will always trigger when it enters the battlefield, even if you don’t have any creatures with +1/+1 counters on them at that time. From a rules perspective, this is because Chronicler of Heroes’ ability doesn’t contain an “intervening if” clause. The ability will trigger even if your Chronicler is all alone when she enters the […]
Category: Resolving spells and abilities
Cloning/Mimicing your heroic creatures won’t trigger their heroic abilities.
s (cards that copy something as they enter the battlefield), such as , don’t target. No matter how hard you try, when you choose a heroic creature with clones such as these, the heroic trigger’s requirements (1. That it’s a spell you cast, 2. That it targets this creature), won’t be satisfied because why? It’s […]
You can activate Monstrosity abilities all you want (but only one can ever do anything).
Usually, there's no reason to activate a Monstrosity ability more than once. But if you have all the mana you need, it occasionally makes sense to thwart your opponent's removal!
Far//Away vs. creature//god
Devotion is checked continuously (not as a state-based action), so it's possible for a god to become a non-creature in the middle of a resolving spell!
Devotion and Counterspells
By far the biggest chunk of questions I’ve gotten from my players and my threads the past week are all about the last mechanic we’re covering this week (sorry, Scry): Devotion. Devotion is more or less a reworking of Chroma, an ability word from back in Lorwyn block. Put simply, “Devotion to COLOR” is measured […]
Bestow and Savage Summoning
Surprise! I liked this little trick so much I decided to skip Scry’s day this week (since it’s a returning mechanic) and cover another fun Bestow interaction. is a rare from M14. It allows you to cast the next creature spell of the turn as though it had Flash, make it uncounterable, and also make […]
Heroic Triggers Resolve Before the Spell
We’re continuing with the Theros mechanic theme this week, and today we’re covering Heroic (or at least one aspect of it!). The Heroic mechanic is a lot like Batallion, Landfall, Threshold, Morbid, etc. All of these things aren’t actually keywords like Flying and Trample; they have no actual inherent rules meaning. In fact, if you […]
Bestow and Illegal Targets
Now that Theros cards are in the hands of many a Magic player thanks to the prerelease, there’s plenty of questions to be had! One of the most common questions that came up over the prerelease weekend was “What happens if the target of my Bestow spell becomes illegal?” For example, I flash in trying […]
Primeval Bounty and Disciple of Bolas
There's a neat trick if you control only Primeval Bounty... you can cast Disciple of Bolas, and get a 3/3 in time to sacrifice it and draw 3 cards/gain 3 life!