Magic: The Gathering - Magic 2012

omes the time when every Magic player rejoices at the arrival of a new set. Magic 2012 brings to the table a lot of things that excite old and new players alike, and although some favourites such as Lightning Bolt and the nostalgic Giant Growth didn’t make the cut, there is still plenty of awesomeness to last us until next year.



Magic 2012, or M12, allows players to revisit a particular ability from the Ravnica era. Bloodthirst is a simple ability that affects creatures. The ability is written like this:

Bloodthirst X (X refers to the number printed on the card)

What this means is that a creature with bloodthirst 3 comes into play with 3 bonus +1/+1 counters on it if you attacked and damaged the opponent before casting the creature. Of course, there are other ways to damage an opponent, such as with spells like Shock and planeswalkers like Chandra. Bear in mind that you have to damage the opponent on the same turn that you cast the bloodthirsty creature.

Nothing stops you from casting a creature with bloodthirst even though you didn’t damage an opponent. The creature might be smaller, but bloodthirst is no restriction. It’s merely a bonus ability.

An example:

The Red player casts Shock, which damages the White player. Now the Red player casts Furyborn Hellkite. Since the opponent was dealt damage before the Hellkite arrived onto the battlefield, the Dragon comes down not as a 6/6 but as a mighty 12/12 monster.

Bloodthirst doesn’t care how you damaged an opponent or how much damage was dealt. Even a measly 1 damage is enough to activate the ability.

Another ability worth mentioning is hexproof. Hexproof is a simple ability and appears on cards like Glavecover Scout.

What hexproof does is it prevent opponents from targeting your creature, whether with a spell or with the ability of a card already on the battlefield. The only person that can target your hexproof creature is the person that can maximise their usage, namely you. Your team mates can also target your hexproof creatures, which is good during multiplayer games where you help each other.

And now we go onwards onto an interesting card in the set. Here we have Lord of the Unreal.

An ability that all Phantasm-like creatures share is that they die if someone targets them with a spell or ability. The spell / ability doesn’t need to resolve to kill the creature; the creature naturally dies when you try to touch it. Lord of the Unreal prevents the opponent from doing any targeting against your illusory creatures, giving you access to big beaters for a cheaper price than you would normally pay.

Illusionary creatures may be fragile but if they are protected, something the Lord of the Unreal accomplishes, your opponent may find themselves facing a large battlefield of big monsters that evade removal spells.

And that’s my introduction to Magic 2012. The Planeswalking Peddler’s Magic Tutorial will return come Innistrad, slated for a late September-early October release. See you all then.