Mistakes, Misplays, Misunderstandings
Most of us know the game pretty well. Or at least, that’s what we believe to be true. It seems there are still plenty of game mechanics, be those phases of steps and turns, keywords or underutilized effects, that people play wrong, don’t know about, or misunderstand quite often.
In this article, I’ll go over some of the more common mistakes or missed interactions between cards that caught my eye in 2023 and early 2024. This will be a mix from personal encounters playing games and repeat questions I’ve seen popping up on the MTG Judges Chat Discord Server. While this isn’t a direct follow-up to Confounding Conundrums, it’s relevant enough to repost our by now two-year-old article where we looked at some cards that people often played wrong already.
Boast and the Combat Phase
Boast feels like a mechanic people often get wrong due to a few factors. Kaldheim came out while most game stores still couldn’t hold in-store events, only 18 cards with boast got printed historically, and close to none of them are considered ‘staples’ so the mechanic doesn’t appear in the format often. I think most people have read ‘Creatures you control can boast twice’ on Birgi, God of Storytelling, but Birgi doesn’t have boast herself so it doesn’t explain how the mechanic works.
Activate this ability only if this creature attacked this turn and only once each turn. I’ve seen people not activate boast because their creature got blocked, because damage was negated or because they thought they couldn’t activate it in their post-combat main phase. If anything, boast highlights people not understanding the combat phase well enough.
You can activate boast at instant speed, on your turn, whenever you have priority after declaring the creature with boast as an attacker. This means before blockers are declared, before damage gets dealt, and if the creature survives, after combat in your second main phase and even in your end step. If you have a first strike damage step you can even activate it before moving to the normal combat damage step!
This can lead to some interesting lines of play under the right circumstances. Let’s take Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire and a commander such as Kamiz, Obscura Oculus. Move to the declare attackers step, and declare Varragoth as an attacker. Finish declaring attackers.
Kamiz triggers, targeting Varragoth to make him unblockable and have him connive. With Kamiz’ trigger on the stack, activate Varragoth, since he has been declared an attacker, boasting a card to the top of our library. Resolve Varragoths trigger, place the tutored card on top of your library, then resolve Kamiz’s connive, essentially tutoring the card to your hand instead. All of this can be done before moving to the declare blockers step.
Modal Order
As a general rule, if a card has several modes chosen, those modes get performed in its entirety before continuing on to the next chosen mode, in the order the modes are printed. Too often have I seen people try to resolve triggers before a modal spell resolved in it’s entirety. The two cards I’ve seen this interaction get played wrong with most often are Rankle, Master of Pranks and Farewell.
If the controller of Rankle chooses all modes, first the player whose turn it is chooses a card in hand without revealing it, then each other player in turn order chooses which card they’ll discard. Only after all cards have been chosen do all these cards get discarded at the same time. After this has happened, will each player lose 1 life and draw a card. This means you cannot discard the card you drew from the second part of Rankle’s ability since that card will not be in your hand yet.
You don’t receive priority in between Rankle’s chosen abilities. Once Rankle’s ability starts to resolve, it has to resolve in its entirety before any player receives priority again. You can’t flash in a Necromancy for the card you discarded while Rankle’s two other choices still have to happen. You also can’t cast Village Rites and sacrifice your creature in response to rankle’s ‘each player sacrifices a creature’ ability, because you don’t have priority while the ability is still resolving.
In regards to Farewell, these choices also happen in the order they are written. First will all artifacts be exiled, then all creatures, then all enchantments, then all graveyards. There is no window of opportunity between any of these modes for you to activate an ability or cast an instant speed spell in. Just like with Torment of Hailfire repetitions, there is no ‘in between those things happening’ where you get to respond.
And because I’ve seen this question asked often: Farewell doesn’t exile itself. Only after a spell finishes resolving does it go to the graveyard, so assuming an all modes Farewell gets played with zero followup triggers or effects, all graveyards will be empty except for the graveyard of the owner of Farewell, which will have a singular card in it, Farewell itself.
Ward Is a Triggered Ability
Read that title as often as you need until it sticks. Ward is a triggered ability. An opponent casts a spell that targets your creature with ward - trigger. If they decide to pay for the ward cost, the stack now still has their spell waiting to resolve, meaning you can still interact after your opponent already paid the ward cost. This also means cards like Roaming Throne double the ward triggers on other creatures if they’re the chosen type!
If a creature has multiple instances of ward, each will trigger separately. If you have Lavaspur Boots equipped on Tivit, Seller of Secrets and your opponent casts Swords to Plowshares targeting Tivit, you will have a ‘ward pay 3 mana’ and a ‘ward pay 1 mana’ trigger going to the stack. You control these triggers, so you can choose the order they are placed on the stack too! And of course, after your opponent paid 3, then 1, feel free to Negate the Swords to Plowshares regardless ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).
The Stack Resolves?
‘Are we good to resolve the stack?’ or ‘and then the stack resolves?’ are questions I notice people keep asking in game and it’s mostly due to the stack getting explained badly to them when they first started playing. The stack doesn’t resolve ‘in its entirety’ as one big singular event with zero chances to change what’s on there, though that is often how it’s (wrongfully) explained to newer players.
If you have four spells and abilities on the stack called A-B-C-D, after D resolves, before C resolves, there is another round of priority where instant speed spells and abilities can be played. People often call this ‘interrupting the stack’. Knowing how the stack works will work out in your favor in the future!
Shroud Includes You
The main culprit here is Lightning Greaves. Too often are people trying to save their own creature from a boardwipe with cards like Blacksmith’s Skill or Tamiyo’s Safekeeping when it has Lightning Greaves equipped. Shroud means it can’t be the target of spells or abilities, including your own. The same goes for trying to equip a creature with more equipment when they already have Lightning Greaves attached. You’ll have to equip them to another creature first.
Judge?!
If you aren't sure about how a rules interaction works, or if you think you messed up a rule but aren't sure how best to go back and fix it, you shouldn’t hesitate to reach out to a judge. You’re not hindering or bothering them, judges are there to help you. There’s this weird stigma around not wanting to involve a judge in your ‘casual game’ that people should actively try to work on to improve.
On our server, you can pull up a link to the MTG Judges Chat Discord with the -judge command in general chat. At a real life event, raise your hand, call out a judge, and make sure to keep your hand up for long enough so judges can actually see where the judge call is coming from. Especially at larger events, the ‘keep your hand up’ part cannot be stressed enough.
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