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Hi,

I’ve been playing MTG for a few months now and have got most of the rules sorted. I’m not trying to play at any competitive level, just for fun with friends. I have a few questions about some stuff I can’t find answers to and wondered if anyone could help?:

1. Fleecemane Lion

Fleecemane Lion is a 3/3 card which costs one plains and one forest to summon. It has Pay 5 mana and make Fleecemane Lion monstrous, put a +1/+1 counter on it and it gains hex proof and indestructible.

a. My question is this, if I manage to make Fleecemane Monstrous is there a way an opponent can remove it from the battlefield, my friend and I can’t think of a way? It’s only 4/4 to begin with but if it starts to become buffed it’s causing my friends a lot of problems.

b. When I summon Fleecemane my friend could cast a counter on it, but if I have enough mana (7 in the right combination, I’d need two forest and two plains and three colourless) I could make Fleecemane monstrous as soon as it arrives because it’s not a tap ability. In this case I work out that Fleecemane’s monstrous goes to the top of the stack and would resolve first making it hex proof before the counter.

Are we working that out right or would this be using the monstrous ability too early - i.e. I try to summon a creature and the counter occurs before the creature is properly summoned meaning I’m not allowed to use monstrous yet?

For a bunch of new players you can see the confusion - I can see arguments to both sides of this, any clarification would be helpful.

2: Going Monstrous

I have some creatures that can become monstrous. I understand that if I pay the mana cost they become bigger. If I use a card such a bioshift to move the +1/+1 counters from a creature that went monstrous to another creature, is it still monstrous? i.e. it returns to it’s original strength and toughness so can it then go monstrous again if I pay the mana cost, or can creatures only go monstrous once?

3: Hexproof

We understand that if something is hexproof an opponent can’t target it with spells. I understand too that other creatures can’t use abilities against it, but somewhere along the line, in some situations we have grey areas.

Is Deathtouch or Reach or similar things an ability (i.e. things a creature just has) or does ability just refer to activated abilities like being able to damage or detain etc? So for example can a flying hexprrof creature be blocked by an enemy creature with reach, or does hex proof protect the creature from reach?

4: Aetherling

I’ve noticed this a card that seems to pop up in some pro built decks I’ve seen and it’s certainly really useful in our games. My friend has a couple and it’s all fairly straight forward but we have a few questions about the ability: Pay 1 blue: Excile Aetherling. Return it to the battlefield under it’s owners control at the beginning of the next end step.

a. Can this be used like a flashback i.e from a graveyard?
b. When can this be used, i.e. can my friend block with it, then use the excile ability, preventing damage occurring to Aetherling and to himself then getting the creature back in the end step ready for his turn?
c. If I use a spell like traitorous blood on Aetherling and maybe have something like a transguild promenade so I can use blue mana to activate the exile ability, can I steal the creature permanently (well for the rest of the game) as reading the text literally it would now be under my control?

Any help with these would be really appreciated, thanks,
S

I'm going to answer your questions in order pertaining to each card.

Fleecemane Lion, Hexproof, and Going Monstrous.

Here is Fleecemane Lion's Oracle rulings.

•9/15/2013: Once a creature becomes monstrous, it can’t become monstrous again. If the creature is already monstrous when the monstrosity ability resolves, nothing happens.
•9/15/2013: Monstrous isn’t an ability that a creature has. It’s just something true about that creature. If the creature stops being a creature or loses its abilities, it will continue to be monstrous.
•9/15/2013: An ability that triggers when a creature becomes monstrous won’t trigger if that creature isn’t on the battlefield when its monstrosity ability resolves.

So to answer, no, once you have FMNL become monstrous, it cannot become monstrous again, unless it leaves the battlefield and returns (Via cloudshift effects, etc.)

Monstrous is also an activated ability that can only be activated if the creature is on the battlefield, So when you cast Fleecemane Lion, it goes on the stack so your opponent can respond to it if they wish, if they want to counter it, they can, You cannot activate Monstrous while the spell that has the ability is on the stack, as the creature hasn't entered the battlefield yet.

Hexproof - Your opponent cannot target the creature with spells or abilities. While deathtouch and reach are abilities, they are evergreen and do not target, etc. So, a 1/1 with Deathtouch that blocks Fleecemane Lion will consider to have dealt lethal damage to Fleecemane Lion.
Targeted kill spells, ala Doom Blade and co, will not be able to target the Lion to destroy it, however, cards that say "Destroy all creatures" or "Deals 2 damage to each creature" will be able to kill/damage a creature with hexproof.
And yes, creatures with hexproof can be blocked by defending creatures.

AEtherling -

"U - Exile AEtherling, return it to the battlefield under its' owner's control at the beginning of the next endstep."

This ability can only be activated if AEtherling is on the Battlefield.

Yes, you can declare AEtherling as a blocker, then before damage is dealt, activate the ability and take no damage, unless the creature its' blocking has trample, then you would take ALL the damage from the creature AEtherling blocked.

No, if you take control of AEtherling and use its' ability, it would return under its' owner's control. You are not AEtherling's owner, therefore you wouldn't gain control of it with its' ability.

I hope this helps.

Hi, thanks, that’s cleared up a lot of things for us, appreciate it.

As we got into Magic we bought a few intro decks to play with. I have a green/white Selesnya deck which has a lot of creatures with the heroic ability - often that the creatures get a certain amount of +1/+1 counters if they are the target of one of my spells.

The deck came with cards like giant growth which specifically says ‘target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn’. Obviously this then also activates the heroic ability on the creatures giving them additional power and toughness.

So I went through the deck after I got familiar with what I was doing in an attempt to make it more powerful. Only now I’m getting more into the game I’m not sure if what I’m doing is legal.

As I look at the cards in front of me now, I have ‘Travel Preparations’ - which is a card I added. This says ‘Put a +1/+1 counter on each of up to two target creatures.’ It specifically says ‘target creatures’ and allows me to buff two heroic creatures at once. It also has flashback allowing me to cast it again from my graveyard - so for the level I’m playing at least, it’s a useful card and I think I’m able to use it for this purpose.

However I have also been using cards such as ‘Fortify’ and ‘Righteous Charge’.
Fortify reads: ‘Choose one - Creatures you control get +2/+0 until end of turn; or creatures you control get +0/+2 until end of turn.’
Righteous Charge reads: ‘Creatures you control get +2/+2 until end of turn.’

I have used these cards to activate heroic but now I’m concerned I’ve been accidentally cheating and these cards don’t count as targeting because they hit everything. Does a card specifically have to say ‘target’ to count?

Cheers.

Yes, cards that affect all creatures do not trigger heroic. To trigger the heroic ability, it needs to say target.

Also, nice catch on Travel Preparations. wish that was in standard right now, G/W Aggro would be competitive, lol.

I assume you guys are just playing casual, yes?

Sigurd wrote:
1. Fleecemane Lion

Fleecemane Lion is a 3/3 card which costs one plains and one forest to summon. It has Pay 5 mana and make Fleecemane Lion monstrous, put a +1/+1 counter on it and it gains hex proof and indestructible.

a. My question is this, if I manage to make Fleecemane Monstrous is there a way an opponent can remove it from the battlefield, my friend and I can’t think of a way? It’s only 4/4 to begin with but if it starts to become buffed it’s causing my friends a lot of problems.

Yes. For starters, there are cards that force your opponent to sacrifice a creature. If Fleecemane Lion is the only creature you control, you'd have to pick it. Cards that give -X/-X to all creatures you control. Cards that force you to exile all your creatures. Cards that return all creatures you control to your hand.

Basically, if it doesn't say "target" and doesn't either say "destroy" or "damage", it will work.

Hi guys, thanks to you both for the info.

Me and my friends just play really casually with what we have, as you can tell we're still learning the rules really. I mean, obviously the basics aren't hard to pick up, but the exact way in which things resolve and occur is more difficult to pin down and answer as with the above questions. I'm aware that certain cards can't be used competitively but we've never looked into that - do people play exclusively Dragon's Maze or exclusively Core Set for example? Are their rules governing mixing and matching or can you just use anything you have or does it just depend on what everyone in the group is happy with?


To clarify then, 'Indestructible' only protects you from combat damage, things like burn spells or cards that read 'destroy' or 'damage' and 'Hexproof' only protects that card from being 'targeted'? So abilities like 'infect' are considered evergreen and would send Fleecemane to the graveyard if it reduces it's toughness to 0 through -1/-1 counters? And any card that just hits everything I have, well 'hex proof' offers no protection at all?

S

 Sigurd wrote:
Hi guys, thanks to you both for the info.

Me and my friends just play really casually with what we have, as you can tell we're still learning the rules really. I mean, obviously the basics aren't hard to pick up, but the exact way in which things resolve and occur is more difficult to pin down and answer as with the above questions. I'm aware that certain cards can't be used competitively but we've never looked into that - do people play exclusively Dragon's Maze or exclusively Core Set for example? Are their rules governing mixing and matching or can you just use anything you have or does it just depend on what everyone in the group is happy with?

Yes. The most common restriction is "Standard", which lets you use anything in the most recent two blocks and the most recent core set. So at the moment that would mean anything from Return to Ravnica, anything from Theros and anything from Magic 2014.

To clarify then, 'Indestructible' only protects you from combat damage, things like burn spells or cards that read 'destroy' or 'damage' and 'Hexproof' only protects that card from being 'targeted'? So abilities like 'infect' are considered evergreen and would send Fleecemane to the graveyard if it reduces it's toughness to 0 through -1/-1 counters? And any card that just hits everything I have, well 'hex proof' offers no protection at all?

That's mostly correct. The only thing you got wrong is that "evergreen" refers to a keyword that has migrated from a particular set to become available anywhere - like flying. It doesn't have anything to do with what the keyword does, only how widespread it is.

Alex hit evergreen right on the head.

A creature being Indestructible will prevent it from being killed these ways,

1. Combat damage
2. Targeted damage
3. Cards that say "destroy"

The only way to send an indestructible creature from the battlefield to the graveyard barring any fancy removal spell is to lower its' toughness to 0, this can be achieved like you mentioned in the form of -1/-1 Counters, or can be done via a spell like "Dismember" which gives a target creature -5/-5 until eot.