Throughout the course of this series i've explained two things thus far how to get cards and the standard procedure on each player's turn now it's time to explain the card abilites and the more indepth look at the combat/blocking step of each player's turn. The article will focus on the card abilites and how they interact during the combat step and how some of them even affect the player itself.
There are a lot of keywords in magic that appear on cards and there are some terms in which most people have no clue what that specific term does, well it's time for the explanation there are 8 terms i wish to go over for this article that are the most common terms in the game and such appear in every single set to date including the first few sets of revised and the like, let's look at a few of these terms shall we?
Haste - As explained in my previous article haste gives the creature the ability to bypass summoning sickness which prevents a creature with summoning sickness to not attack on the first turn it is summoned regardless, this allows the creature to attack immediately when it is summoned to the field and is more apparent in red coloured cards then anything, though there are some other cards in other colours which have this ability, but it is more common in red then most.
Trample - Think of this ability as dealing direct combat damage even after a creature with this ability has been blocked, let's say you have a 5/5 beast token in play and you give it trample for the turn with Garruk Wildspeaker's Ability to give it a +3/+3 bonus and trample and a 0/6 creature blocks, you still deal 6 points of combat damage to the creature but the remaining 2 damage is dealt as direct to the opposing creature's controller and is subtracted from the life points of the controller, note all players will start at 20 life unless there are other forms of magic going on such as Elder Dragon Highlander and Two Headed Giant which i will explain the various forms next article.
Flying - This is a common ability among creatures that have wings, such as dragons, griffons and other mythical creatures, this allows a creature with this ability to go over non flying creatures and deal their damage directly unless another ability is used or a creature with flying is in play for the opposing player, let's say you have a 2/4
Darkslick Drake and your opponent controls a 3/3
Barrage Ogre that doesn't have flying, the darkslick drake can bypass the ogre and deal it's 2 points of damage as direct in this case and doesn't have to worry about being blocked in this case. Now let's take a look at the same creature the drake vs a actual flying creature in this case
Kemba's Skyguard which also has flying and a enter the battlefield ability which i will explain later and in this case is a 2/2 which means it has 2 power and 2 toughness for those not able to follow along in common magic terms. If the drake was to declare a attack the Skyguard could block and prevent the damage the drake would deal, instead both creatures would clash, dealing 2 points of combat damage each and this would cause the skyguard to die since it deals only 2 points of damage to the drake which isn't enough to kill it but the drake would kill the skyguard sending it to the graveyard. This is just one of the examples of flying creatures and how they interact during the combat step.
Defender - Creatures with this ability on the card cannot attack at all and can only block other creatures this is a more common thing on the wall sub type of creature since walls are just well walls. Each particular wall though has a different toughness which is it's endurance and also has some different abilites let's look at the newest wall of magic
Wall of Tanglecord this has defender and it's power is 0 and it's toughness is 6 in this case meaning it can block up to 6 points of combat damage before dying, it also has a mana ability where you can tap a green mana and block a creature with flying with this card. Though creatures with defender sometimes have abilites that cause them to lose defender and are able to attack this is not the case in most walls as there are only a select few walls that can actually declare a attack and have power such as
Mirror Wall when you pay the 1 plains mana cost for it's ability to attack as it also has 3 power and 4 toughness, though this kind of ability is rare it's not always the case in magic and should be observed with patience and understanding, some walls even have first strike and flying such as one of my favorite walls of all time
Illusionary Wall which also has defender, a power of 7 and a toughness of 4, though i will explain what first strike does soon.
First Strike - It's actually pretty common these days to see creatures with first strike on them and such, basically for those who don't know first strike damage is always applied first before regular combat damage so this is another combat step thing, let's look at a couple of examples of this prominent keyword with a first strike card called
Baneslayer Angel which has a ton of keyword abilites in this case but we are only looking at first strike with this particular section of the article. When a creature with this ability clashes with a creature without first strike, creatures with first strike act first dealing their power in the form of damage to said creature so let's take a look at a combat example if say the Angel was to clash against a
Cloud Elemental which doesn't have first strike in this case, when the angel attacks and the elemental blocks, the angel would get to deal enough damage to cripple or kill the elemental in this case since it's toughness is lower then the angel's power and the elemental wouldn't get to deal damage back to the angel instead it would get a one way trip to the graveyard. Now let's look at a prominent example of two first strikers in action, with the angel clashing against a
Cloud Crusader which also has first strike and flying, so the angel declares a attack and the crusader blocks what happens you may wonder, well since both have first strike they would both deal damage simultaneously and would both have either been crippled or killed in battle, but since the angel has 5 toughness and the crusader only has 2 power the angel would survive and the angel deals 5 points of damage to the crusader's 3 toughness causing it to die, this is a useful example of this ability i would think and is sometimes questioned in game of course.
Lifelink - This keyword is more common these days then one would think with at least seven to 8 cards a set receiving this ability with various colours, costs and even types of creatures or spells in this case let's look at a few prominent lifelink cards in the game today. The first one we will be taking a look at is
Child of Night which has 2 power and 1 toughness and it is a black card that costs 1 of any mana and one black mana to cast, each time this creature is either blocked or deals damage to anything in this case even a defender creature the lifelink keyword kicks in and causes you to gain as much life as the creature has power so if you were to be blocked by a 0/3
Wall of Vines while child of night was in play and declaring a attack you would gain 2 life and would still have a child of night in play, now let's look at combat damage and how it interacts with lifelink in this case with the child of night going against a
Vulshok Berserker with the child of night on the defensive, both would essentally deal their respective points of damage to each other, but the child of night's lifelink ability kicks in and causes the controller of the vampire to gain 2 life while losing the creature and taking out the opposing creature since the Berserker deals 3 points of damage to the child of night and the child of night deals 2 damage which is just enough to kill the attacking creature.
Deathtouch - This actually is a ability which is one of my preferred favorites in the game of magic today and is common enough to earn a place on the list these days, since most new sets end up printing at least 3 to 4 things with this ability whether it would be creatures, artifacts or enchantments in this case with instants and sorceries sometimes being the lucky dog to get this keyword printed let's look at some of the more newly printed cards with this keyword.
Wurmcoil Engine actually comes to the top of my mind when i think of this ability as it's brand new, it's a artifact creature at that and is just dangerous when it's in play as are all deathtouch creatures in the game but this is a exception, a creature with deathtouch only needs to deal a single point of combat damage to any other creature to kill it, in this case let's look at a few blocking examples. Let's say your opponent had a 2/2
Vulshok Heartstroker a 0/6
Wall of Tanglecord and a
Trinket Mage with 2 power and 1 toughness and you controlled a wurmcoil engine with 6 power and 6 toughness and all three of these creatures were blocking, you would only need to deal a single point of combat damage to each of these creatures to kill them espically since you can divide combat damage among creatures that are blocking, so you would normally choose in this case to apply 1 point of combat damage to each creature blocking and you would take 4 points of combat damage on the engine but it would survive regardless, all three opposing creatures would get sent to the graveyard and you would have a 6/6 wurmcoil engine sitting on your side of the field, note though deathtouch only applies to creatures and not to players as you cannot instantly kill the opposing player with this ability otherwise it would be broken.
Double Strike - This is the last ability i am going to be looking at and this one is exactly as it says a creature with this ability deals twice the amount of damage it would normally deal, first strike damage and then regular combat damage would apply for a creature with this ability. Let's look at one here shall we in the form of
True Conviction which is a enchantment that grants your creatures double strike and lifelink when it is on the field, now a creature with double strike if it is not blocked it deals twice the amount of damage in the form of it's power to the opposing player so let's say you have a 2/2
Snapsail Glider in play and it is attacking with this enchantment on the field, it would deal 2 times the damage in the form of it's power to the opposing player since first strike damage always goes first and then normal combat damage is applied in this case it would be 4 points of damage dealt and the player would lose 4 life points. This ability also interacts with creatures as well so let's take the glider again and pit it against a 5/5
Steel Hellkite which also has flying so when the glider attacks it would deal it's 2 points of first strike damage to the hellkite and then normal combat damage kicks in and both creatures would deal their respective damage in the form of power to the opposing creature meaning the hellkite would survive however the glider would die since it only has 2 toughness and the hellkite has 5 meaning it has more then enough to take a double strike from a 2/2 creature in this case, there are lots of examples with this ability which are explained a lot easier in some cases.
Well that concludes this part of the series, for more information on the other abilites in game i would suggest you refer to wizards of the coast youtube page at the following link
Wizards of the Coast Youtube and check out the abilites and some of the video examples of how some abilites mentioned here interact including a how to guide on the newer sets including Scars of Mirrodin, till next article i'm vergil and this has been part 3 of the MTG basics ability how to guide.
