Read ahead

Read ahead
Keyword Ability
Type	Static
Introduced	Dominaria United
Last used	Dominaria United
Reminder Text	Read ahead (Choose a chapter and start with that many lore counters. Add one after your draw step. Skipped chapters don't trigger. Sacrifice after III))
Statistics	7 cards 14.3% 28.6% 28.6% 14.3% 14.3%
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keyword:"Read ahead"

Read ahead is a keyword ability on Sagas that allows the player to skip chapters to get to the effects they want. It was introduced in Dominaria United.

Description

A Saga with read ahead enters the battlefield on any chapter you want, meaning it enters with that many lore counters on it. Any chapters you skip over won't trigger.

With the most impactful being the third chapter, this ability acts like a sorcery variation on the suspend-X cycle from Planar Chaos, which could also either be cast as normal or put "on a delay" to power up the main mode.

Rulings

• As a Saga with read ahead enters the battlefield, its controller chooses a number from one to that Saga’s greatest chapter number. The Saga enters the battlefield with the chosen number of lore counters. Neither choosing the number nor putting the counters on the Saga use the stack, and neither can be responded to.
• Normally, if more than one lore counter is put on a Saga at one time, all of the appropriate chapter abilities will trigger. The read ahead ability creates an exception to this: on the turn that a Saga with read ahead entered the battlefield, its chapter abilities won’t trigger unless it has exactly the same number of lore counters on it as that ability’s chapter number.
• If a replacement effect modifies the number of counters that a permanent enters the battlefield with, that effect is applied after you have chosen the number of lore counters that the Saga will enter with. In that case, only the chapter ability with the same chapter number as the number of lore counters it actually entered with will trigger, regardless of the number, you chose.
• On subsequent turns, a Saga with read ahead follows the normal rules for Saga enchantments.