Now you’ve hit upon the reason M:tG is difficult for me, and for many long-time players. Too… many… rules… and… rules… versions… can’t… remember… them… all…
I try pretty hard to keep current, but with thousands of cards, following dozens of templates to reference about six different versions of the basic rules and thousands of individual rulings, well, it gets hard. I never got certified as a judge, but I know more about the rules than many who did and I’ve debated rulings on the newsgroups with the people who make the rulings. Sometimes I win, usually I lose At one point I had printed out the entire Oracle text for all the cards printed at the time as well as all the Rulings Summaries and the general rules. Printed on both the front and back of each page, it was still over SEVEN HUNDRED pages. I put it in a binder and took it with me to games at the local hobby store. If anyone started a rules arguement, the folder settled it.
I’m damn lucky I never caused a concussion whacking people with it, but the arguements always got settled.
Now I’m just a cynical old fart who reminisces about the old days when an Ali from Cairo hidden by an Illusionary Mask would actually DO something. sigh
Do yourselves a favor kids, if you’re just starting the game, DON’T get any old cards. Stay away from old cards. Buy ONLY new cards, cards made during or after 6th edition(check Crystalkeep for release timeline info on a per-set basis). The old cards belonged to an era when M:tG was, arguably, a significantly different game and the two can only be merged if you read and absorb even more rules than I ever had in my folder. The new cards are good enough to have fun with and the rules, as they exist today, are fairly easy to understand. They’ve done a good job cleaning a lot of stuff up from the days when the rules gurus would just make stuff up on the fly.(cough Tom Wylie cough)
Now that I read (some of) the rules, I’m even more confused than before…
Okay, how exactly do abilities/instants/sorceries work during the combat phase?
Scenario 1
I declare that I’m attacking with my Darkling Stalker (1/1).
My opponent blocks with, say, a Plated Spider (4/4).
I tap four black mana to pump my Stalker up to 5/5.
My opponent doesn’t do anything, so his spider goes splat.
Is this a valid sequence of events, or was I not supposed to be able to play an ability at that point?
Also, how does
come into play? Did my Stalker attack as a 1/1 and die?
Scenario 2
I attack with my Phyrexian Defiler (3/3) and am blocked by, I dunno, something that has 3/2 or so.
I cast Shock, dealing two damage and killing the blocking creature.
Again referring to the above rule, does my Defiler live or die? (I know that it’s still blocked, even if it lives.)
Some random questions
Does “spells” include sorceries or enchantments? Even in the middle of the combat round? (Thinking about it, I guess it doesn’t.)
So if I have a 1/1 creature, and a “creature gets -1/-1” spell is cast on it, then it’s dead?
Guh?
If I have a 3/3 with trample, and block a 1/1 creature, does the attacking player get the remaining 2 damage? Or is it only something that works when attacking?
How does regeneration work? Does the creature go to the graveyard, shedding all enchantments as it does so? Does regeneration have to take place in the same turn the creature suffered fatal damage, or can we regenerate a creature several turns down the line?
I’m sure more questions will turn up. Thanks for bearing with me.
Of course, only natural. I’ll take a crack at them…
Well first off, sorceries don’t. (Unless they can somehow be played as instants, you can’t play them during combat)
Yes, that’s fine.
Nope, combat damage dealing does not go onto the stack until the end of combat. There are several steps in the combat phase, and after each of them, there’s an opportunity to play “fast effects” (i,e., instants and abilities) When the stack clears and both players pass, you move to the next step.
Specifically, here are the steps:
(see rule 306-314)
Beginning of Combat step (anything triggered by the beginning of combat happens, then a fast effects opportunity) “I’m attacking”
Declare attackers step (you choose attackers, then fast effects ensue) “With my Darkling Stalker”
Declare blockers step (opponent chooses blockers, then fast effects ensue) “OK, I block your stalker with my plated spider”
… NOW before you move onto the combat damage step, is the time for you to pump. “I pump up my stalker 4 times”…
Combat damage step (the “damage dealing psuedospell” goes on the stack, then fast effects.) “I assign 5 damage to the spider.” “I assign 4 damage to the stalker”
… At this point, it would now be too late to stop that damage from being dealt,* or to increase the damage. (*Unless you play a damage prevention spell, of course. But that only prevents the damage, it doesn’t stop the pseudospell from happening)…
End of Combat step. (effects that trigger at the end of combat go on the stack, then fast effects ensue.)
got it? Players will often say to each other: “Damage on the stack?” to mean “It’s now the declare blockers step, the stack is clear, I’m not going to play any more fast effects. Would you like to pass, so we can move to the damage dealing step?”
If the answer is “yes,” it is officially too late to affect the damage dealing. Before that, any fast effect is fair game.
Depends when you cast shock. If you cast it during the declare blockers step, the defiler lives. If you wait until the damage dealing step, the defiler dies.
Yes, it usually does, but no, not during the combat phase.
Yes. you can’t regenerate from 0 toughness. It’s dead, right away.
Trample ONLY works when the trampling creature attacks. NEVER on a block. (see 502.9a )
What 502.9e is trying to say is this: 502.9b says that the attacking player has to assign lethal damage to each of the blocking creatures before he can assign the remainder to the blocking player. But what if a 5/5 green trampler is blocked by a 1/1, protection from green creature? No amount of green damage will be “lethal” to a creature that has protection from green. So you only consider the toughness of the creature, not any damage preventing abilities it may have. In this case, you must assign at least 1 damage to the blocker (its toughness) and then you may assign the remaining 4 to the blocking player.
Ahh, that’s another one new players tend not to understand. Here’s the definition of regeneration: (from the rules glossary)
“Regenerate [permanent]” means “The next time
[permanent] would be destroyed this turn, instead remove all damage from it, tap it, and (if it’s in combat) remove it from combat.”
So a regenerated creature never actually dies. Instead, it taps, heals all damage and is removed from combat. Hence, it never goes to the graveyard and it doesn’t lose enchantments.
Once it does die, it’s too late to regenerate it. Regeneration only affects “The next time it would be destroyed this turn”.
gonzoron did a good job with his answer. Here’s a couple additional things to think about. Fast Effects are Instants, activated abilities, or triggered abilities. Enchantments, Sorceries, Summons and Artifacts do not fall into this category. The distinction here is when they can be played. You can play Non-Fast Effects ONLY during certain phases(usually the main phase of your own turn, but this can be modified by certain card effects) AND when the stack is empty. If there is something on the stack which has not resolved, regardless of how it got there, the active player may not play Sorceries, Enchantments, Summons, or Artifacts until the stack is empty and they have priority. So unless it’s an activated effect on a card in play or an Instant(or something that explicitly states it can be played as an Instant) then it’s not castable during the combat steps.
If you cast the Shock during the fast effects portion of the declare blockers step, then your attacker will not suffer combat damage from the creature assigned to block it, but it will still be considered “blocked” and not be allowed to assign damage to the defending player. This is another case of one of those unintuitive rules that MaxTheVool mentioned earlier.
I like to use the analogy of a battlefield with two battery-powered armies at opposite ends. Each attacker in the both army only has enough juice in the battery to either take on a defender, or, if unopposed, do their damage to the opposing commander and get back to their side to recharge. The aggressor sends out a wave of attackers(your 3/3) the other sends out a wave of defenders(the 3/2). They’re closing on each other in the battlefield and your 3/3 slows down and readies its weapons to engage the 3/2. Now, before either of them actually lands a blow on the other, lightning strikes from the sky and kills the 3/2. The 3/3 puts its weapons away and heads home because the act of getting it’s weapons ready the first time drained so much of its juice that it wouldn’t be able to make it the rest of the way and attack the commander.
Creatures with trample would fit into the above analogy as creatures with extra batteries. They could stop in the middle of crossing the field, hack their blocker to death, expend what’s left in their battery to get to the enemy commander and damage him a bit, then swap batteries and head home. This is why trample is a nice ability.
Well, the one that springs to mind most readily is the “1/1 creature with a -1/-1 enchantment.” We/I figured that since it wasn’t killed by combat or spell “damage” it could just hang around, not doing anything unless I cast a spell that either got rid of the negative enchantment or raised its power/toughness.
Also, I believe that I read a rule that said something to the effect of “once a creature is declared an attacker, casting a ‘monster can not attack’ spell on it doesn’t change its status as attacker.” If I read that right, we were blithely ignoring it as well (until I read it, of course).
I think we might have also taken some liberties with regeneration, but nothing to profound.
And on another subject, is Power Sink one of those cards that is considered to be useful? I mean, I can see its potential, but I’m unsure how to play it for maximum effect.
Don’t worry about misplaying the rules for a while, it’s natural in a game as complex as M:tG.
There’s a concept called “state based effects”. Essentially it means that every so often, specified in the rules, you look around and see if anything is happening that should not be. This is the step when you would notice, hey, that 1/1 is a 0/0 and should be put in the graveyard. This check happens pretty frequently, and it can’t be responded to as it’s a rules thing, not a player action. The appropriate section of the rules is as follows
Another odd thing about M:tG is that the rules are almost like another player. The way the rules are written, it’s like there is an arbiter sitting there and they occasionally interrupt the game for a second to say “This can’t happen” or “That shouldn’t be there” and correct the situation on their own.
The rules for attacking and blocking are an example of this. They don’t use the stack. If I declare an attack phase, then a fast effects step starts. This is your very last chance to use things like “This creature may not attack” effects, or to Tap my creature so it can’t participate in the attack. This was a big point of contention in a multiplayer game because I could say “I’m declaring an attack” and a bunch of people around the table would have to decide “Do I want to use my stuff to stop him from attacking? He might not attack me at all, or if so, not with something I can’t handle.” If they pass at this opportunity, then I get to declare my attackers, against any player I choose, and anything they have to possibly stave off my attack is useless. If my choices as to which creatures attacked which player went on the stack as a pseudo-spell, like combat damage does, then people could wait until they know what creatures are attacking who before using spells or effects which stop a creature from attacking. However, since declaring attackers/blockers doesn’t use the stack, you just have to guess at who your opponent(s) was going to attack, or with what. It’s a perfectly valid tactic to declare an attack, get people to freak out and cast spells/use effects to nullify your potential attackers, then declare a null attack(declare no attacking creatures). This technique is usually used to get people to expend resources which might have been held in reserve to counterspell, or otherwise adversely affect, the remainder of the active player’s turn.
Power Sink is one of those cards that was once quite good, now it’s so-so. Back in the day of Interrupts, Interrupts could only be responded to with other Interrupts. Interrupts had their own rules back then. So if I cast Power Sink on your spell, it would not go on a stack and allow you to get decent use out of whatever mana you had by responding to it with Instants or other Fast Effects. The Interrupt would resolve and your mana pool would be drained. If you had other Instants to cast, you were SoL. Now that you can respond to Power Sink with other Fast Effects, not just Interrupts, it loses much of it’s ability to restrict the other player’s options and becomes a fairly poor counterspell.
Hmm, didn’t do a very good job of how combat rules are somewhat like a third party, that does stuff you can’t interfere with/respond to, playing along with you did I? Oh well, pretend I was talking about the state based effects, they are more like an arbiter sitting beside you saying “ok, now you’re dead” or “ok, now these things die” and such.
I’m quite fond of it, and its little brother, Syncopate. Despite the fact that you can now cast instants in response, it can be highly effective.
The best use of it has always been countering the spell, not the mana-tapping side effect. The idea is to make X=one mana more than they have to spend. Then, they can’t possibly pay it. This is especially easy when they tap out completely for a big spell and you sink for 1.
you very rarely want to play it such that they actually have a chance to pay the mana. (Unless maybe they’d have to take damage to do so)
The mana tapping ability can be useful sometimes. for example, if your opponent’s got 6 or 7 mana, and plans to cast two creatures this turn. If you sucessfully sink the first one, he has to tap all his mana, and you’ve delayed the second creature for a turn to boot.
I mean, plain old “Counterspell” is pretty much clearly better. But power sink isn’t a bad addition once you’re already using all the Counterspells you have available or are allowed.
It can be particularly entertaining to use Power Sink in conjunction with Blight, forcing your opponent to decide whether it’s worth sacrificing lands to get the spell off. The combo is even better if you have a Dingus Egg in play.
Damn you guys! I want to play again but I only ever had several starter decks long since given away. How much are the boxes going for now…assuming I only buy the current, newest edition?
If by “box” you mean starter deck (now known as tournament pack, I think) you’re looking at about $10. Booster packs can be had between $2-4 depending on where you go and how much you buy, but no longer contain land, so you’ll have to supply your own if you go that route. “Box” generally means the display box of 36 boosters, which I think are about $70 last I knew…
Well, they don’t really get to make this choice. The wording of Power Sink stipulates that they MUST attempt to pay it, or the payment will be taken, even if they don’t have enough mana for it. They can’t just choose to let it counter their spell and keep their mana.
Actually, this wording is a change from what it previously was. It’s a slightly stronger card with this wording, against weaker players at least. Still not that great against strong players. I guess I hadn’t checked the Oracle on this one in a while. Picture this scenario.
Player A has been attacking with a Darkling Stalker turn after turn, mostly pumping it up during combat. They’ve got six swamps available and their attack, if they repeat the scenario this turn, willl kill Player B, who is at five life. It’s Player A’s turn and they announce the intent to play an Unholy Strength on the Stalker. He taps a swamp, leaving five untapped, and places the Unholy Strength on the stack.
Player B taps five mana and casts Power Sink for four mana on the Unholy Strength.
Player A, realizing that if he pays the mana, he won’t have enough mana left to pump the Stalker to lethal levels during the attack phase(1/1, with +2/+1, and a single +1/+1 pump = 4/3), even with the higher power granted by the Unholy Strength still decides to pay for it instead of let it be countered.
Now the Unholy Strength is on the Darkling Stalker. With only one more Swamp untapped, he can only attack for four this turn, and Player B gets one more turn and a chance to stave off death.
It seems to be a fairly straightforward choice, either pay the Power Sink’s price, and lose the ability to win that turn, or don’t pay it and lose the ability to win that turn. A catch-22 and Player B made the better choice because it left him with a strong creature and his opponent at a lower life than if he had let the Power Sink tap all his mana. Indeed, this would have been thier situation under previous timing rules.
However, with the new timing rules the pumpability of the Darkling Stalker is a fast effect and can be used while the Power Sink is still on the stack. A stronger player than our hypothetical Player A would respond to the playing of the Power Sink by pumping mana into his Stalker, although normally it’s good practice to wait until combat to do this. The Stalker gets pumped up by five points to become a 6/6 creature and then the Unholy Strength is countered by the Power Sink. The Stalker kills Player B this turn.
Since Blue is often about outplaying your opponent anyway, this version of Power Sink isn’t as bad as I thought. It has some possibilities the old one didn’t offer as far as psychological tricks. Is this the kind of thing you were talking about gonzoron? It’s also worth noting that Power Sink is one of the counterspells that only costs one Blue mana as part of it’s casting cost. This makes it a good “splash” counterspell into a deck with some Blue cards but which may have problems getting two Blue mana on the table consistently. I’ve used it in this capacity in the past.
Hmm, don’t think I was very clear there. The first part was intended to mean, “they’ll lose the land with Blight on it anyway” if they can’t pay all the mana for it. If they can pay for it without having to tap the Blighted land, then they’re ok. If the Power Sink is for more mana than they have, they’ll have to tap everything and that will trigger the Blight.
You’re right, Steve–I had misremembered the card text. The target player could, however, choose to tap the lands to power a fast effect instead of driving the original spell through the PS, right?
Regardless, unless they have enough excess land–or a mana source sitting in their hand–to cover the cost without tapping the Blighted lands, the lands are history. You know how much I love destroying lands.
Another rule question:
Player A attacks with a 3/3 creature with trample.
Player B blocks with two 2/2s.
Player A casts Shock to destroy one of the 2/2s.
So the second blocking creature is dust, and Player B receives 1 point of damage?
A random deck question:
What kind(s) of cards do player tend to have 4 of in their decks? Kind of a moot point for us since I don’t think we even have four of more than a couple cards, but still…
Yes, Player B would receive 1 point of damage. (Unless Player A opts to assign that floating 1 point of damage to the remaining creature, which they could technically do, but why bother?)
Usually, cheap cards. That is, coverted mana costs of 3 or less. Sometimes, 4, if the deck is dependent on it; 5, and that’s pushing it.
In that instance, you might draw, like, two of those four 5 casting cost cards in your opening hand. Then, you’re stuck with cards you can’t cast for the first few turns.
And, who knows, you might die within those first few turns because of those dead cards in your hand.
That depends on how Player A assigns the damage from his 3/3 trampler. If he assigns two damage to the remaining blocker, then one damage to the defending player, then yes. It’s perfectly legal for Player A to assign all three damage to the remaining blocker. Sometimes you want to do this to ensure a blocker dies instead of being saved by a minor damage prevention spell lowering the assigned damage to just under lethal damage. This is a fairly rare occurance, but you should be aware of the option. Typically it’s a good decision to assign the minimum amount to the blocking creatures(at least their current toughness) and let the rest go through.
Important cards. Cards you need to make your victory condition happen. Cards you base your deck upon. Flexible cards which are useful in almost any situation you draw them(creature removal is one of these against most decks). Basically you want to help defend yourself with general purpose cards/creatures until you can stop your opponent from setting up their win condition, then force them into a loss condition. A good offense sometimes is enough for this because they’ll expend all their energy defending against you and never get their own resources into the game. Cheap cards are a good choice because they rarely end up uncastable, but try to pick cards that fit well with what you’re trying to do or complement the weaknesses in your deck(if you have mostly landbound creatures, pick spells that can take out flying creatures, things like that). Even cheap cards are a waste if you don’t need/can’t use them.
I may be in the minority here, but my philosophy is: If a card is good enough to go in the deck, it’s good enough to use 4. Naturally, there are exceptions, but unless the card is on the restricted list, or legendary, or very situational, that’s my rule of thumb.
I do pay attention to the mana curve and try to avoid lots of expensive cards, but if there are two expensive cards I’m considering, I usually prefer the consistency of 4 of one, rather than 2 of one and 2 of the other.
At one point I had printed out the entire Oracle text for all the cards printed at the time as well as all the Rulings Summaries and the general rules. Printed on both the front and back of each page, it was still over SEVEN HUNDRED pages. I put it in a binder and took it with me to games at the local hobby store. If anyone started a rules arguement, the folder settled it.