Mutation also plays VERY well with +1\/+1 counters, like the ones from Evolve. It makes the ‘base’ creature into an X\/X. So say you have a Cloudfin Raptor<\/a> that’s been evolving a few times this game, and it currently has 3 +1\/+1 counters on it. After you resolve that Mutation for X=5, it’ll be an 8\/8 flier, because of the 3 counters. You can also use it to force an evolve if you really need to, by making your creatures SMALLER. You can cast it for X=1 to make your Adaptive Snapjaw<\/a> into a 1\/1, so your 2\/1 Shambleshark will evolve it. Likewise, you can cast it for X=0 to kill your own counter-less creatures if you need to, by making them into 0\/0. Kinda like the old Mirror Entity<\/a> trick!<\/p>\n Finally, we’ll cover how it interacts with other ways of messing with power\/toughness, besides counters. Say you cast a Mutation for X=4, and then your opponent hits one of your guys with Snakeform<\/a>. Your guy won’t be a 4\/4, it’ll be a 1\/1. But if you do that the other way around, your Snake will be a 4\/4; that’s because both of these abilities are trying to set the P\/T to a specific number, and whichever one is newest ‘wins’. And like counters, any static boosts\/debuffs [like a Gaea’s Anthem<\/a> or your opponent’s Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobyte<\/a>] will apply AFTER Mutation. Lastly, things that have characteristic-defining abilities [think Consuming Abberation<\/a> or Rubblehulk<\/a>] will get ‘overwritten’ by Biomass Mutation. You have 10 lands, and cast Mutation for 8? Your Rubblehulk is now an 8\/8, not a 10\/10. Oh, and Mutation only works on the creatures that were on board when it resolves; if you cast that Mutation for 6, then cast a Shambleshark<\/a>, the Shark will only be a 2\/1, not a 6\/6.<\/p>\n Today’s Rules Tip written by Trevor Nunez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After a brief break for Tournament Tuesday, we’re back in Simic-Land for another neat card, . Mutation is the Simic entrant in the rare X spells cycle from Gatecrash, and it can be devastating. For X mana, plus 2 in any combination of green and blue, all your creatures become X\/X. So you pour 5 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[29,38],"tags":[909],"language":[1196],"class_list":["post-3022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-casting-playing-a-spell-ability","category-characteristics","tag-biomass-mutation","language-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3022"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4634,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3022\/revisions\/4634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3022"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=3022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}