“Judge, I blocked my opponent’s Thragtusk with Boros Reckoner. After they kill each other, is there a way I can use Reckoner’s trigger to kill the Beast token, too?” Your opponent may be protesting at this point “judges can’t give strategic advice!” but it turns out that according to the rules, there’s only one legal […]
Category: Resolving spells and abilities
Simic Keyrune can cause Abrupt Decay to be countered.
“Can’t be countered…” You get a little tingly feeling inside when you cast a spell with such a phrase. It’s as if you had your old security blanket when you were 3, 6, … or in some cases, 12 years old. But like your security blanket, this phrase doesn’t mean that the spell will always […]
Tournament Tuesday: Zone-Change Triggers
As we covered last week, there’s been a few changes in the Missed Trigger policy recently. Today we’re gonna cover one that’s had a little confusion even among judges: Zone-change triggers. First, I’ll start off with a link to Toby Elliot’s article about what the trigger changes mean for players, because you guys are players, […]
How to Signal the Clans
Told you we were done with the Simic Streak! Let’s get some Gruul on, so we can crush them, and then feast. Today we’ll be covering , a neat rare from Gatecrash that has more than a few people scratching their heads on how to properly light the Bat-Signal. When you , you search through […]
Cipher and Extort
Two of the new guild keyword abilities in Gatecrash work really well together . No, I’m not talking about battalion and bloodrush, I’m referring to the keywords of two of Esper’s favorite guilds, cipher and extort. Extort triggers off of any spell you cast, not just spells cast from your hand. And once you’ve encoded […]
Aurelia’s Fury vs. miracles (and suspend cards!).
Every good army needs a good leader, and luckily, the Boros Legion has Aurelia, whose Fury certainly lives up to the tradition of red Mythic Rares with X in their cost being a huge blowout for the opponent. In addition to nuking creatures, has a unique effect if it deals damage to an opponent; that […]
If Dinrova Horror bounces a token, it can’t be discarded!
Tokens, in the realms of the game, are not cards. That may shock some people, as they hold their 1/1 white soldiers token in their hands and go “It looks like a card, it feels like a card, it taste like a card, why isn’t it one?” (The Judge Rules Blog does not endorse anybody […]
Wayfaring Temple and Essence Backlash
You’re playing your Selesnya token deck, and you have five tokens on the board. Hoping to take advantage, you cast your Wayfaring Temple, hoping to start attacking with a large creature and creating a larger army. However, your opponent doesn’t like that idea very much, and they counter your Temple with Essence Backlash. Surprisingly, your […]
If Parasalene destroys Havoc Festival, you will gain life.
Your Rakdos opponent has gotten off to a fairly fast start. You managed to their board away, but then they dropped a , shutting off your life gain and threatening to drop you into burn range. You’re holding a , but you’re not sure if you’ll be able to gain any life off of the […]