The Planeswalking Peddler

Magic: The Gathering - Tutorial Week 12

eems we’re real close to the end of this series of tutorials. All the fundamentals have been covered and we just need to tie up some loose ends. Today we’ll be looking at a few keywords relevant to the world of Mirrodin and a bit more. Further articles will be written as new expansions are released.

Infect: when this thing deals damage to a creature, that creature gets -1/-1 counters instead. When this thing deals damage to a player, that player gets poison counters instead.

Infect is one of those seemingly complicated mechanics but is quite easy to understand once you get a hold of it. What infect does is simply replace normal damage with counters.

These counters are still considered damage, so if a card prevents damage to a creature, the counters will be prevented. The counters behave in the same exact way that normal damage behaves. The only difference is that counters are used to track how much damage has been done.

Metalcraft: if you control a lot of artifacts, cards with metalcraft get a bonus. You need to control 3 or more artifacts for metalcraft to happen.

Seeing how long we have come, I’m not sure if I even need to explain what metalcraft means as it’s so simple. If you have 3 artifacts on your side of the battlefield, all your metalcraft cards get a bonus. If you have more, they get the same bonus, nothing extra. If you have less than 3 (meaning 2, 1, or 0 artifacts), then your metalcraft cards get no bonus.

Proliferate: when the game tells you to proliferate, first you look at which cards have counters on them. Then you choose a counter on those card(s). Then you add one more counter of your choice. And do the same for players. You don’t have to choose anything or anyone if you don’t want to.

Never. Again.

That was the longest explanation for a card’s ability in this entire tutorial series. There’s bound to be some confusion.

Proliferate wrecks the learning curve a bit, so I’ll try to simplify it. When you proliferate in a game of Magic, it means you are allowed to add counters to things that already have counters. You can choose anything with a counter and add one more to it. In fact, you can choose everything with counters and plus one to all of them, or only choose some of them, or choose none of them (meaning you don’t add any counters). The unique thing regarding proliferate is that you not only can choose cards on the battlefield to add counters, you can also choose players (which are outside the battlefield).

In the illustration, the red counters represent -1/-1 counters and the blue one represents a charge counter. Let’s say that Black uses a card that allows him to proliferate. He can choose any number of cards, then put another counter on a card that already has a counter. The type of counter put on a card must be one that the card already has.

What he can do is put another -1/-1 counter on the opponent’s Roil Elemental and Azure Drake to kill them, and ignore the -1/-1 counter on his Gravedigger. He can also ignore the charge counter on the opponent’s Necrogen Censer because he doesn’t want to give the opponent more ways to make him lose life. Take note that he can’t add a -1/-1 counter on the opponent’s Augury Owl to kill it because the Owl doesn’t have any existing counters from which to add.

One thing to keep in mind. If a card has multiple types of counters (say, +1/+1 and charge counters), you can only add one counter. You must pick which type to add. You can’t pick both types and add two.

Imprint – When something happens, exile a card (remove a card from the game). Then, when something else happens, refer to the exiled card.

Imprint, just like metalcraft, doesn’t actually do anything. The word is there as a reminder that you need to check for something. In the case of metalcraft, you need to be aware of how many artifacts you control. In the case of imprint, you need to be aware that you have to exile something at one point, then you have to refer to the exiled card.

Shroud: this thing cannot be “targeted” by anything

Not an ability that’s prominent in Scars of Mirrodin, but something I left out from previous articles. Shroud works easy enough; if a card has the word “target” then that card cannot be aimed at the Sphinx. You will need to find a different target. Bad news is that you can’t make the Sphinx more powerful with, say, an aura like Armored Ascension. But the good news is that the opponent won’t be able to target the Sphinx with a pair of Lightning Bolts to kill it.

A note: enchantment – auras all have targets, even though the text of such cards don’t mention the word “target”. The thing you want to enchant (artifact, creature, land, anything) is the target for aura cards, which is why Armored Acension cannot be attached to the Sphinx. (Just imagine that all aura cards have the word “target”.)

A card without the word “target” will be able to affect the Sphinx.


Day of Judgment doesn’t have the word “target” and isn’t an aura, so it can destroy the Sphinx. Also, Inspired Charge doesn’t have the word “target”, so you will be able to make the Sphinx bigger for a turn with the +2/+1 bonus.


So over a span of 12 episodes
The basics of Magic have we covered
Before you fry your brain with electrodes
Bear in mind
That you’ll do fine
If you practice, practice, practice in your abode

This is Aihiave Servir, signing off.