is a scary thing to have sitting across the table from you no matter what the format. I cringe when I see it in Commander because it usually means there’s a whole freight train of hurt about to come my way, and precious little I can do to stop it. However, there is a way […]
Category: Casting / playing a spell or ability
Cipher vs. Thalia (yes, you have to pay 1)
Did you know there’s a proper set of steps for casting a spell? Most people just tap mana, throw the spell on stack and ask for permission to resolve it (darn those blue mages!). Just a very simple breakdown, below are the steps to casting a spell in case you ever wanted to know: Announce […]
Biomass Mutation Tips and Tricks
After a brief break for Tournament Tuesday, we’re back in Simic-Land for another neat card, . Mutation is the Simic entrant in the rare X spells cycle from Gatecrash, and it can be devastating. For X mana, plus 2 in any combination of green and blue, all your creatures become X/X. So you pour 5 […]
Casting Urban Evolution During Your Opponent’s Turn
I’m a big fan of Simic, and I especially love one of the new cards from Gatecrash, . For just five mana, I get to draw three new cards and play an extra land — not a bad deal! Now, is a sorcery, so normally I can’t play it on my opponent’s turn. But there’s […]
Cipher and Extort
Two of the new guild keyword abilities in Gatecrash work really well together . No, I’m not talking about battalion and bloodrush, I’m referring to the keywords of two of Esper’s favorite guilds, cipher and extort. Extort triggers off of any spell you cast, not just spells cast from your hand. And once you’ve encoded […]
Nightveil Specter lets you play the exiled card(s), but not for free.
Unlike an explosive card such as , which exiles a bunch of cards then lets you cast them right away for free, Nightveil Specter prefers to play a slower, more gradual game. When you exile a card with the Specter, you can play it… but only at a time you could normally play it from […]
Aurelia’s Fury vs. miracles (and suspend cards!).
Every good army needs a good leader, and luckily, the Boros Legion has Aurelia, whose Fury certainly lives up to the tradition of red Mythic Rares with X in their cost being a huge blowout for the opponent. In addition to nuking creatures, has a unique effect if it deals damage to an opponent; that […]
Rakdos, Lord of Riots can only reduce colorless mana.
has a fairly nifty ability. It says that for each 1 life that an opponent has lost this turn, your creature spells costs 1 less to cast. So, if your opponent has lost 6 life this turn (say, because you just attacked with your Rakdos), your creatures spells will cost 6 less to cast that […]
Zero damage can’t be avenged by Avenging Arrow.
Your opponent’s has been pestering you all game. Your deck doesn’t really have any flyers, so you have no way to block it. However, you just drew an Avenging Arrow, so your plan it to let the Pest attack next turn, then use the Arrow after combat damage to get rid of the Pest. Does […]