Unlike an explosive card such as , which exiles a bunch of cards then lets you cast them right away for free, Nightveil Specter prefers to play a slower, more gradual game. When you exile a card with the Specter, you can play it… but only at a time you could normally play it from […]
Category: Abilities
Aurelia’s Fury vs. miracles (and suspend cards!).
Every good army needs a good leader, and luckily, the Boros Legion has Aurelia, whose Fury certainly lives up to the tradition of red Mythic Rares with X in their cost being a huge blowout for the opponent. In addition to nuking creatures, has a unique effect if it deals damage to an opponent; that […]
Protection from creatures prevents targeting with Bloodrush.
To quickly remind yourself of what protection does, just think of the Orzhov guild’s favorite word: DEBT. D stands for dealing damage; E stands for enchanting/equipping; B stands for blocking; and T stands for targeting. While you might be most familiar with protection from a color, protection can also encompass a wide variety of other […]
Geist of Saint Traft and Battalion is NOT a combo.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: This article has been updated as of the prerelease of Magic 2014 on July 13; Please refer to the revisions below. This was briefly explained in the Battalion mechanic blog entry last week, but it’s still a common question, so I’m making it as a bonus entry all to itself! All the triggered […]
Prime Speaker Zegana checks its power when the trigger resolves.
checks its power when the trigger resolves, so you can use effects (or your opponent can use effects like ) to alter how many card are drawn! “But Eddie!” you ask, “why is it that evolve doesn’t work that way? Trevor last week on this blog says so!”. Very true, attentive readers! That’s because evolve […]
The Gatecrash Guildmage cycle: Part 2
Duskmantle Guildmage’s 1st ability functions the same as Vizkopa Guildmage’s 2nd ability, as far as multiple activations are concerned. Since they set up a delayed trigger, each will resolve individually. Do note that it says Card, so once again, tokens won’t work, and it says from anywhere, not just the library or battlefield. Get inventive! […]
The Gatecrash Guildmage cycle: Part 1
There are 5 more guildmages in Gatecrash that complete the new Guildmage cycle, some of these guildmages have abilities that ‘stack’ (not in terms of using the stack, because they all do that, but I’m trying to express the fact that their effects are cumulative). Let’s have a look at these abilities. Should be simple […]
Dimir: How Cipher works.
Finally for this week’s Gatecrash mechanics, we have House Dimir, the blue-black masters of stealth and subterfuge. Their mechanic this time around is called Cipher, and boy is it a doozy! I’ve gotten plenty of questions about Cipher, so I’ll answer some of them for you here. Cipher is a fun mechanic. When a spell […]
Orzhov: How Extort works.
Keeping with their “bleed ‘em dry” theme from the old Ravnica, the Church of Deals has a new way to tax your opponent to death: Extort. Whenever you cast a spell while you control a permanent with Extort, you may pay W or B to cause your opponent to lose 1 life, and yourself to […]