When you cast a creature spell, you are never required to choose targets for it, because creature spells never target anything. Some creatures have enters-the-battlefield (“ETB”) abilities that require targets, and you must choose one only when the creature hits the board (even if the only legal target is your own permanent that you’d rather […]
Category: Casting / playing a spell or ability
Havengul Lich doesn’t let you cast creatures when you normally couldn’t.
Dark Ascension added two new cards that allow you to do some odd things having to do with casting spells. One allows you to cast creatures from an unusual zone, and one lets you cast a spell at an unusual time. The first one is , which has an activated ability that lets you cast […]
If you cast a spell illegally, the game rewinds to just before you started casting it.
The process of casting a spell consists of a series of steps that need to be followed in order. If at any point during this process a player is unable to perform one of these actions, the whole casting process is illegal and the game returns to the moment before that spell started to be […]
Myr Superion can be played for free with Heartless Summoning.
has an ability that requires all mana that is spent to play it be generated by creature sources. However, it is possible to bypass this restriction by lowering the cost of the Superion enough that no mana is paid to cast it. The ability basically means, “You may not spend mana from a noncreature source […]
Spells go on the stack as soon as you announce them.
When casting a spell, the very first thing that happens is the card representing the spell will leave the zone that it is currently in and go on the stack. Often the exact order that things happen does not matter, but for some spells, the fact that this card is now on the stack will […]
Additional costs are not paid when putting copies of spells on the stack.
When a copy of a spell is put on the stack, by something like the copy will be an exact one. If the original spell had any additional costs paid they will also be considered paid for the copy. Also, if the original spell had a variable cost, like a , the copy will also […]
What X equals, and how it varies.
When casting a spell with X in the mana cost, X will equal what was chosen when the spell was cast. (Usually this means that this was what was mana paid for as well, but effects that raise or lower costs can alter this.) For example, if you cast a targeting a , in order […]
An individual spell or ability can only target a single object once for each use of the word target in a card’s text.
An individual spell or ability can only target a single object once for each use of the word target in a card’s text. A card like like is a good example of a card where you can target the same permanent multiple times. It can give three different creatures +1/+1, one creature +1/+1 and another+2/+2 […]
When choosing ‘up to’ a specific number you can choose zero.
Some cards have a variable effect and allow you to choose ‘up to’ a specific number of targets or objects. Sometimes you search your library for cards when an ability resolves, like with . In instances like that you choose the number to search for when the ability resolves. Other times you choose ‘up to’ […]