How to kill tapped creatures with combat damage

Upkeep

Tarkir: Dragonstorm is officially here and oh boy are these dragons big and scary. We got five new precons and a host of new big baddies to play with. What are you building from the new set? Love it? Hate it? Reply and let us know.

In the meantime, check out the links below for some of the latest gameplay from the new set and a weird old card that just might murder some elves.

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Main Phase

How to kill tapped creatures with combat damage

“On attack, I'm going to force your Priest of Titania to untap and block it, which means nothing else can. Ready to move to damage?”

If the above series of events causes a warm tingle in your cold, dead, hoof-flattened heart (I'm fine with elf-ball, really), then do I have the beastie for you, and a weird old mechanic to go with it.

22 years ago, Magic: the Gathering was in a wild state. Legions, released in 2003, was the first Magic set to release as a creatures-only design. It was based on the musings of Mike Elliot, who wondered if creatures could be designed to mirror the effects of traditionally non-creature cards. Thus came about one of my favorite weird little green beasts, the Krosan Vorine.

For 2G, Krosan Vorine nets you a 3/2 Beast with two very interesting lines of text. The first is a rarely-printed keyword (10 creatures, one un-set creature, and a sticker sheet) called Provoke.

Provoke lets you, on attack, force one of your opponent’s creatures to block the creature “Provoking” it. It will even force the creature to untap, meaning your opponents’ mana dorks are chum(p) in the water on your attack step!

Unfortunately, your opponent still gets to block with other creatures during the declare blockers step, so our beautiful Vorine might end up trading its life away in the exchange.

But wait!

The second line of text! Can it save our boy?

Let's see...

 “This creature can't be blocked by more than one creature.”

Oh man. I love that synergy. One of my favorite things about Magic design is when two pieces of a card work so smoothly together. That second line means that our little Vorine is going to be hunting our opponents' mana dorks and utility creatures like the raptors from Jurassic Park.

As to where this creature goes, it's one of my favorites in General Marhault Elsdragon, which takes our 3/2 and turns it into a 6/5 during blocks. After all, why limit our diet to just dorks when we can hunt much bigger prey?

Another great commander for our Vorine is Otrimi, Ever Playful. What's better than one weird keyword on a creature? Two! Mutate on top of our Vorine, and the combat step starts to become very, very fun.

I hope you enjoyed this little summary of a weird old card. Join us next week when we look at another one that gives you... Health Regeneration? It's perfect for you trolls out there. Ya know who ya be mon.

End Step

What are you playing tonight? I have a feeling you might need one of these.

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