IMPORTANT UPDATE: This article has been updated as of the prerelease of Magic 2014 on July 13; Please refer to the revisions below. is a nifty common from Return to Ravnica that was made famous when it was (allegedly) accidentally included in a booster pack of Magic 2013. For us, it’s also interesting due to […]
Category: Static Abilities
You can search for Temple Garden with Farseek, but it will be tapped even if you pay 2 life.
Fun fact: The reprinting of led many people to (correctly) believe the ‘shocklands’ were coming back. Now, onto how they interact: Farseek nabs any Plains, Island, Mountain, or Swamp card you want out of your library and puts it onto the battlefield tapped. Prior to us Returning to Ravnica, you were only going to find […]
How Corpsejack Menace interacts with Unleash.
Even with the Guild Packs making it much easier that usual to go into your two preferred colors in Limited, there were a lot of people splashing a third color for some fun stuff. For example, some people ran Black/Red/Green to keep a Corpsejack Menace around for Unleash. But does that do anything? Unleash doesn’t […]
Prevention and Replacement Effects, Resolving spells and abilities, State-Based Actions, Static Abilities, Zones
The different ways Dryad Militant interacts with removal spells.
! This little tree-girl seems like lots of fun in Limited and Constructed both, but the most common question I’ve seen regarding her is how she works with removal. When does the spell go to the graveyard? Does she exile it or not? A spell does not go to the graveyard until it has fully […]
Return to Ravnica Preview Week: Unleash
This week, in celebration of our Return to the beloved plane of Ravnica, I’ll be previewing each of the new mechanics! Tuesday is Tournament day, so I’ll be cramming two abilities onto Friday’s post. Today, Unleash! Unleash is the Rakdos mechanic, and it really helps capture the hedonistic, thrillkilling attitude of the Cult of Rakdos. […]
Torpor Orb doesn’t stop Clone effects or other ʺas this entersʺ abilities.
As Scars of Mirrodin’s time in Standard is coming to a close, it seems fitting to give a final hurrah to one of the most confusing cards in the block: ! This confusion can be attributed mostly to the difficulty people have in understanding the difference between triggered and static abilities, but once you know […]
Sigarda won’t save you from sacrificing your own Phantasmal Image, even if an opponent targets it.
‘s ability is pretty cool. If an effect an opponent controls says “sacrifice a creature” Sigarda says, “No, I’d rather not.” So she keeps you safe from things like and . But what if the opponent targets your Phantasmal Image (copying something other than Sigarda) with ? On the surface, it almost looks like the […]
Can you respond to the choice of what to copy with Phantasmal Image? It depends!
This is a very common question with any kind of copy creature. The most important thing to note is that the static ability that lets you choose to copy something is NOT a triggered ability (if it was, pretty much every Clone-type creature would die for being 0/0 before you could choose to copy something!). […]
Surgical Extraction vs. Miracles
Miracle causes lots of questions, as it’s a pretty complex mechanic. First, there’s the static ability that says “You may reveal this as you draw it if its the first card you drew this turn.” Then once you do that, there’s the triggered ability that say “When you do, you may cast this for its […]