Delve is an ability that was (so far) only printed in Future Sight, and as such most players aren’t very familiar with it. Here’s the relevant rules text for “Delve”: “As an additional cost to cast this spell, you may exile any number of cards from your graveyard. Each card exiled this way reduces the […]
Category: Abilities
You can respond to Stoneforge, Aether Vial or Miracle with Vendilion Clique
One of the strengths of is its versatility: you can surprise block an unsuspecting creature, cycle away a card in your hand, or take a peek at what your opponent is up to. Indeed, because it has flash, you can even cast it in response to an opponent’s activated or triggered ability. This is good […]
Rancor goes to the graveyard before it returns to your hand.
Normally I frown on re-gifting, but in the case of , I’m inclined to make an exception. This Christmassy colored ball of ire loves to bounce around from one creature to another. But wait, you ask, isn’t the holiday season supposed to be about peace on earth and goodwill? Well, as resilient as Rancor is, […]
Triumph of Ferocity’s “if” is not intervening, but it still checks at resolution.
RAWR! Looking at exhibit A, , it has one and only one responsibility: to trigger on your upkeep. Now, this triggered ability will trigger on each of your upkeeps no matter what the situation: if the board’s empty, if your opponent controls a creature bigger than yours, or if your opponent has a billion creatures […]
Bloodbraid Elf can cascade into Boom/Bust and cast Bust.
Cascade and split cards are a fun little combination, both in Modern and in Commander. The reason it can be fun is that when Cascade asks a split card what its CMC is, you get two answers; one for each side. As long as ONE of those answers is ‘low enough’ for that Cascade, you […]
Guttersnipe won’t trigger if you sacrifice it to cast Fling or Launch Party
It’s quite possible that you might end up having and plenty of support for it in a Limited deck. Maybe you put in for some removal, and the time comes that you have to cast that Launch Party with your Guttersnipe as the only creature you have on board. In such a situation, your Guttersnipe […]
Detention Sphere can exile your opponent’s hexproof creature if you target your own.
More fun with ! As you may already know, Detention Sphere only has one target. Thanks to that, you can get it to exile things it can’t target, by targeting something it shares a name with. For example, if your opponent has a that has gained hexproof for some reason, and one that does not, […]
Hellrider can hit Planeswalkers
has come back into favor in a lot of aggro decks, and alongside it we’re seeing a few more Planeswalkers being played. So it’s easy to imagine that you might come into a situation where they interact! ’s ability is pretty simple; whenever you swing with a creature, triggers and burns your opponent for 1. […]
Nivmagus Elemental can only exile spells, not abilities.
’s ability is an activated ability that exiles an instant or sorcery spell you control from the stack… only instants or sorceries. This does not allow you to exile activated or triggered abilities on the stack (e.g., Planeswalker abilities, artifact abilities, etc.). While most abilities can be activated any time you could cast an instant, […]