Last updated on January 9, 2026
Ashling, Flame Dancer | Illustration by by Michal Ivan
Well Ashling, the Limitless, you had a good run. I mean, I know you haven't even technically been released yet, but the sentiment stands. Guess that whole “Limitless” thing was a bit of a lie, eh?
Ashling's getting a little bit of a nerf before it even ends up in the hands of players, but fret not! The errata doesn't hurt the card all that much.
What's Changing?
All you need to know is that Ashling, the Limitless will now only allow you to evoke elemental permanent spells, instead of any spell with the elemental creature type.
Senior Magic editor Matt Tabak mentioned on BlueSky that Ashling's text will be altered to make it a bit more restrictive (though you won't see this reflected on physical copies of the card). “Ashling is getting an update to its wording to function only with Elemental permanent spells,” writes Tabak. “The updated wording will be in the Release Notes.”
You might be wondering why this matters, and the answer is kindred spells, specifically. In particular, Ashling's Command is an elemental spell that could've been evoked by Ashling, though that's no longer true. Awkward, because that command appears in the Dance of the Elements precon, so expect some unintentional misplays happening with these cards.
There are also kindred spells with changeling that fit this criteria, since they count as elementals in all zones. You'll no longer be able to evoke a Nameless Inversion or Crib Swap if that's something you were dying to do.
Why Make This Change?
The combination of Ashling, the Limitless and Ashling's Command wasn't about to break anything, so why does this matter?
Source: Magic: The Gathering Comprehensive Rules
The easiest guess is that up until now, the only cards with evoke were permanents, and the rules for evoke get a little muddy when you start evoking non-permanents. It's something that's technically allowed by the Comprehensive Rules, but gets a little confusing when you factor in the text about sacrificing the card you evoked.
They could have changed evoke so that it only works with permanents, which would solve the Ashling “issue” without affecting any existing cards, but it's just easier to errata a single card than it is to change the rules of the game.
The end result is the same: Ashling will only be allowed to evoke elemental permanents. “Ashling the Limited,” writes JeskaiJester. Got that right.
Follow Draftsim for awesome articles and set updates:
2 Comments
This is such a B.S. move on WoTc’s part. I just saw this today after having received my Pre-con with Ashling, the “Limited” today. Why would you institute a rule that only really nerfs cards in thew Pre-con you’re selling (there weren’t many, if any, non-permanent Elemental spells except for those created in the deck. Instead of just nerfing the deck, they could have just not made any new non-permanent Elemental spells, it wasn’t going to be a really powerful effect unless they screwed up in the future, leaving that effect still effective in the Pre-con they’re already selling…. now my Pre-con feels a bit nerfed out of the box, smh. At least for anyone playing by Official tournament rules, you HAVE to alter it now…
Definitely strange since it didn’t really affect all that much, but maybe it means there’s something else coming soon that would conflict with the rule if they didn’t change this now. Who knows?
Add Comment