If you’ve been reading my articles for any amount of time, then you probably know that I’m a huge fan of lists. I’ve found that compiling (and also categorizing, sorting) large blocks of related data and concepts really helps to solidify my understanding of a topic. Today’s list contains fifty random factoids about Magic Online’s Classic format, fifty pieces of information that cover a broad spectrum of interactions that are important to any Eternal player.
My hope is that today’s article will be useful to a wide variety of players. Not only is it a decent ‘cheat sheet’ for new players interested in trying out Classic, but it’s always possible that experienced players will be able to pick up a few new tricks. Depending on your skill level, some of this information may seem obvious – but I feel that all of it is useful.
Let’s get started!
- A single (untapped) Mishra’s Factory is 3/3 on defense.
- It’s not practical to Stifle a Standstill trigger. Sure you can Stifle the trigger, but the act of casting Stifle will cause another Standstill trigger to go on the stack.
- If your opponent has a 2/3 Tarmogoyf and there are zero instants in graveyards, then Lightning Bolt will not get the job done. By the time state based effects are checked, Lightning Bolt will be in the graveyard and Tarmogoyf will be 3/4.
- Dredge decks cannot dredge up a solution to Yixlid Jailer. Darkblast can come out of the hand to take down the 2/1 Jailer, but it can’t be dredged up.
- Bridge From Below has a self-destruct clause. Any creature that can sacrifice itself (like Mogg Fanatic) works as a great foil to disrupt Dredge’s powerful Combo engine.
- You can figure out how much life you’ll lose on average to each activation of Ad Nauseam. (Average life loss from Ad Nauseam = total converted mana cost of cards left in library / number of cards remaining in library.)
- You can use the same formula above to figure out how much life you’ll lose from Dark Confidant.
- If you reveal a split card with with Dark Confidant or Ad Nauseam, you will lose life equal to the total of both halves of the card. For example, if you flip over Fire/Ice then you’ll have 4 damage coming your way.
- When a spell with a cost that includes X is on the stack, X is included in the converted mana cost. At all other times, X is not included when calculating converted mana cost. For example, Engineered Explosives cast with BU has a converted mana cost of two while on the stack and zero while in play.
- Lands and (almost all) tokens have a converted mana cost of zero. Dance of Many is an example of a spell that creates a token with a mana cost.
- If either half of a split card is an instant with converted mana cost two or less, then it can be imprinted on Isochron Scepter. You can imprint Bound/Determined on Scepter, and each time you activate it you choose which half you want to copy.
- Spells cast via Isochron Scepter will trigger Standstill.
- If Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Blood Moon (or Magus of the Moon) are both in play at the same time, Blood Moon wins. Urborg will be just a basic Mountain, therefore other lands do not count as Swamps.
- Merrow Reejerey‘s triggered ability can be used to untap your own lands.
- Wake Thrasher can grow without any mana burn penalty thanks to the new rules update.
- If you cast Sea Drake with only one land in play, then you don’t have to return anything to your hand.
- Tombstalker‘s delve ability is part of the cost, and you can’t interfere with it – unless you do so proactively.
- Helm of Obedience for 1 with Leyline of the Void in play will exile your opponent’s entire library, since the “until a creature card or X cards are put into that graveyard this way” clause will never be satisfied.
- A Grindstone activation with Painters Servant in play will mill your opponent’s entire library.
- Helm of Obedience can be used as a Millstone. Let’s say your opponent casts Vampiric Tutor to put something crucial (like say, Tendrils of Agony or Oath of Druids) on top of his library. Helm for 1 or 2 can get rid of these powerful cards – assuming your opponent can’t rearrange his library in time.
- Mox Diamond can be played without discarding a land in order to increase storm count, gain hellbent, help achieve threshold, etc.
- Chrome Mox can be played without a card to imprint in order to up storm count, achieve hellbent, make Cranial Plating more deadly, etc.
- Chrome Mox cannot imprint lands or artifacts.
- You can Stifle the imprint of Chrome Mox to leave your opponent with a useless artifact.
- Runed Halo can not save you against Empty the Warrens.
- Stifle is Stone Rain for U while your opponent is activating a fetchland.
- Pithing Needle has the ability to shut down fetchlands.
- Storm is a triggered ability that fires when the spell is cast. If you counter the spell with storm, then all of the copies still go on the stack.
- Umezawas Jitte gets counters whenever ANY combat damage is done by the creature – it doesn’t have to be combat damage to your opponent.
- Equipment (such as Jitte) can only be equipped at sorcery speed. Cranial Plating (and a few others) have instant-speed equip abilities.
- Diabolic Edict, Cruel Edict, and Innocent Blood can take out pretty much every creature, including Akroma and Progenitus.
- Gaea’s Blessing‘s triggered ability goes on the stack and must resolve before your graveyard is shuffled into your library. Your mill-happy opponent will have an opportunity to finish you off with Blessing’s triggered ability still on the stack.
- There are precious few tutors that don’t require you to reveal the card: Demonic Tutor, Diabolic Tutor, Grim Tutor, Infernal Tutor (conditionally), Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Collusion, Diabolic Intent, Imperial Seal, Planar Portal, and Liliana Vess. Demonic/Diabolic/Infernal/Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal are the only ones that see Classic play.
- Fire/Ice (and other split cards with a Blue half) can be pitched to Force of Will.
- Senseis Divining Top can save itself from removal (well, not Krosan Grip) by flipping it onto the top of your library.
- You can use Divining Top to just draw a card blindly when times are tough. Even if you don’t have mana to sort the top of your library, you can still draw a card and hope for the best.
- Divining Top can combine with tutors that place a card on top of your library (Vampiric Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Mystical Tutor) to bring the tutor target straight into your hand.
- Lord of Atlantis gives your opponent’s Mutavaults islandwalk.
- There’s nothing you can do to stop Turn 0 Leyline of the Void, not even Force of Will. You can bust it up afterwards, but it will hit play.
- When tokens are returned to a player’s hand, they cease to exist. Echoing Truth can take out any number of Bridge From Below or Empty the Warrens tokens.
- Oath of Druids now requires a target opponent, which wasn’t the case for a long time. If your opponent has True Believer or Ivory Mask, then your Oath is useless.
- If you trigger Oath of Druids without a creature in your library, then you will mill your entire deck.
- Sacrificing an artifact is part of Tinker‘s cost, so if the spell is countered then you still lose your artifact.
- Tormods Crypt and other graveyard hosers aren’t just good against Dredge, they can also shrink Tarmogoyf, shut off threshold, remove Grim Lavamancer ammo, and make Tombstalker more difficult to cast.
- Goblin Warchief gives himself haste.
So that does it! Did you guys enjoy this article format? Did I make any mistakes with the list above? Are there any major tips that I missed? Feel free to comment below. I had a lot of fun putting it together, so hopefully it was fun to read. I’d love to do a sequel someday!
Thanks for reading!
Steve Gargolinski
spgmtg@gmail.com
twitter.com/spgmtg
Another humorous one: “Countering Daze with a Red Elemental Blast is not a sign of your mastership of the game.”
I liked it, most of what follows is just elaborations that you may have skipped to keep it looking like a list.
Might want to mention that split cards behave as you noted because they have converted mana costs (in general properties) of both sides.
So Boom//Bust has CMC of 2 and 6, not 8.
Also, remember you can remove as many cards from your graveyard as you want with Tombstalker (to maybe shrink Tarmogoyf). It of course can never cost less than BB from this though.
Also elaborate that Runed Halo can not save you from Empty the Warrens because it asks you to name a CARD and there is no card named “Goblin” (and I guess that tokens have name = creature type unless otherwise stated).
If you know you will not be using your Divining Top for the next few turn you can activate the rearrange ability, and then in response use it’s draw card ability. Then you can move the top to another position in the top 3.
For Mishra’s Factory as long as it has been under your control since your last upkeep. so it can use it’s ability once it is animated
For Bridge from Below you might also note that you can wait until they try to get zombies before you sacrifice your creature, since Bridge has an if clause.
Nice tips man, and some solid clarifications. Using Tombstalker to shrink opposing Tarmogoyfs is especially tricky. I may steal that one for my followup article =)
Here are some Classic relevant land based ones that I have seen people miss in 100CS:
You can use Wasteland/Strip Mine on your own lands for various tricky purposes such as reducing your nonbasic count while Price of Progress is on the stack.
Wasteland (and similar cards like Dwarven Miners) can still destroy lands that used to be nonbasic when Blood Moon is out.
Mishra’s Factory can pump Mutavault
Humility does not affect man-lands because the activation of the man-land grants the land the various abilities and sets the stats in a layer that goes on top of Humility’s affect.
I like this list! Of all the obvious things, how did I not know that Umezawas Jitte triggers on any combat damage, not just damage to your opponent? Wow. Some of these I knew, like Stifling the Standstill trigger, but many had never occurred to me.
Runed Halo will save you from: Mishra’s Factory (name Assembly-Worker) and random Illusion tokens (name the Illusion half of Illusion//Reality).
Lake of the Dead doesn’t require your sacrifice to be untapped. It’s the only land of its kind to do so.
Ethersworn Canonist only prevents you from casting your “second and non-artifact spell”, not your “second or non-artifact spell”. After casting Lotus Petal, Lotus Petal, Mox, and some sort of Crypt, you can still storm for 4. (My opponent was not amused.)
Mishra’s Factory pumping Mutavault is another good one, as is the Ethersworn Canonist tip..
@katastrophe: You might be thinking of urza’s factory tokens which are named “Assembly-Worker”. Mishra’s factory is still named “mishra’s factory” even when it is a “land creature artifact – assembly-worker” so having protection from things with the name “assembly-worker” won’t help.
A couple things in the article and comments:
Blood Moon effects do not make the lands basics. They become non-basic Mountains, as the Supertype Basic is not added. This affects Dwarven Miner (Wasteland will also lose its destructive capability) and Price of Progress.
When calculating with Ad Nauseum or Dark Confidant, while the average is your expected damage, you should remain cognizant of the highest converted mana cost still remaining in your library. That’s why many Ad Nauseum players stop digging when they hit 5 life or less (to avoid hitting another 5-drop and dying).