Each time ‘s ability resolves, it sets up a replacement effect that is extremely patient. It does not immediately decide “It’s currently turn X, so that means you skip combat in turn X+1.” Instead, it sets up a delayed effect and waits for the next time the specified event would happen. Right before your opponent […]
Category: Effects
How Gisela’s ability interacts with Divine Deflection.
Two of the more complicated cards from Avacyn Restored are and . When you combine the two, things get downright confusing. The complication comes from confusion about the interaction of replacement and/or prevention effects. The comprehensive rules say this: “If two or more replacement and/or prevention effects are attempting to modify the way an event […]
Divine Deflection only has one target: where the damage will be dealt.
is a card that suffers from “wall of text” syndrome. It does a few different things all at the same time, so it’s easy to get confused. The most important thing to remember is that Divine Deflection requires you to choose only one target. Don’t choose your own creature! (Unless you want it to die). […]
Killing Wave is shut down by Sigarda, Host of Herons (but not by Angel of Jubilation).
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 […]
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. […]
Divine Deflection prevents and deals a TOTAL of X damage.
With the new card , the wording can be a little misleading. While one might read it to mean that it prevents X damage to you AND X damage for each creature or planeswalker you control, then deals all that combined damage to whatever you targeted, it doesn’t quite work like that. When you cast […]
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 […]
Parallel Lives doesn’t make any tokens. It causes other stuff to make extra tokens.
“If I make an Angel token with , and I have a out, why does the token made by Parallel Lives get exiled too?” Easy! Because Parallel Lives doesn’t make any tokens at all. What it does is create a replacement effect. Replacement effects do exactly what it sounds like they do: They take one […]