In Magic: The Gathering’s judging system, combat-based rules questions are considered especially heinous. On this blog, the dedicated judges who investigate these tricky interactions are members of an elite squad known as the Special Cards Unit. These are their stories. “Captain! I’m so glad you’re here; it’s a bad one.” “What’s the situation, Sergeant?” “Well, […]
Category: Combat Phase
Lifelink can save you from dying in combat.
Ah, lifelink. The boon of white mages, the bane of red mages (the jury is still out on how Boros feels about it). Even though lifelink has only been around for a relatively short period of time (it was introduced in Future Sight), it has caused a lot of confusion, mostly due to how the […]
Leyline Phantom can block Armored Transport without bouncing.
does funny things in combat. Well, funny as in if it’s blocked by a creature, that creature does nothing at all! Preventing the damage dealt to it in combat means things such as lifelink and deathtouch won’t apply for the blocking creature (Note that prevention effects are a kind of replacement effect, it’s not that […]
Flickering Aurelia for Fun and Profit
As mentioned last week, the guild of Boros has this really great leader in . I mean, she has all the abilities one looks for when attacking: flying, to soar over the heads of her opponents; haste, so she can attack as soon as possible; and vigilance, to be there to defend the fort as […]
Geist of Saint Traft and Battalion is NOT a combo.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: This article has been updated as of the prerelease of Magic 2014 on July 13; Please refer to the revisions below. This was briefly explained in the Battalion mechanic blog entry last week, but it’s still a common question, so I’m making it as a bonus entry all to itself! All the triggered […]
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 […]
Mishra’s Factory can pump itself when blocking, but only if it’s not sick.
When declaring blockers, the defending player can only use untapped creatures. Once blockers are declared, though, the game doesn’t care if the blocking creatures become tapped later! A useful application of this is , which has three abilities: (1) a mana ability, (2) an “animation” ability, and (3) a “pump” ability. You can use 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 […]
Sphere of Safety vs. Volatile Rig
loves attacking. It fact, it has an ability that says it has to attack each turn if able. But what if your opponent has a out? Does that mean I have to pay every turn to make it attack? The answer is no. Sphere of Safety adds a cost to creatures that are declared as […]