702.84a Annihilator is a triggered ability. "Annihilator N" means "Whenever this creature attacks, defending player sacrifices N permanents."
702.84b If a creature has multiple instances of annihilator, each triggers separately.
Specific Questions
Q: What does Annihilator do? A: When a creature with annihilator attacks, the defending player is forced to sacrifice the number of permanents specified by the number that appears after the name of the ability.
Q: Can I block with a creature that I sacrifice to Annihilator? A: No. Annihilator triggers during the Declare Attackers step of combat, and will resolve before the game can possibly move on to the Declare Blockers step, and therefore the sacrifices will happen before blockers can be declared.
Q: Who is the defending player if a planeswalker is being attacked? A: If a creature with annihilator is attacking a planeswalker, the defending player is that planeswalker's controller; he or she is the one who will sacrifice things, which might possibly include the planeswalker being attacked. (If that happens, the attacking creature remains attacking, but won't deal combat damage to anything if it isn't blocked.)
Q: Who is the defending player in a Two-Headed Giant game? A: The controller of the creature with annihilator will choose which of the 'heads' of the team being attacked must sacrifice permanents as the annihilator trigger is resolving. That player will sacrifice the requisite number of permanents. (Since this decision is made as the trigger is resolving, there will be no chance for players to respond in between the decision of which player must sacrifice and the sacrifice itself.)
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
702.85a Level up is an activated ability. "Level up [cost]" means "[Cost]: Put a level counter on this permanent. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery."
702.85b Each card printed with a level up ability is known as a leveler card. It has a nonstandard layout and includes two level symbols that are themselves keyword abilities. See rule 710, "Leveler Cards."
Specific Questions
Q: What does Level up do? A: Level up is an activated ability used on special permanent cards (known colloquially as levelers). Any time you could cast a sorcery, you may pay the level up cost to put a level counter on that permanent. While these counters don't do anything on their own, the card itself will lay out some additional abilities and, for a creature, different P/T that the card will have if it has the right number of level counters on it.
Q: How do 'levelers' work? A: Count the number of level counters on the leveler, then match it up with the little boxes on the left-hand side of the text box. If the number of counters matches the numbers in one of those boxes, then the leveler has the abilities in the corresponding 'slice' of the text box, and if it's a creature, has the corresponding power and toughness. That's the idea in a nutshell.
See the Main FAQ entry on Levelers for a full explanation.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
702.86a Rebound appears on some instants and sorceries. It represents a static ability that functions while the spell is on the stack and may create a delayed triggered ability. "Rebound" means "If this spell was cast from your hand, instead of putting it into your graveyard as it resolves, exile it and, at the beginning of your next upkeep, you may cast this card from exile without paying its mana cost."
702.86b Casting a card without paying its mana cost as the result of a rebound ability follows the rules for paying alternative costs in rules 601.2b and 601.2e-g.
702.86c Multiple instances of rebound on the same spell are redundant.
Specific Questions
Q: What does rebound do? A: If you cast an instant or sorcery spell with rebound from your hand, after it's finished resolving, instead of putting it into your graveyard, you exile it. Then, at the beginning of your next upkeep, a delayed trigger goes off which allows you to cast the card without paying its mana cost.
So basically, the spell 'goes off' twice. Once when you cast it initially, and a second time at the beginning of your next upkeep.
Q: What happens if I don't want to cast the spell the second time? A: Then you can choose not to, and it remains exiled permanently. Casting the rebound card the second time is optional, but the card just stays where it is if you do that.
Q: What happens if the spell gets countered the first time, before it rebounds? A: Then it just goes straight to your graveyard. Rebound only works if the spell gets to finish resolving; if the spell gets countered, it never gets to that point.
Q: What happens if I copy a spell with rebound? Does the copy rebound too? A: No. First of all, you didn't cast the copy, least of all from your hand, so rebound would never be applicable. Second of all, even if you did so and rebound did exile the spell, it would cease to exist before your next upkeep rolled around, and the delayed trigger wouldn't be able to do anything because the copy would no longer be there.
Q: What if I cast the spell from my graveyard? Or from exile? Or from some other weird place? A: Then rebound doesn't apply, and does nothing. Rebound only works if the spell was cast from your hand.
Q: Can I get rid of a spell from the graveyard so it can't rebound? A: No. A spell with rebound does not go to the graveyard at all when it gets exiled--it goes directly from the stack to exile, no stop in the graveyard along the way.
Q: What happens if multiple spells will rebound on the same turn? What order do they happen in? A: All the rebound triggers go off at the same time, and you control all of them, so you choose the order in which to put them on the stack, and thus the order in which they will resolve. The spells will be cast and will resolve one at a time in whatever order you wish.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
702.87a Totem armor is a static ability that appears on some Auras. "Totem armor" means "If enchanted permanent would be destroyed, instead remove all damage marked on it and destroy this Aura."
Specific Questions
Q: What does Totem armor do? A: If an Aura that has Totem armor is enchanting a permanent, and for some reason that permanent would be destroyed, that doesn't happen. Instead, you remove all damage from it and destroy the totem armor Aura. The enchanted permanent survives.
Q: So it regenerates the permanent? A: No. Totem armor is not regeneration. While it does something similar, it's something entirely different. Things that stop regeneration will not stop totem armors from working.
Q: What counts as destruction? What does totem armor stop? A: Only two things work by destroying permanents: damage, and things that actually use the word 'destroy'. Anything else is not a form of destruction, and will not be stopped by a totem armor. Totem armor will only stop death due to damage or things that use the word 'destroy'.
Q: What if I want the permanent to be destroyed? Can I choose not to use the Armor? A: No. Totem armor's replacement effect is mandatory; you cannot choose not to use it.
Q: What happens if my permanent has multiple Totem armors on it? A: If something attempts to destroy the permanent, each of the Armors wants to replace that destruction at the same time. As the controller of the permanent, you choose which Aura's replacement to apply; that Aura is destroyed, and the rest of the totem armors don't do anything because there's nothing for them to do any more.
Q: What happens if something would destroy both the permanent and the Aura at the same time? (Like, say, Planar Cleansing ) A: The replacement effect from totem armor applies and saves the permanent. What used to be an instruction to "destroy both {the permanent and the aura}" becomes "destroy both {the aura and the aura}", which is basically the same thing as just destroying the aura.
Note that this is different from something like Austere Command that could destroy the enchantment and then destroy the permanent after that. In that case, the Aura is gone before the permanent would be destroyed, and thus isn't there to save it. Read the card carefully, and follow the instructions in order.
Q: What happens if something would both destroy the permanent and do something based on what it looks like? Does it see the permanent with or without the armor? (For example, you cast Vendetta on a creature enchanted with Boar Umbra . Does it use the toughness with or without the Umbra?) A: When something resolves, you follow its instructions in the order written, and totem armor's replacement happens at the same time the permanent would have been destroyed.
Thus, if the other instructions occur after the destruction, then it works based on how the permanent looks without the armor, because the armor is gone by the time it checks. So in the Vendetta example mentioned above, it counts the creature's toughness without the Umbra.
If the other instructions occur before the destruction, you do it before, and the armor is still there when you do.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
702.88b Damage dealt to a player by a source with infect doesn't cause that player to lose life. Rather, it causes the player to get that many poison counters. See rule 119.3.
702.88c Damage dealt to a creature by a source with infect isn't marked on that creature. Rather, it causes that many -1/-1 counters to be put on that creature. See rule 119.3.
702.88d If a permanent leaves the battlefield before an effect causes it to deal damage, its last known information is used to determine whether it had infect.
702.88e The infect rules function no matter what zone an object with infect deals damage from.
702.88f Multiple instances of infect on the same object are redundant.
Specific Questions
Q: What does Infect do? A: Infect is an ability that changes what damage dealt by whatever it's on does. If something with infect deals damage to a creature, that damage isn't marked on the creature like regular damage, and if something with infect deals damage to a player, that damage doesn't cause that player to lose life. Instead, damage dealt to a creature by something with infect causes that many -1/-1 counters to be put on the creature, and damage dealt to a player by something with wither causes that player to gain that many poison counters.
Q: What do poison counters do? A: If a player has ten or more poison counters at any time, he or she loses the game, exactly the same way he or she would if they had 0 life. It doesn't matter what their life total is--if they have ten or more poison counters, they lose.
Q: So infect replaces dealing damage with putting on counters? A: No. Infect just causes damage to work differently than normal; it doesn't replace anything. Damage is still being dealt, you just do it by giving the creature or player counters instead of the way you normally do it.
Think about it this way: normally, damage dealt to a planeswalker causes that many loyalty counters to be removed from it, right? The damage isn't being replaced by removing counters--causing the counters to be removed is what the damage does. In a similar way, dealing damage to a creature or player using something that has infect is defined as putting that many -1/-1 counters it (if it's a creature) or giving them that many poison counters (if it's a player)--that's just what the damage does.
So this means that "infect damage" can be prevented or affected in just the same way that normal damage can, and things that trigger on damage being dealt, like Repercussion 's ability, still work if the thing dealing the damage has infect.
Q: Does infect target? A: No. Anything that targets will use the actual word "target", either in the rules text of the card itself or, if a keyword is involved, in the rules of the game. (And in those cases, the reminder text for the keyword will include the word "target".)
Thus, since infect does not use the word "target" at all, it doesn't target. (Note that whatever has infect that's trying to deal damage might be trying to do so with an ability that targets, but there's nothing inherent to infect itself that would make anything target that wasn't already doing so.)
Q: Does damage from something with infect work differently on planeswalkers? A: No. "Infect damage" works just the same as normal damage on planeswalkers; it only works differently on creatures and players.
Q: How does infect interact with indestructible creatures? Will infect kill off an indestructible creature? A: Infect isn't stopped by indestructibility. Being indestructible only stops two things: things that actually say 'destroy', and lethal damage. (The regular kind that gets marked on creatures and goes away before the next turn begins.) Infect causes -1/-1 counters to be put on the creature, and if the creature accumulates enough of them, its toughness will be 0 or less, which will kill the creature; this isn't being destroyed and being indestructible won't save the creature.
Q: How does infect interact with Regeneration? Can my opponent's creatures regenerate from -1/-1 counters? A: Infect generally kills regenerators dead; regenerating won't save them and won't remove the counters accumulated thanks to infect. Infect causes -1/-1 counters to be put on the creature, and if the creature accumulates enough of them, its toughness will be 0 or less, which regeneration can't save the creature from.
Q: If the source with infect is removed before the damage is dealt, does that stop infect from working? A: No; the only way to stop infect from working would be to somehow make the source lose infect before the damage is dealt. (Say, with Ovinize .) Or somehow stop the damage entirely, but that goes without saying.
This is different than a triggered ability; infect works because the rules of the game look to see if things have infect when they're determining how damage will affect a given creature or player. Triggered abilities work because they're around to say they work; infect works because the game goes looking for it to see what happens. Infect doesn't need to actually be around to see the damage being dealt because the game goes looking for it, and if whatever's dealing the damage had infect when it left the battlefield, the game will see that and make the damage work accordingly.
Q: How do poison counters work in Two-Headed Giant? A: In Two-Headed Giant, poison counters, like life totals, are shared between the "heads" on a team. If a player receives poison counters, those counters are added to the shared poison total. If a team ever has 15 or more poison counters, they lose the game.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
701.24a To proliferate means to choose any number of permanents and/or players that have a counter, then give each exactly one additional counter of a kind that permanent or player already has.
701.24b If a permanent or player chosen this way has more than one kind of counter, the player who is proliferating chooses which kind of counter to add.
701.24c To proliferate in a Two-Headed Giant game means to choose any number of permanents and/or teams that have a counter, then give each exactly one additional counter of a kind that permanent or team already has. See rule 810, "Two-Headed Giant Variant."
Specific Questions
Q: What does proliferate mean? A: Proliferate is a keyword action, meaning it's shorthand for an instruction that would be longer to type out on its own. To proliferate, choose any number of permanents or players that have counters on them, and then give an additional counter of the same kind to each of the permanents or players you chose.
Q: Does proliferating target? A: No. Anything that targets will use the actual word "target", either in the rules text of the card itself or, if a keyword is involved, in the rules of the game. (And in those cases, the reminder text for the keyword will include the word "target".)
Thus, since proliferate does not use the word "target" at all, it doesn't target. You may be choosing a bunch of specific permanents or players, but that in itself is not the same thing as targeting them. The actual word "target" must be used for something to target.
Q: What can I give counters to when I proliferate? And how many of them can I give them to? A: You can give counters to any permanent or player as long as they already have at least one counter--if they don't have any, you can't give them any. And there's no limit to how many permanents or players you can put counters on. It doesn't matter whether the permanents are yours or your opponents.
You can't choose the same permanent or player multiple times, and you can't choose things that don't have any counters already, but if there's fifty bajillion creatures out there with +1/+1 counters on them, you can put another counter on every single one if you like.
Q: Do I have to give something more counters if I don't want to? A: No. If you don't want to put more counters on something, you don't have to. If every creature on the battlefield has a -1/-1 counter and you proliferate, you can put additional -1/-1 counters on just your opponent's creatures if you want, leaving your own unscathed. Or you could choose not to hand out any additional counters at all. It's completely optional.
Q: Can my opponents do something in between me choosing what gets counters, and them actually getting those counters? A: No. Proliferating is one single action that encompasses both the choice and handing out the counters--there's no time for anyone to do anything else in between the two. By the time your opponent knows what's going to get counters, it's too late for them to do anything.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
702.89a Battle cry is a triggered ability. "Battle cry" means "Whenever this creature attacks, each other attacking creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn."
702.89b If a creature has multiple instances of battle cry, each triggers separately.
Specific Questions
Q: What does Battle cry do? A: Battle cry is a triggered ability that triggers when the creature it's on attacks. Whenever a creature with battle cry attacks, each other attacking creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn. (Note that it's each other attacker--the battle cry creature doesn't boost itself.)
Q: How does battle cry work in 2HG or other multiplayer formats with shared turns? A: Battle cry boosts all other attacking creatures, not just ones you control, so if you attack with a creature with battle cry, your teammates' attacking creatures will also get the bonus.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
702.90a Living weapon is a triggered ability. "Living weapon" means "When this Equipment enters the battlefield, put a 0/0 black Germ creature token onto the battlefield, then attach this Equipment to it."
Specific Questions
Q: What does Living weapon do? A: When an equipment with Living weapon enters the battlefield, you put a 0/0 black Germ creature token onto the battlefield and attach that equipment to it automatically.
Normally a creature with 0 toughness would die immediately, but the equipment will have other abilities that boost the Germ's toughness so it survives.
Q: Can I equip the living weapon equipment to something else? A: Sure; just like any other Equipment, you can use the living weapon equipment's equip ability to attach it to something else. Note, however, that since the Germ token has 0 toughness normally, if you move the equipment to something else, it will probably die unless you can find some other way of keeping it alive.
Q: What happens when the Germ dies? A: The Germ token goes to the graveyard, but the equipment itself sticks around on the battlefield and you'll be able to equip it to something else later, just like any other equipment.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
702.11b "Hexproof" on a permanent means "This permanent can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control."
702.11c "Hexproof" on a player means "You can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control."
702.11d Multiple instances of hexproof on the same permanent or player are redundant.
Specific Questions
Q: What does hexproof do? A: A permanent you control with hexproof can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control. A player with hexproof can't be the target of spells and abilities his or her opponents control.
Q: I have an old card that says it can't be the target of spells or abilities my opponents control, or does that to something else. Does this card have or grant hexproof? A: Probably, yes. But it's best to check the Oracle text in Gatherer to be sure.
When Hexproof was created, old cards with the same ability were given errata to have hexproof, and cards that granted it were too. But only cards that have or granted the exact same ability received this errata--if using hexproof would have changed the way that card functioned, the card was not issued errata.
For example, the card Canopy Cover may look like it does what hexproof does, but it doesn't. As printed Canopy Cover stops the creature it's enchanting from being targeted by spells or abilities controlled by opponents of the player who controls Canopy Cover, not opponents of the player who controls the creature. So if you enchant your opponent's creature with Canopy Cover, your opponent wouldn't be able to target that creature, even though he controls it; you would. If Canopy Cover granted hexproof, it'd be the other way around. For this reason, Canopy Cover and other cards that had similar issues were not given errata to use hexproof.
If you're not sure, be sure to check the Oracle text of your card; a card's Oracle text is its current, "official" wording, and overrides the printed text. (The Oracle text can be found by looking up the card in Gatherer .)
Q: What does hexproof protect against? A: Hexproof will only protect against things that specifically use the word "target", or cards with keywords that target by definition. (If a card's keyword targets by definition, it will use the word "target" in its reminder text. If it doesn't have reminder text, you can look up a card with the same ability that does to see if the ability targets.) If your opponent's spell or ability doesn't target, hexproof can do nothing to stop it.
For more information on targets, see the Targets and Targeting entry of the Main Rules Q&A FAQ.
Q: Does hexproof function when the creature it's on isn't on the battlefield? (ie, Can my opponent Rise from the Grave or Cancel something with hexproof?) A: No, hexproof doesn't work when the card it's on isn't on the battlefield, so your opponent can Rise from the Grave and Cancel your hexproof creatures as much as he likes.
For an ability (any ability) to work outside of the battlefield, it has to either define a characteristic of the card (like Transguild Courier , Woodland Changeling , or Maro ), specifically say it works outside of the battlefield (like Anger or Glory ) or else do something that would logically mean it has to function somewhere else (like Squee, Goblin Nabob --you can't exactly return Squee from your graveyard if he isn't there in the first place). If an ability doesn't say it works somewhere else, and it would make sense for that ability to work while it's on the battlefield, then it works only on the battlefield. Hexproof is one such ability.
Q: My permanent has an Aura controlled by my opponent attached to it, and then it gains hexproof. Will the Aura fall off? A: No. While Aura spells on the stack target, being attached to another card isn't something that targets. While your opponent won't be able to cast Auras on a permanent that has hexproof, Auras already on a permanent won't fall off if you if you grant it hexproof.
Note that it is possible for your opponent to put Auras onto something with hexproof, as long as they do it in a way that doesn't actually try to target the creature.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
701.10a A spell or ability may instruct a creature to fight another creature or it may instruct two creatures to fight each other. Each of those creatures deals damage equal to its power to the other creature.
701.10b If a creature instructed to fight is no longer on the battlefield or is no longer a creature, no damage is dealt. If a creature is an illegal target for a resolving spell or ability that instructs it to fight, no damage is dealt.
701.10c If a creature fights itself, it deals damage equal to its power to itself twice.
701.10d The damage dealt when a creature fights isn't combat damage.
Specific Questions
Q: What does fight mean? A: Pretty simple: when two creatures fight, each of them deals damage equal to its power to the other creature.
Q: Is this combat damage? A: No. Only the damage dealt by attacking and blocking creatures as part of the process of attacking and blocking is combat damage. Anything else, even damage from a fight, is not "combat damage".
Q: What happens if one of the creatures that's supposed to fight isn't on the battlefield or isn't a creature when the fight is supposed to happen? A: Then nothing happens. A fight can only happen if both creatures are around for it.
Q: I have an older card that seems to do something similar to fighting. Does this card involve fighting? A: Possibly. When fighting was introduced, older cards that did the exact same thing were given errata to use it. However, there were many older cards that did something similar but not quite the same, and those cards weren't given errata. Mostly this involved the damage not being simultaneous--on many of those old cards, one creature would deal damage before the other one did.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
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