has an ability that is seen from time to time on green creatures. This ability allows the controller of an attacking Spinebiter to have it deal its combat damage to the defending player even if it is blocked. (Because of the way it mimics trample, this ability is sometimes referred to as ‘super trample.’) There […]
Category: Abilities
Not all damage is combat damage.
Abilities that trigger when combat damage is dealt will only trigger when a creature in combat assigns and deals damage in the combat damage step. It is possible for a creature, like to deal damage in the combat phase that is not combat damage. There are also abilities like the one granted to creatures you […]
Who controls the trigger?
A triggered ability is controlled by the controller of the source of the ability when the ability triggers. Normally this is pretty straightforward. For example, with something like the controller of the trigger is whoever controlled the Blood Seeker when creature came into play under an opponent’s control. In most cases the controller of a […]
What being ‘poisoned’ means.
A few cards in Scars of Mirrodin block (, , ) refer to a player being poisoned. A player is considered to be poison if he or she has one or more poison counter. In a two-headed giant game an individual player is considered to be poisoned if any member of the team has a […]
You can’t spend life if your life total cannot change
a mythic card from Scars of Mirrodin has an ability that prevents your life total from changing. This ability prevents its controller from spending life as well. Because of this, you cannot spend life to play cards with Phyrexian mana in their mana cost via their alternate costs.
At the beginning of the end step vs until the end of turn.
There are a few things that happen at the end of every turn; players discard down to their maximum hand size, damage on creatures goes away etc. One area that often confuses players is the difference between effects that last until the turn ends and triggered abilities that trigger at the end of a turn. […]
Tokens do go to the graveyard when destroyed.
Token creatures are actual creatures and they will cause relevant abilities to trigger when they leave play. For example, ‘s ability will trigger when a token creature controlled by an opponent goes to the graveyard. This also applies if the source of the ability itself goes to the graveyard. If a token copy of a […]
Lifelink is not cumulative.
When initially introduced Lifelink was a triggered ability. If a permanent had multiple instances of lifelink, then each of these separate abilities would trigger independently ultimately causing the controller of of these abilities to gain more life than the damage dealt. However when the Magic 2010 base set was released how Lifelink works was changed. […]
Nested Ghoul’s ability triggers once per source of damage.
Some abilities in Magic care about specific amount of damage and others care about the sources of damage regardless of the amount. Abilities that prevent damage and redirect damage are obvious examples. For example, compare and . Shiledmate’s Blessing prevents a specific amount of damage and Auriok Replica’s ability prevents all damage from a specific […]