and have abilities that at first glance look similar. However, they are actually quite different! When your opponent’s resolves, it gives each player a choice to make for each creature that player controls: Pay X life, or don’t pay anything. If you don’t pay any life, Killing Wave says “sacrifice the creature.” If you control […]
Category: Continuous Effects
When Infinite Reflection leaves play, your creatures don’t stop being copies of what was enchanted.
When enters the battlefield, all your creatures become a copy of whatever it’s enchanting, and while it’s on the battlefield attached to a creature, each other creature that enters the battlefield under your control becomes a copy of that creature. If the enchanted creature or Infinite Reflection leaves the battlefield, the creatures that have become […]
Once two creatures are paired via Soulbond, they’re stuck that way until one of them leaves the battlefield.
Soulbond is a fun new mechanic from Avacyn Restored that lets you pair 2 creatures together, and both get fun new effects. Soulbond says that when the Soulbond guy enters the battlefield under your control, or a different guy enters the battlefield under your control, you can pair the two together if they aren’t paired. […]
Why Knowledge Pool + Curse of Exhaustion locks your opponent out of casting spells from the hand.
As part of combo week, I’ve chosen to explain my personal favorite combo in standard: the + lock. First, let’s take a look at what these two cards do before we explain how the combo works. Curse of Exhaustion is pretty simple; it restricts the number of spells your opponent can cast to just one […]
What Grafdigger’s Cage does and doesn’t stop.
prevents players from casting spells from the graveyard or library, as well as creatures from entering the battlefield from a graveyard or library. This is a static ability that changes the rules of the game for as long as the Cage is in play. This means that it stops a lot of things in standard, […]
You can ‘steal’ more than one creature with Beguiler of Wills
has an activated ability that gives you control of a creature with power less than or equal to the number of creatures you control when the ability resolves. In order to play this ability, its target must be legal and you must have an appropriate number of creatures. This ability also checks when it resolves […]
The effect from Moonveil Dragon’s ability remains even if the Dragon leaves play.
is not just a card, it is a word associated with a common ability that has appeared on creatures over the years– being one of the first. takes this ability and expands it: you can use red mana with its ability to raise the power of all creatures you control. When a creature with ‘normal’ […]
Effects that change a permanent’s characteristics only apply when the card is in play.
Effects like the one generated by , or all give a permanent an additional permanent type. It is important to note that these effects only apply while the affected permanent is on the battlefield. Once it leaves play, any of these effects will no longer apply to it. For example, if an Inkmoth Nexus is […]
Effects that last ‘until the end of turn’ and ‘this turn’ end at the same time.
The End Phase of a turn is divided into two steps. The second step is called the Cleanup step. In this step, players do not normally receive priority, and some actions are performed and effects end before the next turn begins. In the cleanup step, after the active player discards down to his or her […]