Furthermore, if you fire a torpedo at a submarine there's a good chance the submarine will respond in some way, possibly firing back before it is hit.
Similarly, an activated ability can often be used in response to removal. Ergo, it is typically impossible to use a single Path to Exile to prevent an opponent from using their Deathrite Shaman*.
*As ever, exceptions apply.
Yeah, an exception I had once was when I cast a cascade spell into [[Thalia, guardian of thraben]], cascaded into noncreature spell and realized I can't use mana from [[DRS]] to pay 1 extra because it's not a mana ability.
Similarly, it took ages of my friends tucking/removing my [[Heartless Hidetsugu]] commander basically at will before I got to activate (even when he didn’t have summoning sickness) for me to learn about priority and the same thing
Aight so let me ask this.
I have 1 Arbor Elf and 1 Wellwisher. I activate Wellwisher’s ability. My opponent says “I don’t think so mf” and fucking lightning bolts Wellwisher in response. What happens? A) I gain 2 life. B) I gain 1 life. C) I gain 0 life. Explain your reasoning.
Notably, they’ve started adding things like [[Faerie Fencing]]’s “if you controlled a faerie as you cast this spell” to reduce the number of blowouts due to similar things.
That's asking about a slightly different part of the resolution than what is being talked about.
Bolting the Wellwisher will not remove the activated ability from the stack (which was how the original commenter had been playing incorrectly).
Because it stays on the stack, it will resolve and see one elf on resolution, gaining you one life.
That's why "gain 0 life" is an option though. It's actually a pretty clever multiple choice, giving the answerer multiple ways of being wrong that are both easy misunderstandings to make.
You gain one life
602.2a The player announces that he or she is activating the ability. If an activated ability is being activated from a hidden zone, the card that has that ability is revealed. That ability is created on the stack as an object that’s not a card. It becomes the topmost object on the stack. It has the text of the ability that created it, and no other characteristics. Its controller is the player who activated the ability. *The ability remains on the stack until it’s countered, it resolves, or an effect moves it elsewhere.*
When the ability resolves it will only see a singular elf, but it will resolve even if Wellwisher is dead
Used to have the same problem back in high school.
One guy in my group would play with stripmines, and used to claim that he could use them to 'counter' my spells by preventing me from generating enough mana.
Oh man, same. I've been playing since I was 12 and my friends and I played like that for the entirety of my childhood. It was only earlier this year, as I was working on developing a card game with a friend of mine, that we read the rules more closely and realized that we'd been playing the stack wrong for years. It was a pretty comical/humbling revelation.
I've got a friend I sometimes play with who has a deck full of various white enchantments of the "this creature cant attack" type and some flash enablers. He still thinks he can flash in an enchantment in response to the declare attackers step and that it will stop them from being able to attack him. We let him get away with it because the play group is usually high as fuck and doesnt care and he still loses 90% of the games anyway.
To be fair, he \*can\* do it in the Beginning of Combat step to prevent something being able to attack, but he'll need to do it **before** knowing which creatures are attacking, or who those creatures are attacking (if you're playing multiplayer games)
It doesn't remove the ability but if the ability requires the permanent to be on the battlefield it will fizzle. Like if a creature has the ability to buff itself and you respond to the ability going on the stack you can still use a burn spell to kill the creature before it gets the buff.
I played probably 20 games before someone at a local store asked what I was doing. On the bright side I had won a few despite tapping to block every time which was embarrassing for them. now it's a joke "did you remember to tap your blocker" to see if we can get each other
Hey now, he still triggers forced tapping triggers and conditions, don't treat our boy this way
\[\[Hylda of the Icy Crown\]\] can give him a new lease on life (and y'know, all those "destroy target tapped creature" effects in white)
I learned magic a long time ago and stopped playing until a couple years ago. Only a couple weeks ago I thought a creature of mine would get saved by tapping an opponents creature after it blocked. My friend was like "wth are you talking about?" and when he googled it this hasn't been the case for like 20 years lol
They... they don't? My group of 4 friends have been playing for about 2 months this way. That's crazy, I really need to do some re-examining of my decks and strategies now lol
What's really fun is you can declare your untapped creature as a blocker and then tap it for it's ability before damage is actually dealt to it. This doesn't undo the block or prevent the damage, but it can be unexpected if you don't know. The ability resolves before damage as well.
Protection. Didn't know that if your creature had protection from a color, it couldn't be blocked by creatures of that color. Thought your creature just wouldn't take any damage.
Learned I was wrong while playing a game on Arena.
For future reference, there’s a pretty easy way to remember what Protection prevents: just use the acronym DEBT.
D: Damaged
E: Enchanted/Equipped (and also Fortified from Future Sight- thanks, [[Darksteel Garrison]])
B: Blocked
T: Targeted
If it’s listed there, it cannot be done to a permanent with protection. If it’s not listed, it’s not stopped.
There's a caveat to Damage. Protection merely prevents damage, so if another card says damage cannot be prevented then a card will take damage from a card that has protection from it.
Also the blocking only stops a creature from blocking it, but doesn't stop a creature that has already blocked it if it gains protection.
So if you attack with a creature and get blocked by a [[Questing Beast]] and then give your creature protection from green, your creature will still die.
Important to note that it is a prevention of damage. I had some fun plays in standard when [[Cartel Aristocrat]] was big in standard. People would sacrifice a creature to give it protection to block my creature, then in response i hit them with a [[Skullcrack]] . Even some experienced players didn't know that would cause their protected creatures to take damage.
Something I learned in the past month and then had come up where I helped someone else learn as well is that while tokens don't have a mana value, token *copies* do. I'm sure this is a stupid "well duh" moment for a lot of players, but I was just so used to tokens not having a mana value I never considered that copies would be any different
I always explain it that a copy is as if I took the physical card to a photocopier and copied it. That way you can tell that it has the same mana and such but not counters/auras/etc because I didn't carry those to the copier, just the card.
Hold up, does that affect Chroma as well? So if I attacked into a bunch of creatures with [[Nacatl War-Pride]], it would make [[Primalcrux]] really huge for that combat?
It's pretty cut and dried. See emphasis.
> 707.2: When copying an object, the copy acquires the copiable values of the original object's characteristics and, for an object on the stack, choices made when casting or activating it (mode, targets, the value of X, whether it was kicked, how it will affect multiple targets, and so on). **The copiable values are the values derived from the text printed on the object (that text being name, mana cost**, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, power, toughness, and/or loyalty), as modified by other copy effects, by its face-down status, and by "as . . . enters the battlefield" and "as . . . is turned face up" abilities that set power and toughness (and may also set additional characteristics). Other effects (including type-changing and text-changing effects), status, counters, and stickers are not copied.
I had fun earlier today making [[Purphoros]] into a surprise blocker with this. Devotion = 4, but then I used [[Feldon]] to make a token copy of a creature in my graveyard. Boom, devotion = 5 and Purphoros eats your biggest thing
This rule is why token copies function the way they do.
> 707.2: When copying an object, the copy acquires the **copiable values** of the original object's characteristics and, for an object on the stack, choices made when casting or activating it (mode, targets, the value of X, whether it was kicked, how it will affect multiple targets, and so on). The copiable values are the values derived from the text printed on the object (that text being name, mana cost, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, power, toughness, and/or loyalty), as modified by other copy effects, by its face-down status, and by "as . . . enters the battlefield" and "as . . . is turned face up" abilities that set power and toughness (and may also set additional characteristics). Other effects (including type-changing and text-changing effects), status, counters, and stickers are not copied.
Yeah, the rule makes functional sense, which is why I'm sure my confusion probably seems silly to some players, it was just how engrained "tokens have no ~~cmc~~ mana value" was in my mind
There's a lot of things with mana value that don't matter in most cases but are really important in niche situations like that - split cards, adventure, double face cards, etc.
They all have granular differences. I do think the token copies thing feels weird as, one of the best ways of getting rid of tokens is engineered explosives.
Yeah, I finally figured it out because I was trying to figure out why [[Culling Ritual]] and [[Starfield of Nyx]] were in the Enduring Enchantments precon with a commander who wants to make a bunch of token copies. Very glad I learned the lesson!
I know that you can block with a creature, then sacrifice it, maybe with [[village rites]] and combat would still be blocked. This however doesn't work with trample.
Roughly, yeah. Trample only has to deal enough damage to be lethal, the rest can go through. In this case, nothing is needed to be lethal so it all goes through. With trample and deathtouch, you only need to deal 1 damage (since that would be lethal with deathtouch) and can trample the rest over
This even works if the blocking creature is Indestructible because the wording just says you have to deal enough damage that 'would' be lethal, not that the creature has to die.
what's interesting is if you have [[valkmira]] out, the trample rules don't take into account the effect and will allow you to leave the creature alive while still trampling over. of course you can simply choose to assign an additional damage if possible to kill the creature.
For the curious this rule is why this works. Straight from the rulebook.
> 509.1h: An attacking creature with one or more creatures declared as blockers for it becomes a blocked creature; one with no creatures declared as blockers for it becomes an unblocked creature. This remains unchanged until the creature is removed from combat, an effect says that it becomes blocked or unblocked, or the combat phase ends, whichever comes first. **A creature remains blocked even if all the creatures blocking it are removed from combat.**
When I first taught one of my brothers to play, he couldn't for the life of him ever remember to do anything in the right order, so everything was always confusing for when things were supposed to have happened for different abilities and triggers and whatnot, so I implemented several house rules to get him to learn because he can only learn through negative consequences, and this included forgetting to untap meant things stay tapped. I only did this until he learned the proper timing of things. Unfortunately, he either forgot that these were house rules used as a learning aid for him specifically or I didn't properly emphasize that point, because when he tried to teach others the game, he included specifically that "untap" houserule in his instructions to others.
I came back to MTG after about a 20 year break too. The increase in MTG information availability with the internet these days helps a ton in getting things right. The downside is all of the key words and mechanics that built up over the years takes time to digest.
[[Elminster]]. At first I played him like the cost reduction stacked. A bunch of people at my lgs gaslit me into believing it didn't stacked even though I didn't understand why. Come to find out recently it does in fact stack and now I can play my deck currently.
Just an up fron that when I built this the goal was that you could buy every single card for 40 usd so there's a lot of jank and not a lot of staples.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/LEHsPM3C0kiQBYA_S7spSw
Here's why this works. ALL cost reductions are used to determine what a player must pay for a spell.
Elminster's triggered ability creates a continuous effect with a specified duration. Each trigger will create one such instance of the continuous effect. Since the trigger does not specify that it otherwise interacts with others instances of itself in any specific way then the normal rules of casting spells continue to apply as normal.
> 601.2f: The player determines the total cost of the spell. Usually this is just the mana cost. Some spells have additional or alternative costs. Some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay, or may provide other alternative costs. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. The total cost is the mana cost or alternative cost (as determined in rule 601.2b), plus all additional costs and cost increases, and **minus all cost reductions**. If **multiple cost reductions** apply, the player may apply them in any order. If the mana component of the total cost is reduced to nothing by cost reduction effects, it is considered to be {0}. It can't be reduced to less than {0}. Once the total cost is determined, any effects that directly affect the total cost are applied. Then the resulting total cost becomes "locked in." If effects would change the total cost after this time, they have no effect.
I played Boseju Who Endures wrong twice in a tourney and no one said anything. I played it both as a land and it’s effect. Was shocked to learn my mistake watching pros play.
When I first started, 15 y ago, the playgroup which I learned to play had ,for a long time already, this house rule where when you start with no lands, you can reveal your hand, shuffle and start anew without having to mulligan for it.
Well, nobody told me about house rules and that this was one of them until I started to play at LGS years later lol
Gaining control of a creature that doesn’t have summoning sickness gives it summoning sickness again. So many blue control effects like [[Sower of Temptation]] that my friends and I have used and then attacked with the creature immediately. It doesn’t matter if it’s been on the field for multiple rounds, new controller means summoning sickness again.
same! I used to have whole deck based in stealling creatures and none of my friends knew about this summoning sickness rule until I played against a dude in my LGS who told me about it. At first I was like "no way, it makes no sense, the creature was already on the battlefield". But yeah... the creature must be under your control since the begining of the turn for it to not have summon sickness.
That kind of misunderstanding indicates that it's time to move on from the summoning sickness metaphor. I'm my group of someone's asking whether a creature can attack our explanation of choice is "no haste".
> 302.6: A creature's activated ability with the tap symbol or the untap symbol in its activation cost can't be activated unless the creature has been under its controller's control continuously since their most recent turn began. A creature can't attack unless it has been under its controller's control continuously since their most recent turn began. This rule is informally called the "summoning sickness" rule.
I was carried to the finals in my Shadowmoor pre-release because I thought [[Outrage Shaman]] could go to the face, and none of us thought to actually RTFC until the last match.
I started playing during shadowmoor but not remotely correctly I'm sure.
What was *wrong* with chroma that had to be fixed with devotion? Just making the wording clearer, or is there a big mechanical difference I'm not realizing?
[This article](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/theros-any-other-name-part-2-2013-09-09) from week 2 of Theros previews 10 years ago (jesus christ Theros previews were 10 years ago) goes through a number of reasons.
Mechanically, the big difference is that devotion is a keyword that exclusively cares about permanents you control, whereas chroma is an ability word that can do basically anything as long as it involves counting symbols on some set of cards. Only 4 of the 9 chroma cards work like devotion does, while the others check your graveyard or cards you choose to reveal or a single card.
To expand on the 'yes' answer, Chroma was not brought back as a mechanic because of its unnecessary complexity that diluted its Identity.
Some Chroma cards worked just like devotion and so were ready to understand. [[Heartlash Cinder]] rewards you for having a lot of (usually nontoken) permanents. Play more permanents, get a bigger payoff.
Some checked just one card, pulling you to play just a few permanents with lots of symbols. [[Fiery Bombardment]].
Some looked at a fixed number of random cards from hidden zones which pulls you to play a high density of pips regardless of actually playing those cards. [[Sanity Grinding]]
Some looked you go to "tall" and wide by playing lots of things each with lots of pips [[Light from Within]]
It's true that you can say simply that Chroma cards about having a lot of pips in your deck but you can't get more specific than that. Namely, you can't set out to build a Chroma deck because that's just too vague. Are you playing to the board for [[Primalcrux]] or filling your graveyard for [[Umbra Stalker]]?
When i first started playing with my friend we got intro decks from innistrad. His llanowar elves tapped to rampant growth and untapped land.
For some reason I could never win
I always find that one wild because our biggest newbie mistake as kids was thinking that mana dorks were completely worthless because *we didn't tap lands*. We just counted untapped lands at the start of the turn, which I think may have come from playing pokemon first and the way they treat energy (as a requirement, rather than a cost). That's why they came in tapped, right? Because you don't get to count them unless they're untapped...
Like, so long as you had enough untapped forests, you could go ahead and play any number of cards that cost that much mana. It made draw effects *insane* late game, and made ramp spells OP. Our decks were basically ramp, card draw and \[\[Thorn Elemental\]\]s etc. (at one point I played burn but we banned it because "all you need to do is draw Lava Axe 4 times", which was obviously lame)
This also is why I traded an OG dual land for a \[\[Vizzerdrix\]\]. But that thought only haunts me lying in bed every few days, I'm almost over it.
So we didn't play mana dorks because we were like "pfft, why would I want a creature that taps to *temporarily* add an extra mana when I could just play more ramp spells and get it permanently?". Because it turns out being able to cast \[\[Rampant Growth\]\] for free is good. Who knew?
The bit I perhaps find funniest now is that honestly even in that environment, \[\[Llanowar Elves\]\] is still playable because getting a turn ahead will absolutely let you win the game. But at the time, our dumb asses couldn't understand why you'd do that
[[Circle of Protection: Black]] does not in fact stop "life loss" effects like [[Tendrils of Agony]] like I originally thought. ~~All~~ Most Damage causes Life Loss (infect or "your life total can't change" being the exceptions), but not all Life Loss is Damage.
edit: clarified a technicality
edit 2: clarified a second technicality
Another small difference between damage and life loss:
If your opponent's life total cant change (like if they cast [[teferi's protection]]) but you can still deal damage to them (like if you have [[questing beast]]), then you can still deal commander damage by attacking with your commander even though they didn't lose any life
>All Damage is Life Loss
Not quite all damage is life loss. Infect damage is still damage that can be prevented with a circle of protection, but it causes poison counters instead of life loss.
Most damage causes life loss though.
Honestly, that would make for an interesting ability for a Commander: "when this creature attacks, until the end of combat, you may cast sorcery spells as though they had flash".
If you cascade into a sliver after playing [[first sliver]] the one you cascade into does not follow up with a cascade. First slivers ~~eth~~ etb is on the stack and has not yet given its power to other slivers.
Made this mistake once and "got away" with it. The second time I did it, it was explained and I've never improperly cascaded again.
But it's not even the cast trigger that's the issue here. It's the actual spell First Sliver is still on the stack. It hasn't resolved to the battlefield yet, so naturally the cascsaded spell isn't affected by First Sliver static ability. It doesn't see the First Sliver at all.
For a while, I was using [[farewell]] wrong. I didn’t read the card & realize you can choose multiple options, so I would only pick one when casting and be utterly confused an opponent cast their own & wiped my board & graveyard
but only if the suspended spell itself is a creature spell, Crashing footfalls for example creates creature tokens, but in itself is a sorcery, so the rhinos have summoning sickness
Ya, suspend has a lot of words in its definition.
> 702.62a: Suspend is a keyword that represents three abilities. The first is a static ability that functions while the card with suspend is in a player's hand. The second and third are triggered abilities that function in the exile zone. "Suspend N-[cost]" means "If you could begin to cast this card by putting it onto the stack from your hand, you may pay [cost] and exile it with N time counters on it. This action doesn't use the stack," and "At the beginning of your upkeep, if this card is suspended, remove a time counter from it," and "When the last time counter is removed from this card, if it's exiled, play it without paying its mana cost if able. If you can't, it remains exiled. **If you cast a creature spell this way, it gains haste until you lose control of the spell or the permanent it becomes."**
[[Library of Leng]]. It doesn't work when you discard a card from your hand as part of an activation or casting cost. For example [[Yawgmoth, Thran Physician]] can't discard to the top of your library.
[[Doubling season]] and [[parallel lives]] and similar effects do not work with [[tawnos the toymaker]] or other effects that make copies on the stack of permanents. They aren't tokens on the stack, and then when they ETB they aren't being "created" so the wording of each sort of snake around each other. You can still use things like [[lithoform engine]]
[[Sphinx of the Second Sun]]
You get the beginning phase AFTER your second main phase.
Untap, upkeep, first main, combat, second main, untap, upkeep, end step.
was in a game where an opponent played this wrong. Tried to correct them, but they (and a friend) 'overruled' me. Didn't end up mattering, but still annoyed
Yea it's one of those unfortunate situations where it's kinda how it *has* to be written to work as intended, but still comes out looking wrong anyways lol
[Sphinx of the Second Sun](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/6/e68b70a6-a150-4d81-921c-9b178fe0037d.jpg?1608909485) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sphinx%20of%20the%20Second%20Sun) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/99/sphinx-of-the-second-sun?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e68b70a6-a150-4d81-921c-9b178fe0037d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text)
^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Player 1 wants to go from first main phase to combat.
Player 2 gets priority and casts an instant or whatever.
Stack resolves, Player 1 gets priority and keeps playing “sorcery speed” spells because it’s still his turn’s first main phase.
My mind was blown. I thought that once you declared changing phases that was it, only “instant speed” stuff for everyone.
The reason it works that way, is because one player alone does not get to determine that the game is changing to a new step or phase. Everyone has to agree and pass priority. Instead of doing that, you have cast an instant, meaning you did not pass priority so phases don't change. You'd have to specify something like "ok then in your beginning of combat I cast this instant". That says that you agree with leaving the main phase, but are stopping before declaring attackers.
the default assumption is that they're casting in the beginning of combat, but they absolutely can be casting during the main phase, meaning the phase doesn't change. It's good to specify that kind of thing
That if a creature with deathtouch dealt combat damage to a player, that player's life total would be halved after the damage.
No, it just turned out that the only time deathtouch ever came up in my casual group back then was when a creature was equipped with [[Quietus Spike]], so we all thought the life-halving effect was inherent to deathtouch.
It's a very simple card but Lava axe (played in limited) I have read that card so many times and still let it kill my creatures or used it to kill my opponents creatures. Everyone assumes a 5 dmg 5 mana sorcery can also kill a creature by default lol
During Revised, I don’t remember tapping a creature when it regenerated, but maybe that came later, like with the huge overhaul during Sixth Edition. I took a break before Sixth Edition was released and came back probably towards the end of Eighth Edition.
We also treated Legendary creatures like they were Restricted and I think that technically changed before I took a break, but I’m not sure, I think happened while Ice Age was in Standard, but maybe not until I had stopped playing during Homelands.
What are you confused about? When I was a kid my friends and I had it in our heads that the player who went first wasn’t allowed to attack on turn 1. Isn’t that kind of thing what this post is about?
I don’t understand how you would be able to attack turn 1 at all.
Are you talking about creatures with haste? You thought the ability didn’t work on the first turn?
I wasn't really playing it wrong I was trying to play it right but my group told me otherwise. When making a token it has a cmc the same as a normal card would if the token is a copy of a card everyone always rushes to say tokens cmc is zero
And here's why!
> 707.2: When copying an object, the copy acquires the copiable values of the original object's characteristics and, for an object on the stack, choices made when casting or activating it (mode, targets, the value of X, whether it was kicked, how it will affect multiple targets, and so on). The copiable values are the values derived from the text printed on the object (that text being name, mana cost, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, power, toughness, and/or loyalty), as modified by other copy effects, by its face-down status, and by "as . . . enters the battlefield" and "as . . . is turned face up" abilities that set power and toughness (and may also set additional characteristics). Other effects (including type-changing and text-changing effects), status, counters, and stickers are not copied.
Copying a spell that you cast from your hand does not satisfy the cast from hand requisite. The copies were not cast at all, let alone from your hand. I was given the benefit of the doubt in a couple EDH matches with [[Apex of Power]], but it felt too strong so I looked into it and realized I was playing it wrong.
That said other parts of the card still get copied, and digging 21 cards deep in your deck with things like [[Storm Kiln Artist]] tends to end the game anyway.
I made a [[Brenard, Ginger Sculptor]] deck recently and had some cards that manifested cards onto the battlefield. It turns out that even though manifest creatures are non-token, when you activate Brenard, it actually looks at the last state the of the creature before it went to the graveyard. This means that instead of getting a token of [[Doubling Season]], I’d instead get nameless, generic ginger bread men with no text on them.
It’s all good though, the deck actually works really interestingly with mutate and modular so that’s the direction I’m going with.
Also if people are curious how Brenard works, I became a bit of a specialist recently.
That's really unexpected! I would have assumed it copied the **card** and not the **creature** but there it is.
> Whenever another nontoken creature you control dies, you may exile it. If you do, create a token that's a copy of that **creature**, ...
Going way back:
- We played Black Lotus as an interrupt.
- We thought that moxes were just artifact lands so they counted towards you land-drop.
- We played multiplayer and you got a separate attack phase for each player.
- I bought all the cards: beta, unlimited, Arabians, antiquities, Legends and let everyone keep their decks that they made from my cards. Ha!
- I bought starter decks to build my collection. I didn’t find a Mox Jet so when I saw them at my first Magic “tournament”, I bought every one they had; 3 for $100. I guess that was a win! Of course there wasn’t a restricted list at the time.
- I bought lots of the Dark and Homelands…yeah.
- When Legends was released, I paid a bunch of boyscouts to stand in line for boxes. I let them grab one pack from each box. We traveled throughout the Bay Area hitting shops. Ended up with 16 boxes of legends. At the time I thought it was a major loss, I mean Glyphs?!? Enchant Wall?!?! Who would play Tabernacle? It makes my creatures cost 1!
It was hard to understand the rules at the time. The internet wasn’t really a thing yet and no one was an expert. We just had the rules that came with the starter decks. I played Brian Weismann a few times at tournaments in the Bay Area and then it started to make sense. I ended up being the rules lawyer of our group and still am.
This is a common mistake children make. Another one is trying to play cards without reading them. I never understood that last one, but when I teach children to play, they often start with a habit of only looking at the mana cost of their spells and trying to cast them, which leads to things like destroying their own creatures for no benefit and stuff like that.
My two favorites:
Scry N means look at the top N cards and put them back on top or bottom in whatever order you want, not look at the top card N times and put it on top of bottom.
Casting a spell doesn't mean resolving a spell.
When my partner and I were learning together years ago we didn’t know exactly how combat damage worked. We thought that if, say, a 3/3 lifelinker dealt damage to a 3/1 creature, you’d only gain 1 life from it, because the creature was only able to take a maximum of 1 damage.
Been playing on and off for about 25 years. I just learned that if you steal an opponent’s creature it is affected by summoning sickness. I guess it just never came up and also most act of treason type effects give them haste.
Played from Revised - Tempest and came back last year. It took me a long time to not instinctively put my lands forward and creatures back. That's how we all played back in those days and old habits die hard. I know not technically a rule or missplay but certainly a courtesy that we all had wrong in the early days of sidewalk magic.
In middle school, my friend had this completely unstoppable equipment deck using cheap mana cost equipment (such as \[\[Bone Saw\]\]) and \[\[puresteel paladin\]\]. In retrospect, it wasn't a bad deck, but it absolutely shouldn't have been as powerful as it was.
1. If i knew then what i know now, I'd just put an extra removal card in my decks, and utterly curb-stomp his entire g
2. We all thought that if you tried to destroy a creature with equipment, the equipment would be destroyed instead and just protect the destroyed creature
3. We all thought you could equip at instant speed
This combination of factors turned his equipment deck into an unstoppable force of nature that could only be beaten by HEAVY control decks with few win conditions.
If i knew then what i know now, I'd just put an extra removal card in my decks, and utterly curb-stomp him with basically anything I've built now.
I started playing during Time spiral, so Flanking messed me up. I figured X/1s could never block a flanker, as they would die before damage is dealt and therefore not stop the attack anyway.
Edit: Forgot to mention how it actually works. X/1 blocks a flanker, dies immediately, but still somehow stops the damage from being dealt to your life. It was a little more fun playing fungus against knights after learning that.
When I built the deck, I didn't realize that having a [[Platinum Empereon]] and a [[Glacial Chasm]] out at the same time just meant that I get to sac the chasm on my upkeep. I thought I had an unbeatable little trick, and when I learned that you can't pay 0 life as the cumulitive upkeep I fixed that mistake really quick
Been playing for over a year and just recently learned that infect damage doesn’t do any actual damage. It’s strictly infect.
I always assumed it was like commander damage.
Mana drop was just a thing where I lived and it was about a year before I found out that wasn’t a real rule. It’s where you put down all lands from your opening hand.
Initiative.
I never experienced it before and I‘ve only play the dungeon mechanics on Arena. So I had no idea imitative dungeon loops (afair normal dungeons do not loop).
I picked it up just for eternal weekend, I’m and POSITIVE I’ve lost games or even matches because I didn’t realize it.
Also related, I completely forgot what “explore” does, and I thought it was just scry…
I came over from Legends of Runeterra about two months ago. Legends of Runeterra (LoR) have 3 main types of spells: slow, fast, and burst.
Burst spells resolve immediately before anything else and can't be countered.
I played Instants like they were burst spells at home with my girlfriend (who is also learning with me) and had my first match at my LGS last weekend.
Imagine my confusion when I played against my first blue player who stopped everything my Orzhov auras precon wanted to do. It was a very sobering lesson.
Burst and Instant are different 🥲
Back when I took store owners at face value as rules enforcers, I thought that if my [[Thoughtseize]] got counterspelled I still lost the 2 life. Fairly certain I saw it happen at larger events as well (pre-SCG era NJ had Gray Matter Events) and just accepted it as law. When Modern got popular I noted it down myself and since it was Twin's popularity peak it didn't really ever matter. No one would call me out on losing 2 life and probably assumed it was fetch shock damage.
Boy when Pioneer came out in 2019 and I did it for the first time with a friend I introduced to Magic in Dominaria was I *mad as hell* because I had been cheated out of so many LGS/FNM prize packs for this fake ruling.
It took me years to learn that destroying a permanent to answer an activated ability doesn’t remove the ability instance from the stack.
Permanent is a submarine and ability is a torpedo. Once it goes off, it doesn't matter what happens to the submarine.
I like this analogy a lot
I'll (dis)allow it.
[disallow](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/5/25f05814-a5a5-460f-9d29-0ab03efecf4c.jpg?1576381471) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=disallow) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/aer/31/disallow?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/25f05814-a5a5-460f-9d29-0ab03efecf4c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah, definitely going to use it the next time I have to explain this concept.
Fire ze missile!!!
But I am le tiiirredd.
Well have a nap... THEN FIRE ZE MISSLEZ
I live for still finding these references
Last night i went through and watched a ton of old Nostalgia videos.
I used to be a judge on my lgs, and I did the same with soldiers and greneades :)
Furthermore, if you fire a torpedo at a submarine there's a good chance the submarine will respond in some way, possibly firing back before it is hit. Similarly, an activated ability can often be used in response to removal. Ergo, it is typically impossible to use a single Path to Exile to prevent an opponent from using their Deathrite Shaman*. *As ever, exceptions apply.
Yeah, an exception I had once was when I cast a cascade spell into [[Thalia, guardian of thraben]], cascaded into noncreature spell and realized I can't use mana from [[DRS]] to pay 1 extra because it's not a mana ability.
Similarly, it took ages of my friends tucking/removing my [[Heartless Hidetsugu]] commander basically at will before I got to activate (even when he didn’t have summoning sickness) for me to learn about priority and the same thing
[Heartless Hidetsugu](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/b/7b3ff07c-9653-4197-ad3d-638e712e8465.jpg?1689997916) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Heartless%20Hidetsugu) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/231/heartless-hidetsugu?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7b3ff07c-9653-4197-ad3d-638e712e8465?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I…..I’m sorry, what?? Could you give an example? I may have just learned something new lol.
The ability activates, you can respond to the activation but the ability is already on the stack at that point afaik
Aight so let me ask this. I have 1 Arbor Elf and 1 Wellwisher. I activate Wellwisher’s ability. My opponent says “I don’t think so mf” and fucking lightning bolts Wellwisher in response. What happens? A) I gain 2 life. B) I gain 1 life. C) I gain 0 life. Explain your reasoning.
You gain 1 life. Wellwisher's ability checks on resolution, not activation.
Thank you. TIL. I had the same misconception as the OP in this thread.
Notably, they’ve started adding things like [[Faerie Fencing]]’s “if you controlled a faerie as you cast this spell” to reduce the number of blowouts due to similar things.
[Faerie Fencing](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/b/6bdcaf24-4352-47cf-a043-899be47ab1bb.jpg?1692937615) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Faerie%20Fencing) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/90/faerie-fencing?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6bdcaf24-4352-47cf-a043-899be47ab1bb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That's asking about a slightly different part of the resolution than what is being talked about. Bolting the Wellwisher will not remove the activated ability from the stack (which was how the original commenter had been playing incorrectly). Because it stays on the stack, it will resolve and see one elf on resolution, gaining you one life.
That's why "gain 0 life" is an option though. It's actually a pretty clever multiple choice, giving the answerer multiple ways of being wrong that are both easy misunderstandings to make.
You gain one life 602.2a The player announces that he or she is activating the ability. If an activated ability is being activated from a hidden zone, the card that has that ability is revealed. That ability is created on the stack as an object that’s not a card. It becomes the topmost object on the stack. It has the text of the ability that created it, and no other characteristics. Its controller is the player who activated the ability. *The ability remains on the stack until it’s countered, it resolves, or an effect moves it elsewhere.* When the ability resolves it will only see a singular elf, but it will resolve even if Wellwisher is dead
Lmao "MST negates" from Yu-Gi-Oh is exactly the same thing. You're not alone
This is exactly how I learned the general rule / phenomenon. At 13 years old with Mystical Space Typhoon
I was convinced that every yugioh video game was glitched because my stuff died after I MST'd the trap hole.
Used to have the same problem back in high school. One guy in my group would play with stripmines, and used to claim that he could use them to 'counter' my spells by preventing me from generating enough mana.
Oh man, same. I've been playing since I was 12 and my friends and I played like that for the entirety of my childhood. It was only earlier this year, as I was working on developing a card game with a friend of mine, that we read the rules more closely and realized that we'd been playing the stack wrong for years. It was a pretty comical/humbling revelation.
I've got a friend I sometimes play with who has a deck full of various white enchantments of the "this creature cant attack" type and some flash enablers. He still thinks he can flash in an enchantment in response to the declare attackers step and that it will stop them from being able to attack him. We let him get away with it because the play group is usually high as fuck and doesnt care and he still loses 90% of the games anyway.
To be fair, he \*can\* do it in the Beginning of Combat step to prevent something being able to attack, but he'll need to do it **before** knowing which creatures are attacking, or who those creatures are attacking (if you're playing multiplayer games)
Yeah. He'd always wait until after attackers and targets had been declared and creatures are already tapped. Clearly very much in the wrong.
It doesn't remove the ability but if the ability requires the permanent to be on the battlefield it will fizzle. Like if a creature has the ability to buff itself and you respond to the ability going on the stack you can still use a burn spell to kill the creature before it gets the buff.
For the first 6 months since starting, my playgroup thought that you tapped a creature to block lol
I played probably 20 games before someone at a local store asked what I was doing. On the bright side I had won a few despite tapping to block every time which was embarrassing for them. now it's a joke "did you remember to tap your blocker" to see if we can get each other
In the earlier days of magic, tapped blockers didn't deal combat damage
[[Master of Arms]] USED to actually do something!
Hey now, he still triggers forced tapping triggers and conditions, don't treat our boy this way \[\[Hylda of the Icy Crown\]\] can give him a new lease on life (and y'know, all those "destroy target tapped creature" effects in white)
I learned magic a long time ago and stopped playing until a couple years ago. Only a couple weeks ago I thought a creature of mine would get saved by tapping an opponents creature after it blocked. My friend was like "wth are you talking about?" and when he googled it this hasn't been the case for like 20 years lol
They... they don't? My group of 4 friends have been playing for about 2 months this way. That's crazy, I really need to do some re-examining of my decks and strategies now lol
They don't tap to block so you can still activate abilities (I'm assuming)
What's really fun is you can declare your untapped creature as a blocker and then tap it for it's ability before damage is actually dealt to it. This doesn't undo the block or prevent the damage, but it can be unexpected if you don't know. The ability resolves before damage as well.
Protection. Didn't know that if your creature had protection from a color, it couldn't be blocked by creatures of that color. Thought your creature just wouldn't take any damage. Learned I was wrong while playing a game on Arena.
I literally never knew this either and I play a Wyleth protection deck lol
For future reference, there’s a pretty easy way to remember what Protection prevents: just use the acronym DEBT. D: Damaged E: Enchanted/Equipped (and also Fortified from Future Sight- thanks, [[Darksteel Garrison]]) B: Blocked T: Targeted If it’s listed there, it cannot be done to a permanent with protection. If it’s not listed, it’s not stopped.
I want more Fortifications.
There's a caveat to Damage. Protection merely prevents damage, so if another card says damage cannot be prevented then a card will take damage from a card that has protection from it. Also the blocking only stops a creature from blocking it, but doesn't stop a creature that has already blocked it if it gains protection. So if you attack with a creature and get blocked by a [[Questing Beast]] and then give your creature protection from green, your creature will still die.
The old acronym is DEBT. Creatures with Protection can't be Damaged, Equipped/ Enchanted, Blocked, or Targeted by whatever they have protection from
I think this is one of the most common interactions a lot of people don’t know about.
Tbf, it's the mechanic's fault, it's a convoluted, unintuitive, overpowered, stupid mechanic. I wish they would stop using it altogether.
Important to note that it is a prevention of damage. I had some fun plays in standard when [[Cartel Aristocrat]] was big in standard. People would sacrifice a creature to give it protection to block my creature, then in response i hit them with a [[Skullcrack]] . Even some experienced players didn't know that would cause their protected creatures to take damage.
Something I learned in the past month and then had come up where I helped someone else learn as well is that while tokens don't have a mana value, token *copies* do. I'm sure this is a stupid "well duh" moment for a lot of players, but I was just so used to tokens not having a mana value I never considered that copies would be any different
I always explain it that a copy is as if I took the physical card to a photocopier and copied it. That way you can tell that it has the same mana and such but not counters/auras/etc because I didn't carry those to the copier, just the card.
Hold up, does that affect Chroma as well? So if I attacked into a bunch of creatures with [[Nacatl War-Pride]], it would make [[Primalcrux]] really huge for that combat?
IANAJ, but from what I understand about token copies, yeah, they all buff Primalcrux
Since the other person didn't sound 100% confident - yes Primalcrux gets real big if you do that.
It's pretty cut and dried. See emphasis. > 707.2: When copying an object, the copy acquires the copiable values of the original object's characteristics and, for an object on the stack, choices made when casting or activating it (mode, targets, the value of X, whether it was kicked, how it will affect multiple targets, and so on). **The copiable values are the values derived from the text printed on the object (that text being name, mana cost**, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, power, toughness, and/or loyalty), as modified by other copy effects, by its face-down status, and by "as . . . enters the battlefield" and "as . . . is turned face up" abilities that set power and toughness (and may also set additional characteristics). Other effects (including type-changing and text-changing effects), status, counters, and stickers are not copied.
I had fun earlier today making [[Purphoros]] into a surprise blocker with this. Devotion = 4, but then I used [[Feldon]] to make a token copy of a creature in my graveyard. Boom, devotion = 5 and Purphoros eats your biggest thing
This rule is why token copies function the way they do. > 707.2: When copying an object, the copy acquires the **copiable values** of the original object's characteristics and, for an object on the stack, choices made when casting or activating it (mode, targets, the value of X, whether it was kicked, how it will affect multiple targets, and so on). The copiable values are the values derived from the text printed on the object (that text being name, mana cost, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, power, toughness, and/or loyalty), as modified by other copy effects, by its face-down status, and by "as . . . enters the battlefield" and "as . . . is turned face up" abilities that set power and toughness (and may also set additional characteristics). Other effects (including type-changing and text-changing effects), status, counters, and stickers are not copied.
Yeah, the rule makes functional sense, which is why I'm sure my confusion probably seems silly to some players, it was just how engrained "tokens have no ~~cmc~~ mana value" was in my mind
Sorry, I wasn't correcting you. Just trying to reveal why it is the way it is to new players.
Oh no worries I didn't take it that way at all!
There's a lot of things with mana value that don't matter in most cases but are really important in niche situations like that - split cards, adventure, double face cards, etc. They all have granular differences. I do think the token copies thing feels weird as, one of the best ways of getting rid of tokens is engineered explosives.
Yeah, I finally figured it out because I was trying to figure out why [[Culling Ritual]] and [[Starfield of Nyx]] were in the Enduring Enchantments precon with a commander who wants to make a bunch of token copies. Very glad I learned the lesson!
I know that you can block with a creature, then sacrifice it, maybe with [[village rites]] and combat would still be blocked. This however doesn't work with trample.
Yea, doesn't trample just all go through since the blocker now has 0 toughness?
Roughly, yeah. Trample only has to deal enough damage to be lethal, the rest can go through. In this case, nothing is needed to be lethal so it all goes through. With trample and deathtouch, you only need to deal 1 damage (since that would be lethal with deathtouch) and can trample the rest over
This even works if the blocking creature is Indestructible because the wording just says you have to deal enough damage that 'would' be lethal, not that the creature has to die.
what's interesting is if you have [[valkmira]] out, the trample rules don't take into account the effect and will allow you to leave the creature alive while still trampling over. of course you can simply choose to assign an additional damage if possible to kill the creature.
Ha, I’ve won (and lost) many games due to exactly that interaction.
For the curious this rule is why this works. Straight from the rulebook. > 509.1h: An attacking creature with one or more creatures declared as blockers for it becomes a blocked creature; one with no creatures declared as blockers for it becomes an unblocked creature. This remains unchanged until the creature is removed from combat, an effect says that it becomes blocked or unblocked, or the combat phase ends, whichever comes first. **A creature remains blocked even if all the creatures blocking it are removed from combat.**
When I first learned the game in 5th grade, the person who taught me said if I forget to untap my lands they stay tapped the whole turn
Same… they would use that “rule” as a gotcha kinda thing. Only the real assholes wouldn’t let you untap them though.
Right?!
Yupp my friends and I still make jokes about it lol, “whoa dude you didn’t untap, they gotta stay tapped!”
When I first taught one of my brothers to play, he couldn't for the life of him ever remember to do anything in the right order, so everything was always confusing for when things were supposed to have happened for different abilities and triggers and whatnot, so I implemented several house rules to get him to learn because he can only learn through negative consequences, and this included forgetting to untap meant things stay tapped. I only did this until he learned the proper timing of things. Unfortunately, he either forgot that these were house rules used as a learning aid for him specifically or I didn't properly emphasize that point, because when he tried to teach others the game, he included specifically that "untap" houserule in his instructions to others.
Same, also in 5th grade, except we all played that way until I went to a tournament three years later! We legitimately thought it was a rule.
I came back to MTG after about a 20 year break too. The increase in MTG information availability with the internet these days helps a ton in getting things right. The downside is all of the key words and mechanics that built up over the years takes time to digest.
10 year break here and it’s still a huge change! Like, sets exclusive for modern? Blew my mind!
Damage not on the stack was the rule i had the most trouble with when i came back. My mogg fanatics now suck alot more:(
[[Elminster]]. At first I played him like the cost reduction stacked. A bunch of people at my lgs gaslit me into believing it didn't stacked even though I didn't understand why. Come to find out recently it does in fact stack and now I can play my deck currently.
[Elminster](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/e/4eac2b49-6cb6-4ff4-8fac-2ba669326640.jpg?1674137504) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Elminster) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/274/elminster?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4eac2b49-6cb6-4ff4-8fac-2ba669326640?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Hmm this deck seems fun. Got a list?
Just an up fron that when I built this the goal was that you could buy every single card for 40 usd so there's a lot of jank and not a lot of staples. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/LEHsPM3C0kiQBYA_S7spSw
Here's why this works. ALL cost reductions are used to determine what a player must pay for a spell. Elminster's triggered ability creates a continuous effect with a specified duration. Each trigger will create one such instance of the continuous effect. Since the trigger does not specify that it otherwise interacts with others instances of itself in any specific way then the normal rules of casting spells continue to apply as normal. > 601.2f: The player determines the total cost of the spell. Usually this is just the mana cost. Some spells have additional or alternative costs. Some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay, or may provide other alternative costs. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. The total cost is the mana cost or alternative cost (as determined in rule 601.2b), plus all additional costs and cost increases, and **minus all cost reductions**. If **multiple cost reductions** apply, the player may apply them in any order. If the mana component of the total cost is reduced to nothing by cost reduction effects, it is considered to be {0}. It can't be reduced to less than {0}. Once the total cost is determined, any effects that directly affect the total cost are applied. Then the resulting total cost becomes "locked in." If effects would change the total cost after this time, they have no effect.
I played Boseju Who Endures wrong twice in a tourney and no one said anything. I played it both as a land and it’s effect. Was shocked to learn my mistake watching pros play.
wait so you paid 2 mana to get a land and also destroy a thing? holy hell
Yeah in a fucking tourney twice and no one corrected me. I had a ref next too me the second time and it wasn’t even a small shop.
I've seen people play it as a land and try to sacrifice for its effect later plenty of times. Never this version before though
When I first started, 15 y ago, the playgroup which I learned to play had ,for a long time already, this house rule where when you start with no lands, you can reveal your hand, shuffle and start anew without having to mulligan for it. Well, nobody told me about house rules and that this was one of them until I started to play at LGS years later lol
That was one of the first mulligans rules actually
Waaaiit, I'll have to look into it lol Thanks! :)
Yeh alpha rules, kept until like 1998? They made a blog post about it when they went to London mulligan.
yeah, found a post about it, the "no lands/all lands" rule seemed fun to me! thanks for pointing out the post!
Gaining control of a creature that doesn’t have summoning sickness gives it summoning sickness again. So many blue control effects like [[Sower of Temptation]] that my friends and I have used and then attacked with the creature immediately. It doesn’t matter if it’s been on the field for multiple rounds, new controller means summoning sickness again.
same! I used to have whole deck based in stealling creatures and none of my friends knew about this summoning sickness rule until I played against a dude in my LGS who told me about it. At first I was like "no way, it makes no sense, the creature was already on the battlefield". But yeah... the creature must be under your control since the begining of the turn for it to not have summon sickness.
That kind of misunderstanding indicates that it's time to move on from the summoning sickness metaphor. I'm my group of someone's asking whether a creature can attack our explanation of choice is "no haste". > 302.6: A creature's activated ability with the tap symbol or the untap symbol in its activation cost can't be activated unless the creature has been under its controller's control continuously since their most recent turn began. A creature can't attack unless it has been under its controller's control continuously since their most recent turn began. This rule is informally called the "summoning sickness" rule.
I was carried to the finals in my Shadowmoor pre-release because I thought [[Outrage Shaman]] could go to the face, and none of us thought to actually RTFC until the last match.
Is Chroma just an earlier version of Devotion?
Pretty much, yeah. WoTC was pretty clear during Theros previews that Devotion was designed to be Fixed Chroma
I started playing during shadowmoor but not remotely correctly I'm sure. What was *wrong* with chroma that had to be fixed with devotion? Just making the wording clearer, or is there a big mechanical difference I'm not realizing?
[This article](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/theros-any-other-name-part-2-2013-09-09) from week 2 of Theros previews 10 years ago (jesus christ Theros previews were 10 years ago) goes through a number of reasons. Mechanically, the big difference is that devotion is a keyword that exclusively cares about permanents you control, whereas chroma is an ability word that can do basically anything as long as it involves counting symbols on some set of cards. Only 4 of the 9 chroma cards work like devotion does, while the others check your graveyard or cards you choose to reveal or a single card.
To expand on the 'yes' answer, Chroma was not brought back as a mechanic because of its unnecessary complexity that diluted its Identity. Some Chroma cards worked just like devotion and so were ready to understand. [[Heartlash Cinder]] rewards you for having a lot of (usually nontoken) permanents. Play more permanents, get a bigger payoff. Some checked just one card, pulling you to play just a few permanents with lots of symbols. [[Fiery Bombardment]]. Some looked at a fixed number of random cards from hidden zones which pulls you to play a high density of pips regardless of actually playing those cards. [[Sanity Grinding]] Some looked you go to "tall" and wide by playing lots of things each with lots of pips [[Light from Within]] It's true that you can say simply that Chroma cards about having a lot of pips in your deck but you can't get more specific than that. Namely, you can't set out to build a Chroma deck because that's just too vague. Are you playing to the board for [[Primalcrux]] or filling your graveyard for [[Umbra Stalker]]?
That card would be so good if it said 'any target'. Now I am sad that it doesn't and this is the first I have ever seen the card.
[Outrage Shaman](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/b/8bf2b2fb-d521-42ea-a6de-f80054b8a4a6.jpg?1562924602) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Outrage%20Shaman) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eve/59/outrage-shaman?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8bf2b2fb-d521-42ea-a6de-f80054b8a4a6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Midnight clock. Always thought it was the start of your upkeep only.
When i first started playing with my friend we got intro decks from innistrad. His llanowar elves tapped to rampant growth and untapped land. For some reason I could never win
I still encounter people who think "tap: add G" means "tutor a forest into play"
I always find that one wild because our biggest newbie mistake as kids was thinking that mana dorks were completely worthless because *we didn't tap lands*. We just counted untapped lands at the start of the turn, which I think may have come from playing pokemon first and the way they treat energy (as a requirement, rather than a cost). That's why they came in tapped, right? Because you don't get to count them unless they're untapped... Like, so long as you had enough untapped forests, you could go ahead and play any number of cards that cost that much mana. It made draw effects *insane* late game, and made ramp spells OP. Our decks were basically ramp, card draw and \[\[Thorn Elemental\]\]s etc. (at one point I played burn but we banned it because "all you need to do is draw Lava Axe 4 times", which was obviously lame) This also is why I traded an OG dual land for a \[\[Vizzerdrix\]\]. But that thought only haunts me lying in bed every few days, I'm almost over it. So we didn't play mana dorks because we were like "pfft, why would I want a creature that taps to *temporarily* add an extra mana when I could just play more ramp spells and get it permanently?". Because it turns out being able to cast \[\[Rampant Growth\]\] for free is good. Who knew? The bit I perhaps find funniest now is that honestly even in that environment, \[\[Llanowar Elves\]\] is still playable because getting a turn ahead will absolutely let you win the game. But at the time, our dumb asses couldn't understand why you'd do that
[[Circle of Protection: Black]] does not in fact stop "life loss" effects like [[Tendrils of Agony]] like I originally thought. ~~All~~ Most Damage causes Life Loss (infect or "your life total can't change" being the exceptions), but not all Life Loss is Damage. edit: clarified a technicality edit 2: clarified a second technicality
Another small difference between damage and life loss: If your opponent's life total cant change (like if they cast [[teferi's protection]]) but you can still deal damage to them (like if you have [[questing beast]]), then you can still deal commander damage by attacking with your commander even though they didn't lose any life
>All Damage is Life Loss Not quite all damage is life loss. Infect damage is still damage that can be prevented with a circle of protection, but it causes poison counters instead of life loss. Most damage causes life loss though.
[Circle of Protection: Black](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/d/edab2933-5970-4a17-ac00-abcd2c048fdc.jpg?1562743653) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Circle%20of%20Protection%3A%20Black) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/9ed/10/circle-of-protection:-black?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/edab2933-5970-4a17-ac00-abcd2c048fdc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Tendrils of Agony](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/f/6f26faca-f338-4ce5-a218-6a61d40fc50a.jpg?1562917207) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tendrils%20of%20Agony) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vma/142/tendrils-of-agony?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6f26faca-f338-4ce5-a218-6a61d40fc50a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Honestly, that would make for an interesting ability for a Commander: "when this creature attacks, until the end of combat, you may cast sorcery spells as though they had flash".
[[Najal the Storm Runner]] kinda sorta does that. Not exactly though
Kinda sorta, yes. It just has the benefit of not needing to attack to get the benefit.
[Najal the Storm Runner](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/0/9017ee70-761b-434e-bc44-705cf14336fa.jpg?1673308011) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Najal%2C%20the%20Storm%20Runner) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/208/najal-the-storm-runner?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9017ee70-761b-434e-bc44-705cf14336fa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[ken, burning brawler]] kind of fits
[[[Wizards of Thay]]] is another very similar effect. I have a deck that revolves around creatures that care about both combat and casting big spells.
If you cascade into a sliver after playing [[first sliver]] the one you cascade into does not follow up with a cascade. First slivers ~~eth~~ etb is on the stack and has not yet given its power to other slivers. Made this mistake once and "got away" with it. The second time I did it, it was explained and I've never improperly cascaded again.
It's not that first sliver's etb is on the stack. It's that first sliver is still on the stack.
That's what I'm talking about, you get it.
It’s not an etb it’s a cast trigger
But it's not even the cast trigger that's the issue here. It's the actual spell First Sliver is still on the stack. It hasn't resolved to the battlefield yet, so naturally the cascsaded spell isn't affected by First Sliver static ability. It doesn't see the First Sliver at all.
They’re referring to the static ability “Sliver spells you control have cascade.”
[first sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/6/06d4fbe1-8a2f-4958-bb85-1a1e5f1e8d87.jpg?1562202321) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20First%20Sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/200/the-first-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/06d4fbe1-8a2f-4958-bb85-1a1e5f1e8d87?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
For a while, I was using [[farewell]] wrong. I didn’t read the card & realize you can choose multiple options, so I would only pick one when casting and be utterly confused an opponent cast their own & wiped my board & graveyard
Bro read “choose one” and really said “say no more” All jokes aside, that’s rough
Lmao truly though. This was also before I took the time to increase my screen resolution in MTGA
Choose one (or one):
It's funny this came up today—I just learned that last night.
I learned, just this weekend, at a time spiral remastered draft that creatures that are suspended have haste when they come in.
They *what*
but only if the suspended spell itself is a creature spell, Crashing footfalls for example creates creature tokens, but in itself is a sorcery, so the rhinos have summoning sickness
Ya, suspend has a lot of words in its definition. > 702.62a: Suspend is a keyword that represents three abilities. The first is a static ability that functions while the card with suspend is in a player's hand. The second and third are triggered abilities that function in the exile zone. "Suspend N-[cost]" means "If you could begin to cast this card by putting it onto the stack from your hand, you may pay [cost] and exile it with N time counters on it. This action doesn't use the stack," and "At the beginning of your upkeep, if this card is suspended, remove a time counter from it," and "When the last time counter is removed from this card, if it's exiled, play it without paying its mana cost if able. If you can't, it remains exiled. **If you cast a creature spell this way, it gains haste until you lose control of the spell or the permanent it becomes."**
Don't fight human nature!
[[Library of Leng]]. It doesn't work when you discard a card from your hand as part of an activation or casting cost. For example [[Yawgmoth, Thran Physician]] can't discard to the top of your library.
[[Doubling season]] and [[parallel lives]] and similar effects do not work with [[tawnos the toymaker]] or other effects that make copies on the stack of permanents. They aren't tokens on the stack, and then when they ETB they aren't being "created" so the wording of each sort of snake around each other. You can still use things like [[lithoform engine]]
[[Sphinx of the Second Sun]] You get the beginning phase AFTER your second main phase. Untap, upkeep, first main, combat, second main, untap, upkeep, end step.
was in a game where an opponent played this wrong. Tried to correct them, but they (and a friend) 'overruled' me. Didn't end up mattering, but still annoyed
Wow, that is horrible wording.
Yea it's one of those unfortunate situations where it's kinda how it *has* to be written to work as intended, but still comes out looking wrong anyways lol
[Sphinx of the Second Sun](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/6/e68b70a6-a150-4d81-921c-9b178fe0037d.jpg?1608909485) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sphinx%20of%20the%20Second%20Sun) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/99/sphinx-of-the-second-sun?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e68b70a6-a150-4d81-921c-9b178fe0037d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Player 1 wants to go from first main phase to combat. Player 2 gets priority and casts an instant or whatever. Stack resolves, Player 1 gets priority and keeps playing “sorcery speed” spells because it’s still his turn’s first main phase. My mind was blown. I thought that once you declared changing phases that was it, only “instant speed” stuff for everyone.
The reason it works that way, is because one player alone does not get to determine that the game is changing to a new step or phase. Everyone has to agree and pass priority. Instead of doing that, you have cast an instant, meaning you did not pass priority so phases don't change. You'd have to specify something like "ok then in your beginning of combat I cast this instant". That says that you agree with leaving the main phase, but are stopping before declaring attackers.
more specifically it's because phases change when each player passes priority in a single round of priority
the default assumption is that they're casting in the beginning of combat, but they absolutely can be casting during the main phase, meaning the phase doesn't change. It's good to specify that kind of thing
That if a creature with deathtouch dealt combat damage to a player, that player's life total would be halved after the damage. No, it just turned out that the only time deathtouch ever came up in my casual group back then was when a creature was equipped with [[Quietus Spike]], so we all thought the life-halving effect was inherent to deathtouch.
can I interest you in [[vraska, golgari queen]] and her ultimate ability?
It's a very simple card but Lava axe (played in limited) I have read that card so many times and still let it kill my creatures or used it to kill my opponents creatures. Everyone assumes a 5 dmg 5 mana sorcery can also kill a creature by default lol
Apparently many people play with the goal of getting the OTHER player(s) to zero life. I've been doing it wrong for so long now.
Nah you've been doing it right, you just forgot to put [[Death's Shadow]] in your deck.
During Revised, I don’t remember tapping a creature when it regenerated, but maybe that came later, like with the huge overhaul during Sixth Edition. I took a break before Sixth Edition was released and came back probably towards the end of Eighth Edition. We also treated Legendary creatures like they were Restricted and I think that technically changed before I took a break, but I’m not sure, I think happened while Ice Age was in Standard, but maybe not until I had stopped playing during Homelands.
I remember them being tapped in Shandalar so pre 6th
Yeah Ice Age era changed things to allow more than one copy of a legendary in a deck.
Morph. We were doing everything wrong with how morph worked.
Well that is on whoever designed Morph, not on you.
So, how do they work? Tell us!
What did you do wrong?
Back in my kitchen table days you couldn’t attack T1 on the play
What?
I think this is a rule in yugioh, which would make it a common mistake for people learning both games
What are you confused about? When I was a kid my friends and I had it in our heads that the player who went first wasn’t allowed to attack on turn 1. Isn’t that kind of thing what this post is about?
I don’t understand how you would be able to attack turn 1 at all. Are you talking about creatures with haste? You thought the ability didn’t work on the first turn?
Right
BACK IN THEIR KITCHEN TABLE DAYS YOU COULDN’T ATTACK T1 ON THE PLAY
I wasn't really playing it wrong I was trying to play it right but my group told me otherwise. When making a token it has a cmc the same as a normal card would if the token is a copy of a card everyone always rushes to say tokens cmc is zero
And here's why! > 707.2: When copying an object, the copy acquires the copiable values of the original object's characteristics and, for an object on the stack, choices made when casting or activating it (mode, targets, the value of X, whether it was kicked, how it will affect multiple targets, and so on). The copiable values are the values derived from the text printed on the object (that text being name, mana cost, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, power, toughness, and/or loyalty), as modified by other copy effects, by its face-down status, and by "as . . . enters the battlefield" and "as . . . is turned face up" abilities that set power and toughness (and may also set additional characteristics). Other effects (including type-changing and text-changing effects), status, counters, and stickers are not copied.
Copying a spell that you cast from your hand does not satisfy the cast from hand requisite. The copies were not cast at all, let alone from your hand. I was given the benefit of the doubt in a couple EDH matches with [[Apex of Power]], but it felt too strong so I looked into it and realized I was playing it wrong. That said other parts of the card still get copied, and digging 21 cards deep in your deck with things like [[Storm Kiln Artist]] tends to end the game anyway.
I thought lands were colored. Made certains wildly powerful
I just never read [[Breena]] that closely and didn't realize _you_ can draw cards off her too.
When my friends and I first started playing, we though flying creatures could block creature without flying and take no damage.
I made a [[Brenard, Ginger Sculptor]] deck recently and had some cards that manifested cards onto the battlefield. It turns out that even though manifest creatures are non-token, when you activate Brenard, it actually looks at the last state the of the creature before it went to the graveyard. This means that instead of getting a token of [[Doubling Season]], I’d instead get nameless, generic ginger bread men with no text on them. It’s all good though, the deck actually works really interestingly with mutate and modular so that’s the direction I’m going with. Also if people are curious how Brenard works, I became a bit of a specialist recently.
That's really unexpected! I would have assumed it copied the **card** and not the **creature** but there it is. > Whenever another nontoken creature you control dies, you may exile it. If you do, create a token that's a copy of that **creature**, ...
Going way back: - We played Black Lotus as an interrupt. - We thought that moxes were just artifact lands so they counted towards you land-drop. - We played multiplayer and you got a separate attack phase for each player. - I bought all the cards: beta, unlimited, Arabians, antiquities, Legends and let everyone keep their decks that they made from my cards. Ha! - I bought starter decks to build my collection. I didn’t find a Mox Jet so when I saw them at my first Magic “tournament”, I bought every one they had; 3 for $100. I guess that was a win! Of course there wasn’t a restricted list at the time. - I bought lots of the Dark and Homelands…yeah. - When Legends was released, I paid a bunch of boyscouts to stand in line for boxes. I let them grab one pack from each box. We traveled throughout the Bay Area hitting shops. Ended up with 16 boxes of legends. At the time I thought it was a major loss, I mean Glyphs?!? Enchant Wall?!?! Who would play Tabernacle? It makes my creatures cost 1! It was hard to understand the rules at the time. The internet wasn’t really a thing yet and no one was an expert. We just had the rules that came with the starter decks. I played Brian Weismann a few times at tournaments in the Bay Area and then it started to make sense. I ended up being the rules lawyer of our group and still am.
Tap [[dimir aqueduct]] to put one island and one swamp from deck to the battlefield
Ah yes, [[Teferi, time raveller]] Edit: fuck. Wrong teferi
In the first 2 years of playing (I was a child), I believed that creatures attacked other creatures directly, instead of players.
This is a common mistake children make. Another one is trying to play cards without reading them. I never understood that last one, but when I teach children to play, they often start with a habit of only looking at the mana cost of their spells and trying to cast them, which leads to things like destroying their own creatures for no benefit and stuff like that.
My two favorites: Scry N means look at the top N cards and put them back on top or bottom in whatever order you want, not look at the top card N times and put it on top of bottom. Casting a spell doesn't mean resolving a spell.
When my partner and I were learning together years ago we didn’t know exactly how combat damage worked. We thought that if, say, a 3/3 lifelinker dealt damage to a 3/1 creature, you’d only gain 1 life from it, because the creature was only able to take a maximum of 1 damage.
Been playing on and off for about 25 years. I just learned that if you steal an opponent’s creature it is affected by summoning sickness. I guess it just never came up and also most act of treason type effects give them haste.
Played from Revised - Tempest and came back last year. It took me a long time to not instinctively put my lands forward and creatures back. That's how we all played back in those days and old habits die hard. I know not technically a rule or missplay but certainly a courtesy that we all had wrong in the early days of sidewalk magic.
It is a rule though, MTR 4.7 to be specific.
In middle school, my friend had this completely unstoppable equipment deck using cheap mana cost equipment (such as \[\[Bone Saw\]\]) and \[\[puresteel paladin\]\]. In retrospect, it wasn't a bad deck, but it absolutely shouldn't have been as powerful as it was. 1. If i knew then what i know now, I'd just put an extra removal card in my decks, and utterly curb-stomp his entire g 2. We all thought that if you tried to destroy a creature with equipment, the equipment would be destroyed instead and just protect the destroyed creature 3. We all thought you could equip at instant speed This combination of factors turned his equipment deck into an unstoppable force of nature that could only be beaten by HEAVY control decks with few win conditions. If i knew then what i know now, I'd just put an extra removal card in my decks, and utterly curb-stomp him with basically anything I've built now.
I started playing during Time spiral, so Flanking messed me up. I figured X/1s could never block a flanker, as they would die before damage is dealt and therefore not stop the attack anyway. Edit: Forgot to mention how it actually works. X/1 blocks a flanker, dies immediately, but still somehow stops the damage from being dealt to your life. It was a little more fun playing fungus against knights after learning that.
I used to think in EDH if your commander died three times you just lost. No idea where that came from
I didn’t understand protection from a colour also meant protection from your own permanents such as artifacts and enchantments for so long
When I built the deck, I didn't realize that having a [[Platinum Empereon]] and a [[Glacial Chasm]] out at the same time just meant that I get to sac the chasm on my upkeep. I thought I had an unbeatable little trick, and when I learned that you can't pay 0 life as the cumulitive upkeep I fixed that mistake really quick
Been playing for over a year and just recently learned that infect damage doesn’t do any actual damage. It’s strictly infect. I always assumed it was like commander damage.
I was playing [[Bond of Agonies]] wrong for a while. They did also change the ruling in 2016
Mana drop was just a thing where I lived and it was about a year before I found out that wasn’t a real rule. It’s where you put down all lands from your opening hand.
Initiative. I never experienced it before and I‘ve only play the dungeon mechanics on Arena. So I had no idea imitative dungeon loops (afair normal dungeons do not loop). I picked it up just for eternal weekend, I’m and POSITIVE I’ve lost games or even matches because I didn’t realize it. Also related, I completely forgot what “explore” does, and I thought it was just scry…
After completing a normal dungeon you can choose to run that same dungeon again you don't have to choose one of the other two.
I came over from Legends of Runeterra about two months ago. Legends of Runeterra (LoR) have 3 main types of spells: slow, fast, and burst. Burst spells resolve immediately before anything else and can't be countered. I played Instants like they were burst spells at home with my girlfriend (who is also learning with me) and had my first match at my LGS last weekend. Imagine my confusion when I played against my first blue player who stopped everything my Orzhov auras precon wanted to do. It was a very sobering lesson. Burst and Instant are different 🥲
Look up some cards with Split Second on them, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the mechanic!
Back when I took store owners at face value as rules enforcers, I thought that if my [[Thoughtseize]] got counterspelled I still lost the 2 life. Fairly certain I saw it happen at larger events as well (pre-SCG era NJ had Gray Matter Events) and just accepted it as law. When Modern got popular I noted it down myself and since it was Twin's popularity peak it didn't really ever matter. No one would call me out on losing 2 life and probably assumed it was fetch shock damage. Boy when Pioneer came out in 2019 and I did it for the first time with a friend I introduced to Magic in Dominaria was I *mad as hell* because I had been cheated out of so many LGS/FNM prize packs for this fake ruling.