As a general rule, abilities of a creature only work when that creature’s on the battlefield, unless the rules text or common sense suggests that it works in another zone. , for example, has an ability that gives all creature cards in your graveyard scavenge. Scavenge wouldn’t make very much sense if it applied while […]
Category: Abilities
Duskmantle Seer is extra painful when revealing Fuse cards.
Split cards are great; it’s like getting two cards in one! You get two names, two (or three) colors, and two sets of rules text… and when you use the Fuse ability, you can even get both at the same time! Of course, one of the downsides of Fuse is that since your spell has […]
Turn // Burn vs. Aetherling
Those of you who have been playing Magic for much, much longer than I have may remember a little creature called . Today we’ll be looking at his latest incarnation, . While he has a lot of abilities, the only ones we care about right now are the last two (the only ones that have […]
You can’t tap a Cluestone for mana to activate its own “draw a card” ability.
There’s a small caveat in Magic: you can only pay any given cost for one ability or spell; you can’t use the same cost to pay for two separate abilities. That’s just not how life (or Magic) works. Very simple here with the Cluestones. Since the Cluestone’s abilities require it to tap for both the […]
Goblin Test Pilot only chooses randomly among legal targets.
Because of this card, I’m going to have to start carrying a random number generator (I also suggest all judges do so as well!). ‘s ability says that it deals damage to “target creature or player chosen at random”. A target creature, while activating this ability, can only be chosen if it can be legally […]
Melek doesn’t let you cast spells for free.
can do many things. One of the things that you might not realize is that it doesn’t let you play the top card of the deck for free. In Magic, we often combine “You may cast this card” with the second sweetest phrase, “without paying its mana cost” (the first sweetest phrase being “Draw a […]
A fused Give//Take adds the counters before it removes them.
Fuse cards! Another head-scratcher at our prerelease, these cards are fun little upgrades to the Split cards of yesteryear. Just like the old versions, you can pick which of the two halves you’d rather cast. UNLIKE the old ones, you can go Old El Paso on your opponent and pick both. You can ONLY fuse […]
Runner’s Bane will fall off a creature once its power is 4+.
This one came up quite a lot at our prerelease! is a solid common in Limited, locking down your opponent’s little dudes. It can clear a path for you to swing early on, or it can disable his utility guy. But there’s a deceptively easy way to get rid of it, and it involves hulking […]
Sin Collector doesn’t return the exiled card when it dies.
is a charming fellow, you know. He doesn’t take any particular pleasure or satisfaction from exiling your instants and sorceries. He just feels that those powerful spells can weigh heavily on any planeswalker’s mind. He knows it’s best to…relieve…them of their burdens. Don’t you agree? Sin Collector’s ability triggers when he enters the battlefield, and […]