The combat phase normally has five steps: beginning of combat, declare attackers, declare blockers, combat damage, and end of combat (when first or double strike is involved, the combat damage step happens twice). Intuitively enough, when you declare a creature as an attacker, the game begins to consider it an “attacking creature.” In the same […]
Category: Casting / playing a spell or ability
Tournament Tuesday: Announcing Floating Mana
Your mana pool is arguably the most important concept in all of Magic — but most of the time, it’s completely invisible. If I tap four and three s for an , it’s pretty obvious what color of mana each of my Gardens is making, and whether the Vents are making red or blue usually […]
You can cast Krosan Grip targeting Standstill, but you won’t be happy about it.
More Double-Legacy days! I hope that many of you are safely in Denver, or on your way there for the event, and I hope you have fun and do well! On to the tips. is a lot of fun in Legacy and EDH both, because it’s very difficult to deal with. Since it has Split […]
All about Lion’s Eye Diamond (yes, it’s a mana ability, but it has a timing restriction)
So is kind of a weird card. Let’s start things off by looking at its current Gatherer text: Sacrifice Lion’s Eye Diamond, Discard your hand: Add three mana of any one color to your mana pool. Activate this ability only any time you could cast an instant. So the main difference between the printed version […]
You can’t respond to Tombstalker’s Delve ability
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 […]
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 […]
Shortcut directly to X-mas! (about the X-spell shortcut)
If you’ve ever played Magic Online, sooner or later you’re going to experience the frustration of clicking too rapidly through an X spell, like , and ending up casting it for X=0. Luckily, in the real world we’re a little more forgiving. If you cast an X spell without announcing the value for X, the […]
Feeling of Dread can only stop attackers if cast before the declare attackers step.
A question that I’ve been asked a lot is, “When is the last time I can tap a creature to prevent it from attacking?” So today, let’s use as our example card. When is the last time I can cast the Dread to prevent a creature or creatures from attacking? The last chance you’ll get […]
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 […]