mtg recover

Recover – MTG Keywords Explained

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This week, we’re taking a look at a recursive mechanic from Coldsnap that will help you get more out of your graveyard. Learn how to use recover!

What is Recover?

Recover is an ability that triggers when a creature with the ability dies and goes to that graveyard. When that happens, you have a choice: if you pay the recover cost, the card goes back to your hand; otherwise, it gets exiled. This allows for a lot of recursion — if you can plan or control when your creatures will die, you can get a ton of use out of them.

A few notes on recover:

  • If the card with recover is a creature, it won’t trigger itself when it goes to the graveyard.
  • If multiple creatures go to the graveyard at once, recover will trigger multiple times, but you still only get to make the choice once. After that, the card is either in your hand or exiled.

Recover requires you to keep careful track of what’s in your graveyard and when creatures die so that you don’t miss a trigger. It can be pretty powerful once you have to resources to fully make use of it, though, and allows for tons of value.

Check out all the cards with recover at Card Kingdom!