Oooh, this one is fun! Control-changing effects have a habit of confusing players, especially when it comes to aura-based things like or in this case, . The mistake many players make is thinking that it’s always ‘on’, that it always ‘wins’, no matter what. But that’s not the case! Control-changing is a continuous effect, which […]
Category: Control / Controller
You don’t have to pay for your opponent’s Soul Tithe if you control Sigarda.
If you control and your opponent enchants one of your other creatures with (obviously they can’t cast Soul Tithe targeting your Sigarda thanks to hexproof), then when Soul Tithe’s ability resolves it will ask, “Wanna pay this thing’s converted mana cost?” At that point, you can pay if you really want to, but when you […]
Overloading in Two Headed Giant
Overload does weird things with 2HG. Some of you at the prerelease may have noticed that. See, all of the Overload spells that you aim at other people’s stuff work on everything of that sort you don’t control, if Overloaded. In a normal 2 man game, or a free-for-all, that means it hits your opponents’ […]
Vedalken Shackles only checks power vs. islands on activation and resolution (not any time after that).
is one of the key board control cards in Mono Blue Faeries (as of the time of this writing) … but how does it work? First, when you activate it, you have to choose a target, and that target can’t have power greater than the number of Islands you control at that time. Then your […]
All about Captivating Vampire.
I see a fair number of questions about this card, so I thought it couldn’t hurt to simply answer them all in one place! If the Vampire dies, do I lose the creatures I took control of with him? No. The effect doesn’t state a duration (e.g., “as long as you control Captivating Vampire”), so […]
Sigarda won’t save you from sacrificing your own Phantasmal Image, even if an opponent targets it.
‘s ability is pretty cool. If an effect an opponent controls says “sacrifice a creature” Sigarda says, “No, I’d rather not.” So she keeps you safe from things like and . But what if the opponent targets your Phantasmal Image (copying something other than Sigarda) with ? On the surface, it almost looks like the […]
When an undying creature dies, it returns under its owner’s control.
When a creature with undying dies (without any +1/+1 counters), it returns to the battlefield under its owner’s control, even if it changed controllers before it died. The “owner” of a card is the player who started the game with the card in his or her deck (the legal owner of the physical card is […]
You don’t control the equipment or auras attached to a creature you steal with Traitorous Blood.
When you gain control of a creature, you aren’t gaining control of anything that’s attached to it. This can be important to know when the equipment or aura has an ability, as opposed to when it give the creature an ability. For example, Nancy has a 1/1 creature that is equipped with , and Adam […]
A creature that changes control is not “entering the battlefield.”
In a game of Magic, there are normally seven zones: library, hand, battlefield, graveyard, stack, exile, and command. Each player has his or her own library, hand and graveyard. The rest of the zones are shared by all players. If you use to steal your opponent’s , you don’t get to remove any other creature […]