Heroic

Heroic
Ability Word
Introduced	Theros
Last used	Journey into Nyx
Typical Text	Heroic — Whenever you cast a spell that targets this card, …
Statistics	41 cards 31.7% 24.4% 9.8% 14.6% 14.6% 2.4% 2.4%
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keyword:"Heroic"

For other uses, see Hero.

Heroic is an ability word introduced in Theros. A creature with heroic gives the controlling player powerful benefits every time they cast a spell that targets it. Heroic also featured in the rest of the Theros block. Theros Beyond Death used the heroic mechanic on five cards, but did not reuse the ability word because it wasn't considered to be important enough to be worth the mental burden.

Rulings

• A heroic ability triggers only when the creature's controller casts a spell that targets it, not when any other player does.
• A heroic ability triggers whenever a player casts any spell that targets the heroic creature, including a spell that also targets another creature.
• If a spell targets multiple creatures with heroic abilities, all of them trigger.
• Activated abilities, such as equip, do not cause heroic abilities to trigger.
• An instant or sorcery spell has a target if it includes the word "target" in its rules text.
• Each Aura spell also has a target, indicated by its enchant ability.
• Creature spells and other non-aura permanent spells never have targets.
• Heroic abilities will resolve before the spell that caused them to trigger.
• Heroic abilities will trigger only once per spell, even if that spell targets the creature with the heroic ability multiple times.
• Heroic abilities won't trigger when a copy of a spell is created on the stack or when a spell's targets are changed to include a creature with a heroic ability.
• If the spell that caused heroic to be triggered is countered, heroic will still resolve.

Examples

Example

Favored Hoplite
Creature — Human Soldier
1/2
Heroic — Whenever you cast a spell that targets Favored Hoplite, put a +1/+1 counter on Favored Hoplite and prevent all damage that would be dealt to it this turn.