In a previous tip it was pointed out that has two triggered abilities, the Battle Cry trigger and a trigger that puts two 1/1 white soldier tokens into play attacking. As mentioned in the previous tip, the order that these triggers go on the stack and therefore resolve matters. However Hero of Bladehold’s trigger that […]
Category: Abilities
A difference between Shroud and Protection.
Protection from a quality actually has four different effects. One of which deals with auras, which used to be called local enchantments. Permanents with protection from ‘X’ cannot have auras with with quality of ‘X’ attached to them. For example, a cannot be enchanted by a . Another aspect of Protection is that permanents with […]
What happens when multiple abilities trigger.
When two or more triggered abilities attempt to go on the stack at the same time they go on APNAP order. This stands for Active Player, Non-active Player. It means that those triggers that are controlled by the active player go on the stack in whatever order he or she wants, followed by those triggered […]
Cards only do what they specifically say, and not more.
Some cards grant keyword abilities to permanents in play, either to themselves or other permanents. Examples of cards with abilities like these would be and . These abilities can only grant the keyword abilities that they specifically reference. For example, neither of these two abilities can give the Infect keyword ability.
Everything before the colon, is a cost.
One way to recognize activated abilities by the format [cost]: [effect]. Activated abilities are the only ones that use a colon. Everything that appears before the colon is a cost of the ability and must be paid when the ability is played. Abilities that require that you tap the permanent with the ability will have […]
What is the source of the ability.
In most cases the source of an ability is the card itself that has the text that causes the game or players to take some action. Some examples of straight-forard situations like that would be the activated ability of , the triggered ability of or the static ability of . In all of these examples […]
Artifact is a type, not a creature type
‘Artifact’ is a type, not a subtype. When an effect has you choose a subtype, like a creature subtype, you cannot choose artifact. This also applies to effects that depend on or apply to specific creature subtypes. Years ago, it was more common for an artifact creature to exist without a creature type. However that […]
How Deathtouch works.
Deathtouch is a static ability that changes the end result when a source with Deathtouch deals damage to a creature. When an object (which is usually a creature) with Deathtouch deals damage to a creature, that creature receiving the damage is destroyed when state-based actions are applied. A single point of damage from a source […]
‘Becomes blocked’ vs. ‘becomes blocked by a creature’
Many triggered abilities trigger when an attacking creature becomes blocked. However some of them trigger just once regardless of the number of creatures that are blocking the attacking creature and others trigger once per each blocking creature. The difference is in how the trigger condition is written. Abilities that say ‘Whenever ~this creature~ becomes blocked’ […]