Magecraft
Magecraft | |
---|---|
[[File:{{#setmainimage:Icon Magecraft.png}}|70x70px]] | |
Ability Word | |
Introduced | Strixhaven: School of Mages |
Last used | Modern Horizons 3 |
Typical Text | Magecraft — Whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell, ... |
Storm Scale | 5[1] |
Statistics |
30 cards 10% 20% 6.7% 3.3% 6.7% 10% 16.7% 6.7% 6.7% 6.7% 6.7% |
Scryfall Search | |
keyword:"Magecraft" |
Magecraft is an ability word introduced in Strixhaven: School of Mages that causes an effect whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell.[2]
Description
Magecraft is written as "Magecraft — Whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell..." and may appear in all colors. The previous, unkeyworded form of Magecraft without the copy clause, a cousin to the keyword Prowess, has been printed numerous times since the Izzet guild in Ravnica and is a popular blue-red draft archetype. Ral, Storm Conduit was the first card to hold this text before it was keyworded.
Magecraft highlights triggered abilities that give you some sort of benefit whenever you cast — or copy — an instant or sorcery spell.[3] The effects are differentiated by Strixhaven college,[4] though in practice some of these partitions were not so exclusive.
- Silverquill — creature pumping and evasion. Stacking multiple instants or sorceries on the same turn.
- Prismari — singular, less-stackable effects.
- Witherbloom — life gain.
- Lorehold — nominally graveyard effects; in practice, one Spirit tribal effect and one creature pump.
- Quandrix — +1/+1 counters and creating resources.
History
Magecraft was one of the non-evergreen, non-deciduous ability words included in the Unfinity sticker sheets. It also reappeared in Modern Horizons 3.
Rulings
- Each magecraft ability has a different effect, although they all have the same trigger condition, whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell.
- If an effect creates a copy of an instant or sorcery spell, this will also cause the magecraft ability to trigger.
- If an effect creates multiple copies of an instant or sorcery spell, magecraft abilities trigger once for each copy created by the effect.
- Some effects instruct you to copy an instant or sorcery card in a zone other than the stack. These copies do not cause magecraft abilities to trigger. However, most effects that do this also allow you to cast the copy, and casting the copy will cause magecraft abilities to trigger.
Examples
Example
Professor Onyx
Legendary Planeswalker - Liliana
Magecraft — Whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell, each opponent loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.
+1 You lose 1 life. Look at the top three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.
-3 Each opponent sacrifices a creature with the greatest power among creatures that player controls.
Trivia
- Magecraft’s design name was "spellcast". Caring about copying was part of its design from the beginning.[5]
References
- ↑ Mark Rosewater (January 03, 2022). "Storm Scale: Throne of Eldraine through Strixhaven, Part 2". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Jess Dunks and Matt Tabak (April 16, 2021). "Strixhaven: School of Mages and Commander (2021 Edition) Release Notes". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Matt Tabak (March 25, 2021). "Strixhaven: School of Mages Mechanics". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Mark Rosewater (April 5, 2021). "In the Strixhaven, Part 2". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Mark Rosewater (May 15, 2022). "Maybe you could offer some trivia on Magecraft?". Blogatog. Tumblr.