Reasons to do things between first strike and regular combat damage.

Normally, when you think of first strike, you think “Alright, my guy gets to deal damage before that other guy, so my guy survives”. And that’s true. However, that’s not the only advantage there is. Let’s look at a few examples of what you might want to do after dealing first strike combat damage but […]

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You can cast Azorius Charm after combat damage is dealt, and you can cast it on your own creatures.

The combat phase normally has five steps: beginning of combat, declare attackers, declare blockers, combat damage, and end of combat (when first or double strike is involved, the combat damage step happens twice). Intuitively enough, when you declare a creature as an attacker, the game begins to consider it an “attacking creature.” In the same […]

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Feeling of Dread can only stop attackers if cast before the declare attackers step.

A question that I’ve been asked a lot is, “When is the last time I can tap a creature to prevent it from attacking?” So today, let’s use as our example card. When is the last time I can cast the Dread to prevent a creature or creatures from attacking? The last chance you’ll get […]

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Multiplayer tips: How attacking/blocking works.

So normally, when you attack, there’s no question which player you’re attacking. However, when there are multiple legal choices for who to attack, it gets a little more involved. You still only get one combat phase and one of each of the steps in that phase. So when you move to combat, each other player […]

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