When enters the battlefield, its ability triggers and gives the opponent the choice of either allowing it to stay on the battlefield, or taking 4 damage so its controller sacrifices it. If you allow the opponent to make a decision on whether or not they take 4 damage, you cannot cast “in response” to that […]
Category: Abilities
Abundant Growth gives the land an extra ability, but doesn’t let it produce extra mana.
Green is never short of mana fixing when new sets are released, and Innistrad block hasn’t been the exception. When Innistrad came out, we had , then we got in Dark Ascension. One of the cards that accomplishes this role in Avacyn Restored is . It only costs one mana, fixes your manabase, and it […]
You can’t play a land after you reveal a Miracle card but before you cast it.
There seem to be a lot of questions about the new miracle mechanic lately. To repeat, here is how it works: When you draw the first card in a turn, if it has miracle, you may reveal it. When you do, its ability triggers. Upon the resolution of the miracle triggered ability, you may cast […]
You have to discard a card FIRST to activate Mad Prophet’s ability.
has an activated ability that reads, “T, discard a card: Draw a card.” When activating an ability, all costs must be paid or it cannot be activated. Discarding a card is defined as moving a card from your hand to the graveyard. In this scenario, if you want to activate the ability, you must not only tap Mad Prophet, […]
You can’t pair your Angel’s Tomb to your Soulbond creature unless you control a third unpaired creature.
The most complicated new mechanic of Avacyn Restored is Soulbond. I had dozens of questions regarding Soulbond at my local prerelease, so I will try to explain how it works. Soulbond means this: “When a creature with soulbond enters the battlefield, if you control another unpaired creature, you may pair the creature with soulbond with […]
Desolate Lighthouse can’t work Miracles if you have no cards in your hand.
One of the most-asked questions with Miracle is whether you can cast it in the middle of a resolving spell or ability. You can’t do that because the ability that triggers when you reveal the card can’t go on the stack until a player would receive priority, which doesn’t happen until all parts of the […]
A Miracle card must be cast in the same step you draw the card (even if it’s a sorcery).
When you draw your first card for the turn (usually in your draw step), you can reveal it as you draw it if it has the Miracle ability. When you do that, the ability triggers and goes on the stack as soon as you’re done with the action that let you draw the card. So […]
How the Heartless Summoning + Havengul Lich combo works.
As you might have guessed by now, we’re doing a special Combo Week this week! I got saddled with (in my opinion) the most hilarious combo in Standard right now: Heartless Lich. But how does it work? First, you need to control and a . You also need a (either in the graveyard or in […]
Why Knowledge Pool + Curse of Exhaustion locks your opponent out of casting spells from the hand.
As part of combo week, I’ve chosen to explain my personal favorite combo in standard: the + lock. First, let’s take a look at what these two cards do before we explain how the combo works. Curse of Exhaustion is pretty simple; it restricts the number of spells your opponent can cast to just one […]