IMPORTANT UPDATE: This article has been updated as of the prerelease of Magic 2014 on July 13; Please refer to the revisions below. This was briefly explained in the Battalion mechanic blog entry last week, but it’s still a common question, so I’m making it as a bonus entry all to itself! All the triggered […]
Prime Speaker Zegana checks its power when the trigger resolves.
checks its power when the trigger resolves, so you can use effects (or your opponent can use effects like ) to alter how many card are drawn! “But Eddie!” you ask, “why is it that evolve doesn’t work that way? Trevor last week on this blog says so!”. Very true, attentive readers! That’s because evolve […]
The Gatecrash Guildmage cycle: Part 2
Duskmantle Guildmage’s 1st ability functions the same as Vizkopa Guildmage’s 2nd ability, as far as multiple activations are concerned. Since they set up a delayed trigger, each will resolve individually. Do note that it says Card, so once again, tokens won’t work, and it says from anywhere, not just the library or battlefield. Get inventive! […]
The Gatecrash Guildmage cycle: Part 1
There are 5 more guildmages in Gatecrash that complete the new Guildmage cycle, some of these guildmages have abilities that ‘stack’ (not in terms of using the stack, because they all do that, but I’m trying to express the fact that their effects are cumulative). Let’s have a look at these abilities. Should be simple […]
What “continuous construction” means for limited tournaments.
At Regular REL (FNM, most drafts, prerelease parties, etc.), limited tournaments (those using a card pool from sealed product, such as drafts or sealed deck) use a default called “continuous construction.” You can assume this is the case as long as the event is not being run at Competitive REL, you aren’t asked to register […]
If Dinrova Horror bounces a token, it can’t be discarded!
Tokens, in the realms of the game, are not cards. That may shock some people, as they hold their 1/1 white soldiers token in their hands and go “It looks like a card, it feels like a card, it taste like a card, why isn’t it one?” (The Judge Rules Blog does not endorse anybody […]
Dimir: How Cipher works.
Finally for this week’s Gatecrash mechanics, we have House Dimir, the blue-black masters of stealth and subterfuge. Their mechanic this time around is called Cipher, and boy is it a doozy! I’ve gotten plenty of questions about Cipher, so I’ll answer some of them for you here. Cipher is a fun mechanic. When a spell […]
Orzhov: How Extort works.
Keeping with their “bleed ‘em dry” theme from the old Ravnica, the Church of Deals has a new way to tax your opponent to death: Extort. Whenever you cast a spell while you control a permanent with Extort, you may pay W or B to cause your opponent to lose 1 life, and yourself to […]
Gruul: How Bloodrush works.
BLOODRUSH! Similar to Bloodthirst from the original Ravnica block, the barbarians and rubble-slummers of the Gruul Clans have a special love for cracking skulls. Where Bloodthirst would make your creatures bigger as they came down, Bloodrush turns your creatures into pump spells. Like Batallion, Bloodrush isn’t actually a keyword; it is an ability word, and […]