declared become “blocked” creatures, and nothing can change that (aside from a few obscure effects that specifically say […]