How did you learn to play Magic? Some of you probably saw it in its infancy, picked up some Alpha cards, read the somewhat vague rules and figured it out with your friends. As rules were updated and streamlined, you read or heard about the biggest relevant changes and adjusted your play accordingly. Others saw the light later on, being shown by a friend. Your friend explained the basic premise, walked you through some games (or mercilessly bludgeoned you, depending on his or her teaching skills) and let you get a feel for the general flow of the game while teaching you lingo (like “in response”).
Can you spot the Black Knight in this picture?
I’ve gotten the impression that most people learn Magic by the cards. Back in Alpha, with vague rules and a tiny card pool, there was little underlying structure. You didn’t learn a framework into which the cards would fit, because many cards were unique in filling their roles. You didn’t learn how mechanics worked together so much as you learned how card X interacts with card Y, and when a new card came out, you learned its interactions individually as well. Similarly, a newer player will often learn interactions on a card-by-card basis (like “Wrath kills Black Knight“) rather than learning the underlying rules (like the definition of protection, which will not leave you wondering about Black Knight and Wrath of God even if you’ve never seen either card before).
There are some pros and cons to this trend. On the “pro” side, learning enough of the game to start flinging cardboard happens much more quickly if you don’t stop to read pages and pages of rules first. Also, most people would rather learn as they go because reading a rules document, especially one as big as that of Magic: the Gathering, just isn’t that interesting. (Actually, I sometimes read game rulebooks for fun, but I’m weird.) The downside of “learning by the cards,” however, is that each time a new set comes out, you’ve got hundreds of new cards to learn. If you’re willing to make the down payment and learn the underlying rules, however, you have a lot less learning to do when something comes along that seems intimidating. Warp World isn’t scary. Cascade is just another triggered ability, no more confusing than drawing a card from Elvish Visionary.
Now, my goal here is not simply to spend 1,500 words on a glorified “RTFM”. Rather, I want to give examples of the types of issues I see most commonly, so that if you’d like to begin your investment of learning the rules in greater detail, you’ll have a place to start that will yield the greatest immediate returns.
Here’s an example from the Alara Reborn pre-release (the debut of the infamous Cascade mechanic) in which I bit my tongue while the local judge-in-training actually ruled incorrectly. Player A controls some Hill Giant-esque creature while Player B is at 3 life and controls a Tukatongue Thallid. Player A casts Demonic Dread on the fungus, and Cascades into Terminate, which he also points at the little green man. Terminate resolves, and Player B puts out a saproling. Player A then calls the judge to see if Demonic Dread can keep the token from blocking and thus seal the game. The judge rules (incorrectly) that it works. Let me show you why that’s not the case.
The Tukatongue Thallid died from a Terminate cast via Cascade. In order for Cascade to have triggered in the first place, Demonic Dread had to have been cast, which includes choosing a target (the Thallid). This means that once we get to the point where we try to resolve the DD, we see that its target, which was already chosen (about six priority passes ago), is no longer on the battlefield and therefore isn’t a legal target anymore. We can’t choose a new target (like the saproling) because targets are chosen during casting. Therefore, Demonic Dread is countered on resolution due to having no remaining legal targets.
To segue into my next point, it’s very important to note that spells or abilities with no remaining legal targets are countered. Now, I’m sure it’s clear enough that Demonic Dread, which does exactly one thing to its only target, ends up doing nothing if its target is gone – you can get that far on common sense alone. But what about more complicated cards? Maelstrom Pulse can affect plenty more objects than it targets. Cruel Ultimatum has only one target (an opponent) but does all kinds of crazy things. What happens when a target gets out of the way, but the spell wants to do more things? If I sacrifice my Vampire Hexmage in response to your Path to Exile, do I still get a land? Many people operate under the assumption that a spell will do everything it can, and just skip the part that was made illegal. Unfortunately, this is incorrect.
Let me make a distinction here: if a spell or ability has multiple targets, and only some of them become illegal, then yes, the effect resolves, doing as much as it can. However, when a spell’s only target becomes invalid, the entire spell is countered, and you don’t perform any of its effects, even if some of those effects appear unrelated to the target. So if you try to Narrow Escape your Turntimber Ranger(no doubt with shenanigans in mind) and I kill it with a Doom Blade, your Narrow Escape will be countered and you won’t gain any life at all.
I feel like telling another story, so how about another Cascade example? This one is all about priority, a rules term that is part of every game yet is very rarely mentioned during play. Pre-Zendikar, I was testing a Naya Cascade deck (mediocre, but tons of fun) on Magic Workstation against a Jund-wielding opponent. I cast an Enlisted Wurm and popped out a free Chandra Nalaar (I told you it was fun). Once we established that Chandra and the fatty had both resolved, my opponent tapped some lands and aimed a Bituminous Blast at the wurm (perhaps he had a Bolt in hand?), then before I could stop him he’d flipped up a Maelstrom Pulse and pointed it at Chandra, no doubt pleased with himself that I hadn’t gotten to use any of her abilities yet. Unfortunately for him, he’d just made an illegal play. What was wrong?
Now, Chandra does resolve before the Enlisted Wurm, and since her abilities are sorcery speed, there is a window while the wurm is still a spell that my opponent can mess with the fire chick with instants (double Lightning Bolt or whatever). But, since he was relying on the Bituminous Blast, he had to wait for the Enlisted Wurm to resolve as well. The surprisingly little-known rule that now becomes relevant is this: whenever an object on the stack resolves, the active player is the first to receive priority. This means that by the time the wurm is on the battlefield and able to be targeted by Bituminous Blast, my opponent is stuck waiting for my before he can do anything. Heck, I could even play a land or activate mana abilities (neither uses the stack or requires a pass of priority) and my opponent would have to just sit and wait patiently. Since he can’t cast that B-Blast until I pass priority to him, I’m able to activate one of Chandra’s abilities (if I don’t try to do something else first, like change phases) before he can even think about flipping a free Pulse onto her.
Here’s the neat thing about all these stories: what you just read doesn’t just explain a couple of scenarios; it explains how to decode and decipher anything else that involves triggers, targets or timing. Knowing the rules involved in these examples will help you tackle Storm, Landfall, Warp World, interactions with Oblivion Ring, and any other related shenanigans that WotC manages to dream up. All of them. Ever. Suddenly, these rules and definitions start to look a little more worthwhile, don’t they?
Now, I’m not suggesting that you go and read the entire Comprehensive Rules from start to finish right now. However, there are some things that come up more often than others and would be worth reading up on. You may never need to know that the effects of Mutavault and Giant Growth use different sublayers. However, have you ever regenerated a creature? Given it protection from red? Needed to activate an ability during the first strike combat damage step, before the regular combat damage step? Do you know when your opponent’s last chance is to tap your potential attackers? Do you know why it can be best to pump your shade one point at a time? All of these are areas in which you can give yourself an edge. If you do your homework now, it will pay off for as long as you keep playing Magic. And that, my friends, seems like a worthwhile investment.
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That’s cool Chandra Nalaar art. Where’d it come from?
Wow, no kidding. Huzzah.
The art was found on DeviantArt:
http://xplixit.deviantart.com/art/Chandra-Nalaar-102226251
Xplixit seems to be the authors name. But it is the internet after all!
Great article.. indeed sometimes this mistakes are made, but no everybody is a judge. Is on tournaments when the experimented players kick asses of unskilled (it is good to say unskilled? kind of harsh) players and costs them some games.
Now that you mention it…
Can someone please explain to me the priority order in which new permanents are put into play for Warp World?
If they are all simultaneous (after having been revealed), then how does this work with landfall? i.e. a Plated Geopede being landed ‘at the same time’ as a mountain.
This one has always bugged me.
Yes, the permanents put out by Warp World do enter the battlefield simultaneously (well, except for enchantments, as specified in Warp World’s text, but you know what I mean). Once that happens, as is the case any time any object changes zones, the game looks back at the transition that just took place (in this case, permanents entering the battlefield) to see if any abilities should have triggered. Seeing that there are now landfall critters around and that some lands just arrived, the game will acknowledge the triggers as valid and take note of them. Then, after you finish resolving Warp World, you process any relevant state-based actions and, when a player would finally gain priority, you put all those noted triggers onto the stack (making any decisions necessary, like targets for Ob Nixilis). Then, at last, the active player gets priority, and after a whole lot of passing of said priority, all those triggers will resolve. I can’t imagine the clicks involved when someone resolves Warp World on MTGO. Phew.
I’m confused by part of this article. In the Chandra example, you stated that “Once we established that Chandra and the fatty had *both resolved*” but then you state that in order to cast BB, “he had to wait for the Enlisted Wurm to resolve as well.”
Didn’t you already both agree that they resolved before he cast it?
Sorry for the confusion. The first statement was part of the story, while the second statement was intended to be a reiteration to bring the fact that the stack was empty (so I could activate one of Chandra’s abilities) to the forefront of the reader’s mind. Does that clear it up?
I understand that you have priority once the Wurm resolves, and can cast stuff before your opponent can, but how should this play out in a real game? You cast your Wurm and cascade into Chandra. You pause to see if they resolve, the opponent says “go” since he’s not countering anything. When does he get the green light to do something? Only when you decide to move to another phase? (If this is *clearly* documented somewhere, just point to it and I can read it)
This is the one problem I have with this great game – the minutia in trying to keep the game straight turns into non-fun book keeping of the states. Maybe there are some easy ways that people deal with this. When I look at this: “whenever an object on the stack resolves, the active player is the first to receive priority” I get bored just thinking of players passing priority after every spell resolves on the stack.
Btw, love the articles on the site.
Yes, the “green light” would be the active player trying to do something that requires a priority pass. You’ll notice that most players will cast/activate something, often with a raise in their vocal pitch (like they’re asking a question) and then pause and look at you. This is the shortcut that implies they’re passing priority to you, waiting for you to either respond or pass back and let the spell or ability resolve. Similarly, if they try to change phases (like by announcing combat), you can stop them and say that you want to cast such-and-such before that phase or step (since they have to pass priority before changing steps). So basically, the active player makes the first move, and the non-active player responds.
Ok, that makes sense. I think I got it.
(I hope I’m not belaboring any points here – this is something that often comes up in my home games):
So, if I have an instant (BB) and it’s your turn, I can play only play it when you change phases or in response to one of your spells, right?
So in this case, in order for him to use his BB, your Wurm has to resolve, at which point the stack is empty and you have priority again. I think I got it.
Thanks for the article and responses.
Sounds like you’ve got it!
Excellent. This was a great exercise for me since this used to be a frustrating part of the game, but now I see that it doesn’t have to be.
Thanks!
Sometimes debating the rules takes longer than the rest of the game combined. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Exactly. Hence the article.
Yeah, I wish more people would pay attention to the little things in this game. Nice article, by the way.
Thanks.
So let me get this straight…
If my opponent plays Ajani Vengeant, I am NOT allowed to lightning bolt it before he uses one of its abilities?
Correct. Of course, you could always hope he gets careless and casts something else before activating one of AV’s abilities. Then, you could bolt him while the other spell is still on the stack, then gloat mercilessly.
Ha! Good point. Well at least now I know someone can’t bolt my Ajani before I Helix them with it. :3
Exactly. Or, if they have an untapped Mountain, then you could use his first ability in anticipation of the Bolt, and then they probably won’t even bother shooting him at all.
Nice avatar, btw.
Yeah, that’s one way to get away from Lightning Bolts. I usually just use Ajani’s -2 immediately because I assume he’ll die before I’m able to use him a second time.
Thanks, somebody on DeviantART let me use it, but I can’t find the source page anymore for it. It’s Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
You know, it just occurred to me that the likely reason that so few people know of this rule (about the active player getting priority after something resolves) is that it probably almost never mattered until Planeswalkers were created. With creatures having summoning sickness and artifacts usually not having sorcery-speed abilities, it wouldn’t have come up. Go figure.
Slightly confused on how you consider the whole bolt/planeswalker situation.
Player A:
casts Jace (Loyalty 3)
Player B:
(priority) passes
System:
Jace resolves
Player A:
(priority) uses jace +2 ability
Player B:
(priority) bolt @ jace in response
Player A:
(priority) passes
System:
bolt hits jace for 3 loyalty counters (Jace @ 0)
Jace doesn’t die and gets +2?
This is where I get confused. Jace doesn’t die from hitting 0 loyalty counters because state-based actions (checks) only happen when priority is passed and that does not happen during the resolution of the stack?
Does that also mean that if I am at 2 life, play a stream of life for 5 on my priority, and then the opponent bolts me for 3 in response. At the end I will be at 4 life and live? I just recently got back into mtg and it was instant death for life hitting 0 around 7th ed when I stopped. Any clue when that changed?
Jace doesnt die because the loyalty counters are a cost, and when you pay a cost they happen automatically. So as a cost of everyone drawing a card, Jace gets 2 loyalty counters. Therefore he has 5 counters before he gets bolted.
Adding or removing loyalty counters for a Planeswalker’s ability is the cost, so it happens at the same time you announce the ability. Thus, Jace is at 5 before your opponent even *casts* the Lightning Bolt.
The main issue is that so many corner cases just never come up. That’s the pitfall of such a complex game.
The rules of the game must operate like a machine to keep the game from imploding. Most of the functions of the machine are invisible until they are important. I don’t know everything about how a car works, but I learn a little more when I have to take it into a mechanic to work on it.
I have to hand it to Magic Online for a lot of my rules interaction knowledge. Being able to see that information and how it interacts with the game helps so much in relating how things change. Being forced to abide by even the smallest rules will help tighten up your game play. It even helps you find the ‘oh exploitable’ moments that paper game play doesn’t (like the old Shuriken tricks from Champions block).
I started playing in 7th edition, but didn’t do so with friends until closer to Shadowmoor. However, my 1st taste of official magic play didn’t come until I attended my 1st draft, which was a shards-shards-conflux draft. Since then, I have advanced more and more each set.
Then just as you’re getting the hang of it, they go and change the rules on you.
By the way, I don’t fear you.
Isn’t it the case that i’m allowed to cast spells with entering the battlefield as the event to trigger off. Thus allowing me to BB the worm in your scenario before you pass priority.
In a simpler case, Player A plays Jace, In response to Jace entering the battlefield Player B casts lightning bolt, Jace Dies (Damage -> counter lose -> put into graveyard)?: This was my understanding and i’m finding a litle diconcerting if i’m wroung.
What in the case of ETB triggers?
Your first sentence gives me a hunch as to what tripped you up, and don’t worry: it’s an EXTREMELY common misconception.
You see, in a very strict rules sense, there’s no such thing as “responding” to something. The phrase “in response” is more like slang/shorthand. Your ability to cast spells is not something that “triggers” by something entering the battlefield, or any other event, though if you learned to play Magic using the phrase “in response” (probably being told by your teacher that you can “respond to anything”) then it’s easy to see why you would think that.
You can only cast spells when you have priority. If you wanted to Giant Growth your Grizzly Bears, and I wanted to Lightning Bolt them in response, what should technically be happening is this:
You: I cast Giant Growth, targeting my Grizzly Bears, then I pass priority to you.
Me [now having priority]: I cast Lightning Bolt, targeting your Grizzly Bears.
But of course, this is rather cumbersome and uninteresting. So in the shorthand version, you just say “Giant Growth” and touch the card to your Bears to indicate a target, and look at me. I assume from your pause that you’re passing priority to me, and I can either do nothing and nod or say “it resolves” (which is technically me passing priority back to you) or I can cast the Bolt while I have priority and most likely say “Bolt in response”. This shortcut gives you the same end result in most cases and is much easier to learn and faster to use, which is why everyone uses it. In fact, before Planeswalkers and landfall creatures came out, you could probably use the shortcut all the time and never run into a case where it wouldn’t work.
However, it’s still just a shortcut. Let me reiterate: there’s no such thing as “in response”. You don’t get to cast a spell because your opponent performed an action, you get to cast a spell [on your opponent's turn] only when he/she passes priority to you. The important thing is that not everything a player does requires passing priority. The only time a player has to pass priority is to get a spell or [non-mana] ability to resolve, or in order to move to the next phase or step of the turn. But activating mana abilities, playing a land, or having an event happen (like a card entering the battlefield) when something resolves don’t require a priority pass and therefore are NOT things to which you can “respond”.
Sorry this was a bit verbose, I just wanted to make sure I covered it thoroughly. Let me know if anything’s still unclear.