The Planeswalking Peddler

Magic: The Gathering - Tutorial Week 10

ll right. We’ve come a long way in learning the basics. For all those that found this tutorial to be helpful, I appreciate that you took the time to explore it. For those of you that may need a bit of extra help, that is what this announcement is about.

Firstly, we are near the final instalment of this tutorial. Pretty much all basics were covered save what we will see in today’s article and the next few. Secondly, I’m willing to write additional articles at the request of readers, whether it’s about rules or about which cards are generally considered to have better synergy.

For now, the show must go on.

There will be one main thing that this article will teach. It will simply be some Magic terminology which can be written as follows:

Destroy: to put a permanent card from the battlefield into the graveyard. A permanent can be destroyed through a card (like Back to Nature) or through combat damage.

Let’s start with a simple one. You should know “destroy” by now. We have seen creatures destroyed because of combat damage. We have seen them bite the dust because of damage from spells and abilities. And we have seen artifacts get ripped to shreds by spells.

Back to Nature says “Destroy all enchantments”. Simple enough. When you cast this spell, all enchantments on the battlefield go into the graveyards. (All enchantments mean both “Enchantment” and “Enchantment – Aura”. They all die.)

Now to take a look at regeneration. This is a bit complicated but that’s why the card explains the ability, and so will I.

Regenerate: to save a permanent that is going to be destroyed, regardless whether its destruction from a card or combat damage. A permanent saved through regeneration doesn’t even leave the battlefield.

Cudgel Troll’s regeneration ability says you can pay 1 Green mana to regenerate it. What this means is that when the Troll is about to be destroyed (whether from combat damage or some other destroy spell), you can pay the cost of 1 Green mana to force it to stay on the battlefield instead of dying. The drawback of regeneration is that:

1. The creature becomes tapped
   
2. The creature is taken out of combat, which may or may not be a drawback depending on what kind of deck you’re playing.

Example time.

The Troll is attacking. Red doesn't like that so he shoots a Lightning Bolt at the Troll. In response to the Bolt, the Green player activates the regeneration ability of the Troll. What happens now is that the Bolt will deal 3 damage to the Troll. Instead of dying like normal, the Troll is removed from combat but remains in the game. A creature that regenerates becomes tapped but the Troll already is so don't worry about it.

Sacrifice: to put a permanent card from the battlefield into the graveyard (like Destroy). A sacrificed permanent cannot be saved through regeneration.

“Sacrifice” is the big scary brother of “destroy”. Brindle Boar says you can sacrifice it to gain 4 life. Sacrifice is similar to destroy because they both put things into the graveyard. Sacrifice is different because when you are going to sacrifice something, nothing can save it. Not even regeneration. If some spell happens and you can’t stop the spell, then there’s no stopping the sacrifice when it says you have to.

Trample: any left over combat damage by the attacking creature can be used to damage the opponent.

This is not so easy, but I’ll attempt to explain. When your creature with trample attacks, it may or may not be blocked. If it wasn’t blocked, it deals damage as normal. If it was blocked, it deals damage to the creature that is blocking it. Then if there’s any extra damage, that damage can be dealt to the opponent.

The 6/4 Yavimaya Wurm is being blocked by a smaller 3/3 creature. The Wurm has trample, so what this means is that it can kill the smaller creature with 3 power worth of damage, then hit the opponent with its remaining 3 power. If the Wurm didn’t have trample, all 6 damage will have to be dealt to the Minotaur. None can be carried over to the opponent if a creature doesn’t have trample.

One thing to remember about trample: you need to deal damage to kill the blocking creatures before you can deal the remaining damage to the player. In the case of the Wurm and the Minotaur, you cannot deal 1 to the Minotaur and 5 to the player, or 2 to the Minotaur and 4 to the player. You have to deal 3 to the Minotaur first before trampling because that’s the Minotaur’s toughness.

Deathtouch: a creature with deathtouch needs to deal only 1 damage to a creature to kill it.

This means that the Basilisk can kill a creature of any size just because 1 damage from it can kill a creature. It may only have 3 power but that’s fatal enough.

Regeneration can stop a creature from dying to deathtouch, though, since deathtouch is just another “destroy” ability.

Lifelink: When a creature with lifelink deals damage, you gain that much life.

So if a 2/1 creature deals damage, you gain 2 life. And when it deals damage again, you gain another 2 life. As long as it deals damage, doesn’t matter where or when, you will gain life equal to the damage done.

Vigilance: this creature doesn’t need to tap to attack.

Perhaps the easiest of these keywords, a creature with vigilance doesn’t need to tap in order to attack. It still can’t attack immediately after you cast it but during subsequent turns, whenever it attacks, it doesn’t have to tap, so it can block when you pass the turn to the opponent.

I take it all of this may be a bit hefty to digest so let’s cut it off here and next week, nearing the final episode, we’ll look into something I’ve been putting off due to its complexity. Next week is when we turn everything on its head as we look at the structure of a turn.

My thanks for reading.