Many players are unsure about how the combat shortcut works; when they tried to tap an attacker before their opponent swung, the opponent said, “You can’t tap it, I already attacked.” Whether that’s true or not depends on what was said before that. There is a default tournament shortcut that says, “A statement such as […]
When creatures “fight,” some abilities matter, and others don’t.
When a creature “fights” another creature, that means each of those creatures deals damage equal to its power to the other creature. It’s important to know that fighting isn’t considered combat damage and won’t trigger any abilities that look for combat damage being dealt. However, the creatures are still dealing the damage directly, so fighting […]
What happens if both players control a Huntmaster of the Fells and no spells were cast last turn.
A lot of people have been playing Red/Green aggro decks after their strong showing recently, especially with the power behind . So you’re likely to into a situation where both players have a Huntmaster that’s trying to transform during the same upkeep. How do you handle this? For this, we have a simple rule called […]
Phantasmal Image will be sacrificed even if you counter the spell that targeted it.
The illusion creatures printed in Magic 2012— being the most notable—have a common characteristic. They share a triggered ability that reads: “When [this creature] becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it.” Once one of these creatures is targeted, its sacrifice ability will trigger and that ability will go on the stack before […]
When an undying creature dies, it returns under its owner’s control.
When a creature with undying dies (without any +1/+1 counters), it returns to the battlefield under its owner’s control, even if it changed controllers before it died. The “owner” of a card is the player who started the game with the card in his or her deck (the legal owner of the physical card is […]
If you cast a spell illegally, the game rewinds to just before you started casting it.
The process of casting a spell consists of a series of steps that need to be followed in order. If at any point during this process a player is unable to perform one of these actions, the whole casting process is illegal and the game returns to the moment before that spell started to be […]
You don’t control the equipment or auras attached to a creature you steal with Traitorous Blood.
When you gain control of a creature, you aren’t gaining control of anything that’s attached to it. This can be important to know when the equipment or aura has an ability, as opposed to when it give the creature an ability. For example, Nancy has a 1/1 creature that is equipped with , and Adam […]
How to recognize an activated ability for Havengul Lich, Necrotic Ooze or Phyrexian Revoker
A common question that seems to pop up is how to tell the difference between Activated, Triggered and Static abilities. More specifically, what abilities will gain from dead creatures, what exactly can stop, and what abilities does get after you use him to do some necromancy. There’s an easy way to recognize different kinds of […]
The two other creatures you tap for Skirsdag High Priest can have summoning sickness
“Summoning Sickness” is a common phrase to describe a much wordier rule: A creature cannot attack or activate abilities with the Tap or Untap symbol unless it has been under your control continuously since the beginning of your most recent turn (unless it has haste). This is usually pretty clear-cut. For example, you can’t tap […]