There are some keywords in Magic that those of us who’ve been playing for years can hardly remember ever not knowing how they work, while newer players may get confused in the details. Trample is a great example of this, and today I give you an...
Read morePhyrexians, the greatest threat to the known Multiverse, showed their claws and teeth in Phyrexia: All Will Be One, where they had lots of weapons at their disposal. One of those was toxic, which relates to infect, a previous Phyrexian-themed...
Read moreMagic can be a difficult game. Sometimes you look at your opponent’s defenses and see that there’s no way in. If only you had a card that said, “you win the game.” What if I told you that those cards actually exist?
Read moreIn Commander, the cost of mulliganing a bad hand is smaller than in one-versus-one formats… but it’s still a cost, and you should treat it like one. So let’s check all the ins, outs, and corner cases of how to mulligan in Commander.
Read moreTussles tend to be untidy topics, and Magic is no exception. Even if the whole game works under very precise rules, there’s so much going on during the combat phase that deciphering how attacking works can be one of the messiest matters in...
Read moreDigging into colorless mana in MTG can feel a bit like trying to understand a page written in dense legalese without being lawyers ourselves. There are subtle yet crucial differences between types and colors of mana, on top of some...
Read moreWe can all agree that creatures have summoning sickness. I mean, haste is a keyword for a reason. But what about other permanent types? What about artifacts?
Read moreThe end step is one of the most confusingly named terms in Magic. The good news is that the end step isn’t too complex an MTG concept once we clear the verbiage a bit.
Read moreShroud is one of the most straightforward keywords in MTG. Mechanics like trample or flying require that you know how blockers work and how combat damage is assigned, but shroud should be easy to grok even for new players.
Read moreAffinity is one of those mechanics that teaches us about the game and its balancing. It totally dominated in tournaments, to the point that several cards were banned in various formats along with metalcraft.
Read moreSpell mastery isn’t its own special rule; it’s an ability word that points out a pattern. The card gets a bonus if you already have enough spells in your graveyard, so it rewards playing a deck with ample instants and sorceries.
Read moreImpending is an alternative cost that lets you cast an enchantment creature for less mana, except that you put a number of time counters on it when it enters the battlefield. As long as there are time counters on it, the permanent isn’t a...
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