As many of you know, this weekend marked the pre-release of the new set, Return to Ravnica. Many of us judged such events, and we managed to collect a few common questions that popped up a lot, so we can answer them for you guys here! One I saw happen quite a bit involved . […]
Return to Ravnica Preview Week: Overload and Populate
Double whammy today, since Tuesday got taken up by the new Trigger rules. Today we finish our Return to Ravnica previews with the Izzet League’s Overload mechanic, and the Selesnya Conclave’s Populate mechanic. First, the Izzet: mad scientists that act on equal parts whim, inspiration, and the wishes of their draconic patron Niv-Mizzet, these mages […]
Return to Ravnica Preview Week: Scavenge
The Golgari Swarm are masters of life and death, and view the two of them as a constant cycle. Their mechanic, Scavenge, reflects this pretty well; I’ve heard it described as “Kind of like a Flashback for creatures”, and that’s not entirely wrong. It lets your dead creatures pull some weight and be useful as […]
Return to Ravnica Preview Week: Detain
Azorius! My personal favorite of the guilds, since it focuses on law and rules. This time around, the lawmasters of the Azorius Senate have a fun keyword called ‘Detain’. Put simply, Detain lets you lock something down for a while. Some of the cards detain creatures only, while others can Detain any nonland permanent your […]
Abilities, Communication Policy, Missed Triggers, Resolving spells and abilities, Tournament Rules, Triggered Abilities
Tournament Tuesday: Changes to the Missed Trigger Policy
Taking a little break from the Return to Ravnica previews, we’ll do our normal Tournament Tuesday tip. NOTE: All of this only matters at Competitive REL and higher—stuff like PTQs and GPTs and GPs—and it won’t go into effect until October 1st. At your local FNM and at the Return to Ravnica prerelease this weekend, you’re […]
Return to Ravnica Preview Week: Unleash
This week, in celebration of our Return to the beloved plane of Ravnica, I’ll be previewing each of the new mechanics! Tuesday is Tournament day, so I’ll be cramming two abilities onto Friday’s post. Today, Unleash! Unleash is the Rakdos mechanic, and it really helps capture the hedonistic, thrillkilling attitude of the Cult of Rakdos. […]
Engineered Explosives and additional costs (e.g., Thalia or Trinisphere)
Sunburst is a fairly unique ability. As a permanent with Sunburst enters the battlefield, Sunburst checks to see what mana was paid when casting the spell, regardless of what the cost was for. So if you want to cast when your opponent controls , you can choose any value for X, pay 1 additional for […]
Mutilate’s -X/-X won’t apply to creatures that enter later in the same turn.
When a resolving effect modifies the characteristics of objects on the battlefield (such as power/toughness), the permanents that will be affected are “locked in” as the spell/ability resolves. So when you cast , it applies -X/-X to all creatures currently on the battlefield as the spell resolves, and that effect will last until the end […]
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 […]