Today we’re taking a look at bloodrush, the Gruul mechanic for 2013’s Gatecrash. It isn’t necessarily the most powerful mechanic, but it’s probably the mechanic that best catches the Gruul aspect of attacking and making your creatures very big...
Read moreI have to be honest with you, folks. Lorwyn block is one of my largest knowledge gaps when it comes to familiarity with Magic sets. I’ve always loved the aesthetic, but I’ve never really sat down and engaged with everything the block has to...
Read moreManipulating the top card of an opponent’s library is very powerful. Fateseal was created as a mechanic that lets you “negative scry”, that is, scry your opponent’s library instead of your own.
Read moreRise of the Eldrazi is one of the most interesting Magic sets ever released. But there’s also an interesting mechanic that saw lots of competitive play, and that’s totem armor.
Read moreBetween 2003-2010, MTG had an era of design where sets had to fit into a pre-chosen mechanical theme, with a world and cards that were shaped to satisfy that idea. In this way, Shadowmoor, the color-matters set was created, and one of the set’s...
Read moreReady for some Sleight of Hand to keep your opponents on their toes? For a bit of “aura-justu”, if you will, since aura swap was inspired by the ninjas from Kamigawa?
Read moreHello Planeswalkers! There are a few definitions for the word graft that could make sense as a mechanic in MTG. Graft can mean a way to get sap from a tree, gain a business advantage through nefarious ways, or transplant living tissue surgically...
Read moreIn the midst of the Masques block was Nemesis, a 143-card set that introduced the fading keyword to Magic. Step through the veil with me back to the turn of the century and welcome the ephemeral permanents of Nemesis.
Read moreKilled, destroyed, buried, sacrificed. Almost all of these terms in MTG relate to a creature ending its lifespan, so to say, and thus going to the graveyard. Bury is a flavorful match since MTG’s already have the graveyard as a game zone, so it...
Read moreDominaria United brought back a number of popular mechanics, including sagas and kicker, but it also introduced a few new ones like enlist. Unfortunately, it’s not the most elegant mechanic from a rules perspective. So today, I’ll be flexing my...
Read moreMagic consistently tries out new keyword mechanics. Some of these are successful and go on to become evergreen mechanics, while others prove too difficult to understand or sometimes even too powerful to continue getting printed. Then there are...
Read moreFuture Sight dropped a ton of new mechanics that R&D were interested in testing out but couldn’t commit to designing an entire set around. Frenzy was one of these short-lived, one-off mechanics that would never again see the light of day.
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