Hello, and welcome to the third day of week. Hopefully, after reading today’s article, you’ll have all the knowledge you need on and a random 4/4. And then I cast on my creature. When it comes time to deal damage, my 6/6 is supposed to receive two damage from the Nighthawk and four damage from […]
Category: Combat Phase
Test of Faith and Combat Damage Assignment
Hi again, and welcome to part two of week. Today, let’s take a look at how works in combat. You don’t get the counters added to the creature right away. The counters are added as the damage is being prevented. And unless first or double strike is involved, all creatures assign and deal their […]
Test of Faith and Multiple Damage Sources
Hello, and welcome to week, where I’ll be focusing on , an intriguing common recently brought back by Modern Masters. It looks fairly innocent at first, but it can be deceptively confusing. What does do? In short, it sets up a small damage prevention shield around a creature. It prevents up to three points of […]
Aurelia and Legion’s Initiative
Imagine. Aurelia and her trusty attack. After this attack, Aurelia asks herself “Hey, is this the first time I’ve attacked this turn?”, she thinks for a bit. “Why yes Aurelia, yes indeed this is the first time I’ve attacked this turn. ANOTHER!” And she triggers, untapping her White Knight (and herself if she didn’t have […]
“Lethal Damage” in Magic isn’t always what it means in English.
“Lethal Damage” is a term you often hear in combat. It’s a term you might hear if the attacking creature has trample or when multiple creatures are blocking the same attacking creature. So in Magic term, what does “lethal damage” actually mean? Lethal damage is the amount of damage it would take to destroy the […]
Adding a +1/+1 counter to an unleash creature after it blocks won’t remove it from combat.
Unleash is a static ability from Return to Ravnica that has two effects. First, it lets you put an extra +1/+1 counter on a creature as it enters the battlefield — yay, bigger creatures! Second, it says that as long as the creature with unleash has one or more +1/+1 counters on it, it can’t […]
Mark for Death on Ember Beast. Can you block at all?
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, […]
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 […]