: Really annoying card against graveyard-based strategies… but it can still be destroyed. You might be interested to know where it ends up, though. At the time the Rest in Peace would be destroyed, its effect is still applying, so it’ll be exiled by its own ability rather than go to the graveyard. Thankfully, this […]
Extort’s loss of life can’t hit a planeswalker.
Quick question: What’s the difference between damage and loss of life? As you can see from the cards above, whether an effect deals damage or just causes loss of life is dependent on the specific wording of the effect. When an effect “deals damage”, it causes loss of life (barring weird exceptions like infect), but […]
Shortcuts: Adding multiple objects to the stack.
Today, we’ll be looking the shortcut policy in the tournament rules, which lets you do things that aren’t technically correct but still understandable by both players. Sit tight, because we’ve got a lot to cover. One of the little-known rules concerning the stack is that when a player casts a spell or activates an ability, […]
If you copy a creature that’s encoded with a Cipher card, the copy won’t be encoded.
It’s only fitting that the new guild keyword that caused the most confusion upon being released was Cipher, the signature mechanic of House Dimir. And because I most definitely am not a Dimir informant secretly reporting to my shadowy superior in a hidden base in Arizona that most definitely doesn’t exist, I believe I’m at […]
You can’t take 4 for Vexing Devil if there’s a Torpor Orb around.
is a strange and unique card. It makes things that normally happen simply not happen. So abilities that you might really want to trigger from a creature entering the battlefield… won’t. It will shut down your life gain from (but doesn’t stop persist) or your card draw from . But it also works the other […]
“Eggs” vs. Rest in Peace – Know when NOT to draw.
These two artifacts look very similar, and both see play in the popular and successful “Eggs” deck in Modern. But since is also a very popular sideboard card, you should be careful to note the difference! is rather unique. It includes “Draw a card.” in the same ability as “Add one mana of any color […]
How Blood Moon works with Shocklands.
creates a very simple effect: all non-basic lands on the battlefield become mountains. The “Shockland” effect of entering play tapped unless you pay 2 life is not a trigger (you can tell since it doesn’t contain “When ~ enters the battlefield”). Rather, it modifies how the land enters the battlefield in the first place. This […]
You have the right to ask a judge for Oracle text.
Tournaments might seem intimidating. I mean, you’ve got to record your matches on slips of paper, all these people in black are handing out penalties, everything seems so official. But it doesn’t mean we don’t want you to have fun! We also most certainly don’t expect you to remember what exactly each and every card […]
Spreading Seas vs. the Urza’s lands.
So by now, most people are familiar with the “Urzatron” decks that are popular in Modern. They revolve around getting the three different Urza’s lands (Power Plant, Mine, and Tower) to cast large spells rather quickly, getting 7 colorless mana from just 3 lands. In an attempt to combat the deck, one trick people have […]