Do you like saving mana on casting your spells? How about utilizing your creatures the turn they come into play? Today, we take a look at a Magic mechanic that allows your creatures to help you pay for your spells: convoke!
What is Convoke?
Convoke was first introduced in Ravnica: City of Guilds in 2005. As the signature mechanic of the Selesnya Conclave, convoke represents a collective working together for the greater good. And in this case, the greater good is casting big spells early!
When you’re paying the cost for a spell with convoke, you can tap a creature you control to help pay for it. Each creature you tap pays for one mana of that spell’s casting cost. If the spell has colored mana symbols in its casting cost, tapping a creature of that color can pay for that mana, while any creature can cover generic mana.
Convoke isn’t an alternative cost, nor really a discount. It’s an alternative way to pay the full cost of your spell.
Of note, you can tap summoning sick creatures to convoke. The convoke ability is what’s forcing the creatures to tap — not an ability of the summoning sick creature.
You also aren’t changing the mana value of the spell by convoking it, you’re just paying that total mana value. And if you’re casting a spell that has kicker or another additional cost, you can convoke to pay for that additional cost.
Convoke is an ability that rewards you for filling the board with creatures, as you can continue casting spells and still have mana available for yet more spells and abilities. It’s primarily found on green and white cards, and it works especially well with tokens strategies.
Check out all the cards with convoke at Card Kingdom, and consider adding some to your decks!