Persist is from Lorwyn block, and has proven to have an impact that reverberates throughout Magic to this day. Persist appears on creatures. When a creature with it dies (goes from the battlefield to the graveyard), if it had no -1/-1 counters on it, it comes back to the battlefield under its owner’s control with a -1/-1 counter on it. …
Conspire – MTG Keywords Explained
Conspire is a creature-based mechanic from Lorwyn block that appears exclusively on Instants and Sorceries. You read that all correctly, none of that was a typo. Conspire lets you copy a spell that has it, as long as you control two creatures that share a color with that spell. When you cast a spell with Conspire, as you pay costs, …
Reinforce – MTG Keywords Explained
Reinforce is a mechanic originally from Lorywn block, and lets you use cards to buff up your creatures. Reinforce, always written as Reinforce N, is an activated ability that works when the card with Reinforce is in your hand. It essentially turns the card into a modal card. You can play the card normally and pretty much ignore Reinforce. Or, …
Hideaway – MTG Keywords Explained
Hideaway, originally from Lorwyn, appears only on six cards so far in Magic…and here they are! It represents two abilities – the first, way more boring one, is that the permanent with Hideaway will enter the battlefield tapped. The second says that when the Hideaway permanent enters the battlefield, look at the top four cards of your library, then exile …
Champion – MTG Keywords Explained
Champion, from Lorwyn Block, appears on creatures, and appears on those cards as “Champion a ____” where the blank is a creature type. There are two abilities that go along with Champion – the first says that when it enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you exile another ____ you control” (again, a creature type). The second ability says that …
Transfigure – MTG Keywords Explained
Transfigure is from the set Future Sight, and as of the time of this post appears on only one card: Fleshwrither. It’s a pretty simple mechanic, working like Transmute but for creatures. On your turn, at sorcery speed, if Fleshwrither is on the battlefield, you may pay the Transfigure cost. When you do, sacrifice Fleshwrither, then search your library for …
Poisonous – MTG Keywords Explained
Poison counters are an alternate win condition that has been around since the early days of Magic. Instead of dealing 20 damage to your opponent, you could give them 10 poison counters and win the game. But the keyword “poisonous” didn’t appear until Future Sight, where it codified the mechanic and gave tribal Sliver decks an even more powerful angle …
Phyrexian Mana – MTG Keywords Explained
Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty marks the return of fan-favorite mechanics like ninjutsu, as well as a powerful mechanic from the faraway plane of New Phyrexia! What is Phyrexian Mana? Phryexian mana denotes a mana cost that can be paid in one of two ways: You can either pay one mana of the appropriate color, or you can pay two life. Take …
Reconfigure – MTG Keywords Explained
Reconfigure is a new mechanic in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty for “Artifact Creature – Equipment” cards. If those seem like some incompatible card types, you’d normally be right, as creatures can’t be equipped to other creatures. But that’s where our new mechanic comes in. Reconfigure represents several different abilities. First, it functions as an Equip stand-in. You can pay the reconfigure …
Gravestorm – MTG Keywords Explained
Future Sight produced a lot of one-off mechanics, but you never know when one could crop up in Magic again. Today, we’ll be taking a look at a variation on storm called gravestorm! What is Gravestorm? Only appearing on Bitter Ordeal from Future Sight, Gravestorm lets you copy a spell as you cast it. However, instead of counting the number …