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 […]
Category: Resolving spells and abilities
What happens between two spells or abilities on the stack resolving.
Magic is a game of playing spells and abilities, interacting with them, and dealing with the results of them. How does this all work, and what happens during this process? When played, spells and abilities go into a zone called the stack until they resolve. At this point, each player can respond to that spell […]
Rancor only returns to your hand if it went to the graveyard from the battlefield.
is a card I’m quite familiar with, because I play so much Commander. We’ve got a few green decks like Uril, the Miststalker and Jenara that tend to ‘go Voltron’, so I’ve had to learn how Rancor works. Mainly by telling my friends it’s not QUITE as unstoppable as they’d hope! Now, the normal ways […]
Switcheroo needs both targets to be legal at resolution, or nothing changes control.
Another day, another variant of ! This one is actually pretty unique, though. Where most of our variants just have targeting restrictions or altered costs, this one is a flat out permanent steal instead of an enchantment. It also comes at the expense of requiring a trade to be made. Now, first off, Switcheroo has […]
Sever the Bloodline will also exile clones of the targeted creature.
Cards like (with or without kicker) and that make a token copy of a card seem to be fairly intuitive to most players. What is that token? Well, it’s exactly the card that it copied! If you copy a with Cackling counterpart, the token created is still named Runeclaw Bear. On the surface, creature cards […]
The order you put permanents into play with Primal Surge can matter.
Seems like I have a tendency to get the Commander questions lately! So, what’s the main difference between and (besides how easily Surge can whiff)? Mainly, the order of things coming into play. When you Genesis Wave for X=10, any and all permanents you hit will come in simultaneously, all at once, together. With Surge, […]
What you can do when you have two Dangerous Wagers in hand.
Two in han…: seems pretty useless, right? Well, not necessarily. Dangerous Wager is an instant, so you can cast it in response to an opponent’s spell; but what many players don’t realize is that you can cast spells in response to your own spells as well! After a player casts a spell, priority is given […]
How Demonic Rising really works.
‘Intervening if’ clauses! Fun times. These are handy little things that can stop stuff from happening before it happens. They’re always written as “When/whenever/at…, if SOMETHING IS TRUE, do something.” These abilities check for “something is true” at two times: when the ability would trigger, and when it would resolve. The ability needs something to […]
Sun Titan can get auras onto your opponent’s hexproof creatures.
I know this blog mostly covers Standard and Limited, but I personally play a whole lot of Commander. One tricky thing that comes up there a lot is how you can slap Auras onto dudes with Hexproof or Shroud. The trick to it is that Auras only target when you cast them as spells. If […]