Category: Tournament Rules
Abilities, Effects, Prevention and Replacement Effects, Resolving spells and abilities, Static Abilities, Tournament Rules
Underrealm Lich – Not Optional!
Abilities, Continuous Effects, Effects, Resolving spells and abilities, State-Based Actions, Static Abilities, Tournament Rules
Tournament Tuesday: The Rules vs. Can’t Lose Effects
Welcome back to the Rules Blog! Today we'll be going over something that's occasionally misunderstood: effects that prevent you from losing the game. The ur-example of this is good old , but there's been others- most recently, the emblem from . So long as you have that Emblem, and a Planeswalker with the "Gideon" subtype, you can't lose and your opponents can't win. That means you'll stay alive even with 0 or less life, 10 or more poison counters, or having tried to draw from an empty library. Any
Tournament Tuesday: Amonkhet Updates
Welcome back to the Rules Tips Blog! Today we'll be going over some of the changes to policy that go into effect when Amonkhet officially releases this Friday. None of this is in effect right now, but it will be on Friday morning- meaning that this will apply to your FNMs! The biggest change for players to be aware of is the change to the combat shortcut. As you may or may not know, the combat shortcut we're still using now doesn't really mesh too well with beginning of combat triggers like ; current
Tournament Tip: MOAR BANS and how they work
In case you haven't heard, for the first time in a long time, we have some banned cards in Standard. As of January 20th, , , and are all banned in Standard. What does this mean? It means that you're not allowed to run any copies of those three cards in your Standard deck (main deck or sideboard). But just because they're banned in Standard doesn't mean they're not legal in other formats (unless they're also banned in those formats). For instance, if you're in a Modern tournament, you can still
Going ‘Infinite’ week! A refresher on loop shortcuts.
Infinite possibilities in Kaladesh! Oh no! Looks like it's time to brush up on what happens when your cards create an infinite loop. Let us start with the old / combo that allows you to put an infinite amount of exarchs on the battlefield with haste to swing in for infinite damage. Active Player has a Deceiver Exarch on the battlefield. They then cast Splinter Twin, enchanting the Exarch. Once the twin has resolved, the Active player taps their exarch and makes a copy of it. When the copy enters
Planeswalker Deck “extra cards” are legal in Standard.
The Kaladesh set, in addition to the usual new cards and mechanics, also introduced a new addition to Wizards' preconstructed product line: the Planeswalker Deck, which replaces the Intro Pack as the preconstructed product released with every set (which themselves replaced Theme Decks, for those of you who remember that far back). These Planeswalker Decks don't just show off the star characters of the set, however; for the first time in Magic's history, they contain cards that are not reprints,
Aether Revolt Prerelease Week: What To Expect
Welcome back to the final day of our Aether Revolt Prerelease Week! Today we'll be going over the event itself, and what you can expect. For those of you who are familiar with prereleases, it's fairly in-line with what you already know. For those of you who are not, read on! First, what should you bring? We'd recommend that you bring along some new sleeves for your deck, some dice (there's a lot of +1/+1 counters and Energy in these sets, remember), and a pen and paper. You can keep track of life
Aether Revolt Prerelease Week: Energy Refresher
Welcome back to Aether Revolt Prerelease Week! Today we're going over another returning mechanic from Kaladesh (and boy is it a doozy): Energy. Lots of spells and abilities from this block will grant you Energy counters. These counters are put on you, the player (much like Poison or Experience counters), and can be spent in a variety of ways. And hey, since they're counters, anything that interacts with counters on a player works on Energy (notably they can be Proliferated, and things like ). A lot
Tournament Tuesday: Foreign and Altered Cards!
Welcome back to the Rules Tip Blog! On today's Tournament Tuesday, we'll be talking about foreign, misprinted, and altered cards; how to play them in an event; and what to do if you encounter them during an event. We'll start with misprints. Usually the QA on Magic cards is pretty great, but sometimes things slip through. If you open a misprinted card during a Limited event, it's best to call a Judge over and ask them how they'd like to handle it. Depending on the severity of the misprint, it