Substance

Substance is a keyword ability with no effect. Substance was introduced at the same time the Ravnica: City of Guilds set was released in 2005, but never printed on a Magic card. Substance was originally created to fix ten cards that did not work under post-Sixth Edition rules in the same way they worked under Fifth Edition rules. The cards are:

Armor of Thorns Grave Servitude Lightning Reflexes Mystic Veil Necromancy

Parapet Relic Ward Soar Spider Climb Ward of lights

The change was necessary to ensure that these enchantments would always go to the graveyard during the cleanup step of the turn in which they were played. With the original wording, under the current rules, if the enchantments had been played any time you could not normally play an enchantment spell it would be put into the graveyard at the end of turn step. This means that, for example, Armor of Thorns would not save a 2/2 creature with 3 damage on it, because when the enchantment is put into the graveyard, the creature would be destroyed as a state-based effect. With the errata, they can be played like either Auras or instants and work in the same way players would expect them to.

From the ()

Rulings

• If you play one of these at a time you could normally play an Aura, or it is put directly into play without being played, it will behave as a standard Aura. You can ignore its entire first ability.
• If you play one of these at a time you couldn’t normally play an Aura, it will create a delayed triggered ability that forces you to sacrifice it when the turn ends. You'll sacrifice it after "until end of turn" abilities end and damage is removed from creatures. That means if you play Soar as an instant to save your 1/1 creature from Flare, your creature will survive even after Soar is sacrificed.