Skulk is a evasion ability that appears on creatures, and any creature with it can’t be blocked by creatures with greater power than the skulk creature. And this one is truly simple as that’s really it. The power restriction is determined as blockers are being declared, and multiple instances of it are redundant, and there’s really not too much more …
Atraxa, Grand Unifier Breaks Out Across Formats
A few weeks ago I wrote about what I thought was the Modern best card from each color in Phyrexia: All Will Be One. I pegged Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler as the multicolor card, and while Tyvar has seen play so far, it appears I missed the mark. Atraxa, Grand Unifier is the card proving to be relevant — not only …
Undaunted – MTG Mechanics Explained
Undaunted, from Commander 2016, is a cost-reduction mechanic that gets better the more opponents you have. Any spell with the mechanic costs 1 generic mana less for each opponent you currently have. Yup. That’s it. I mean, here’s a few notes, but it’s pretty simple. While Undaunted does technically function in a game of one-on-one Magic, the spells with it …
For Mirrodin – MTG Mechanics Explained
For Mirrodin is a hyper-specifically named Equipment mechanic from Phyrexia: All Will Be One. When an Equipment with For Mirrodin! on it enters the battlefield, you create a 2/2 red Rebel creature token and attach the equipment to it. And that’s it! Pretty simple, only a couple of notes here: So here’s the thing: we’ve seen this before in Magic, …
Toxic – Mtg Mechanics Explained
Toxic is an update to Infect in Phyrexia: All Will Be One, and works like a mixture of Infect and Poisonous. Toxic will always be written as “Toxic X,” and whenever a creature with it deals any amount of combat damage to a player, that player gets X poison counters. Pretty straightforward, but there are some notes to go over: …
Ingest – MTG Mechanics Explained
Ingest is a creature based mechanic that states that whenever a creature with it deals combat damage to a player, that player exiles the top card of their library. And…nothing else. Before I give you some context on this, the few rules notes: So, this mechanic existed in Battle for Zendikar, a set which also had a bunch of Eldrazi …
The 10 Best Planeswalkers for Atraxa Superfriends
Atraxa Superfriends is one of the most popular Commander decks for a reason: it’s really badass to assemble a team of Planeswalkers to do battle with. When choosing your squad, it’s important to choose based on synergies, ultimate abilities and win conditions. Kristen has her recommendations of what to include. Ah, Superfriends — it’s an archetype you either love or …
Devoid – MTG Mechanics Explained
Devoid is a characteristic defining ability that can appear on any card type, and simply makes the card colorless regardless of its mana cost. And that’s entirely it. There’s a couple of notes, but they’re pretty quick; And that’s it. Devoid was not terribly popular, as it seemed like an odd choice to devote a full set mechanic slot to. …
How to Keep Commander Less Explosive
The Commander format has one really fundamental problem: it’s explosive. And it’s only getting worse as time ticks on. I don’t just mean that the community discourse is liable to blow up at the slightest provocation (although, true). I mean that multiplayer Magic, especially with the card pool and ruleset present in this format, naturally trends toward explosive play patterns …
Modern Tournament Recap: Jan 20223
The weekend of Jan. 13 brought us the most competitive Modern tournaments than we’ve seen in a long time. SCG Con New Jersey had both $20,000 and $5,000 tournaments while the LMS Open Qualifier took place in Trieste and the NRG Champs closed things out. Naturally, each high level Modern tournament offers worthwhile results to parse through. Modern is in …