Jump-Start appears on instants and sorceries, and functions from the graveyard. When a card with it is in your graveyard, you may cast that spell by paying its mana cost and discarding a card from your hand as an additional cost. You still have to follow any normal timing restrictions on the card. If you do cast a card using …

Ascend is…odd. It can exist on any card type, but works a little differently if it’s on an instant or sorcery as opposed to a permanent. On a permanent, it’s a static ability, while on an instant or sorcery, it’s a spell ability that check the game state upon resolution. In either case, Ascend means if you control ten or …

Afflict is a triggered ability that appears on creatures, and is always written with a number, like “Afflict N.” Whenever a creature with it becomes blocked, the defending player loses N life. Multiple instances of the mechanic on a single creature each trigger separately (which is something made possible by equipping Dagger of the Worthy to a creature that already …

Embalm is a creature keyword that works from the graveyard. When a creature with it is in your graveyard, you may pay that creature’s Embalm cost. When you do, you exile the creature from your graveyard and create a token copy of that creature, except that it’s white, has no mana cost, and is a zombie in addition to its …

Aftermath appears on instants and sorceries and is a variant of split cards. It’s technically three abilities, which are 1) You may cast the half of this card that has Aftermath from the graveyard, 2) You may ONLY cast the half of this card that has Aftermath from the graveyard, and 3) if this spell was cast from the graveyard, …

Improvise is a static ability that can appear on any nonland card. When a card has it, it means that for each generic mana (mana written as a number in a gray circle) in that card’s mana cost, you can tap an untapped artifact to pay for one of that mana. So like a version of Convoke that works off …

Fabricate is a triggered ability that technically could appear on any permanent type, but so far is only on creatures. Written as “Fabricate N,” when a creature with it enters the battlefield, you get a choice: create N 1/1 colorless Servo artifact creature tokens, or put N +1/+1 counters on the creature with Fabricate. The way that it’s worded, if …

Compleated is a static ability found only on Planeswalkers, making it a bit unique. Every Planeswalker with Compleated will have at least one Phyrexian Mana symbol, in its mana cost (a topic we’ve covered previously). For each of those symbols for which you chose to pay life instead of mana as you cast the Planeswalker, the Planeswalker will enter the …

Backup is a triggered ability that appears on creatures, and goes off when they enter the battlefield. It is always written with a number next to it, and it means that when a creature with it enters the battlefield, a target creature gets that many +1/+1 counters. Now, that can certainly be the original creature that just entered the battlefield. …

Incubate is an ability that could appear on any card type, and will always be written with a number – so, “Incubate N.” When an effect or ability tells you to Incubate, you create a colorless artifact token named Incubator, and put a number of +1/+1 counters on it equal to the Incubate number. Incubator tokens are predefined, like food …