{"id":5979,"date":"2016-01-26T22:34:06","date_gmt":"2016-01-27T06:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/?p=5979"},"modified":"2016-01-26T22:34:06","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T06:34:06","slug":"how-best-to-kill-a-wandering-fumarole-with-burn-spells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/2016\/01\/how-best-to-kill-a-wandering-fumarole-with-burn-spells\/","title":{"rendered":"How best to kill a Wandering Fumarole with burn spells."},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>Hello and welcome to another week of insightful tips on the Rules Tips blog! This week, we\u2019re going to take a look at the denizens of Zendikar in Oath of the Gatewatch. And where better to begin than with the land itself? Wandering Fumarole<\/a> (along with its compatriots Needle Spires<\/a> and Hissing Quagmire<\/a>) complete the long-awaited enemy-color cycle of \u201ccreature lands,\u201d which each have an activated ability that turns them into a creature until end of turn. Even among this elite class, the Fumarole is special in that it has another activated ability once it\u2019s animated. This ability switches its power and toughness. In the \u201clayer\u201d system that governs how big each creature ends up, switching always applies last. Say you activate each ability once. The Fumarole will become a \u00bc, then a 4\/1. If you activate the animation ability again, the Fumarole will not become a 1\/4, because the switching ability still goes last. However, you can hit the switch again and it\u2019ll swap back to a \u00bc, overwriting the previous switch. You can keep flip-flopping between 1\/4 and 4\/1 as much as you like, since this ability costs no mana.<\/p>\n

In addition to being a better attacker or blocker in combat, this ability is a pretty nifty way to dodge removal! For instance, in response to a Complete Disregard on your 1\/4, you can make the Fumarole a 4\/1, leaving it too big to be Disregarded. The same trick applies to spells that care about a creature\u2019s toughness, like Reality Hemorrhage<\/a>. Trying to burn that 4\/1 won\u2019t have much effect when it can just switch back to a 1\/4.<\/p>\n

For those wondering how to get rid of the pesky Fumarole, the answer is that there\u2019s a specific window when it has its shields down. You want to cast your burn spell when the Fumarole is a 1\/4, and an activation of its switching ability is on the stack. At this time, if the Fumarole player lets the burn spell resolve, it\u2019ll do nothing… at first. Then the switch ability will take effect and make the Fumarole a 4\/1, which immediately dies due to having lethal damage on it. Activating the switch ability in response won\u2019t do much good, either, since if the Fumarole is a 4\/1 at the time the burn spell resolves, it\u2019ll die as soon as it\u2019s burned, and before its ability to switch back to a 1\/4 ever resolves. (However, this trick does not work with Complete Disregard<\/a>, as you need the Fumarole to be a legal target before you can even cast it.)<\/p>\n

Today’s Rules Tip written by Jen Wong<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re going to try to kill Wandering Fumarole with a burn spell that does 1-3 damage, your best bet is to do it in response to them turning it into a 4\/1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[108,29,38],"tags":[1283],"language":[1196],"class_list":["post-5979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activatedabilities","category-casting-playing-a-spell-ability","category-characteristics","tag-wandering-fumarole","language-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5979","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5980,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5979\/revisions\/5980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5979"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=5979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}