As Victimize resolves, you must sacrifice a creature if able. You can't change your mind and choose not to sacrifice anything.
If one of the targeted creature cards is an illegal target (for instance, because it has left your graveyard before Victimize resolves), you'll still sacrifice a creature and put the other card onto the battlefield. If both are illegal targets, Victimize won't resolve. You won't sacrifice a creature.
The creature you sacrifice isn't chosen until Victimize resolves. You can't return the creature you sacrifice because it will still be on the battlefield at the time targets are chosen.
You must choose two targets. You can't cast Victimize targeting only one creature card.
If a card in a player's graveyard has {X} in its mana cost, X is considered to be 0.
If any abilities trigger on the creature entering the battlefield, those abilities resolve after you lose life. If losing life results in you losing the game, those abilities won't resolve.
In a multiplayer game, if a player leaves the game, all cards that player owns leave as well. If you leave the game, the creature you control from Reanimate is exiled.
The amount of life you lose is determined by the mana value of the card in your graveyard, not the creature once it's on the battlefield.
You lose life after the creature is already on the battlefield. Any abilities it has that interact with loss of life, such as that of Platinum Emperion, apply to that loss of life.
If a creature enters the battlefield under your control and gains haste, but then loses it before attacking, it won't be able to attack that turn. This means that you can't use one Swiftfoot Boots to allow two new creatures to attack in the same turn.
Equipped creature has hexproof and haste. (It can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control. It can attack and no matter when it came under your control.)
Equip (: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery.)
Whenever another creature dies, or a creature card is put into a graveyard from anywhere other than the battlefield, or a creature card leaves your graveyard, Syr Konrad deals 1 damage to each opponent.
: Each player mills a card. (They each put the top card of their library into their graveyard.)
Syr Konrad, the GrimLegendary Creature — Human KnightNormal - ~$1.4
Zulaport Cutthroat #121Creature — Human Rogue Ally
This land enters tapped.
: Add .
, ,Sacrificethis land: Search your library for up to two basic land cards that share a land type, put them onto the battlefield tapped, thenshuffle
If one or more creatures you control die at the same time that Bastion of Remembrance leaves the battlefield, its last ability triggers for each of those creatures.
If your life total is brought to 0 or less at the same time that creatures you control are dealt lethal damage, you lose the game before the last ability goes on the stack.
In a Two-Headed Giant game, Bastion of Remembrance's last ability causes the opposing team to lose 2 life and you to gain 1 life.
When this enchantment enters, create a 1/1 white Human Soldier creature token.
Whenever a creature you control dies, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
If Pitiless Plunderer dies at the same time as one or more other creatures you control, its ability will still trigger for each of those other creatures.
If a creature enters the battlefield under your control and gains haste, but then loses it before attacking, it won't be able to attack that turn. This means that you can't use one Lightning Greaves to allow two new creatures to attack in the same turn.
You can't simply unequip Equipment from a creature. If Lightning Greaves is attached to the only creature you control, you won't be able to attach other equipment to it (or target it with anything else) until you have another creature onto which you can move Lightning Greaves.
If a permanent on the battlefield has {X} in its mana cost, X is 0 for the purpose of determining its mana value.
If the target permanent is an illegal target by the time Feed the Swarm tries to resolve, the spell doesn't resolve. You don't lose any life. If the target is legal but not destroyed (most likely because it has indestructible), you do lose life.
The amount of life you lose is determined by the permanent's mana value as it last existed on the battlefield.
If Taborax is dealt lethal damage at the same time as one or more nontoken creatures you control die or are dealt lethal damage, it won't receive a counter from its ability in time to save it.
If another nontoken Cleric dies at the same time as Taborax, you won't put a +1/+1 counter on anything, but you may draw a card as its last ability resolves. You still lose 1 life if you do.
Flying
Taborax has lifelink as long as it has five or more +1/+1 counters on it.
Whenever another nontoken creature you control dies, put a +1/+1counteron Taborax. If that creature was a Cleric, you may draw a card. If you do, you lose 1 life.
If an effect such as that of Magus of the Moon causes Urborg to lose its abilities by setting it to a basic land type not in addition to its other types, it won't turn lands into Swamps, no matter in what order those effects started to apply.
Land cards not on the battlefield aren't Swamps while Urborg is on the battlefield.
Urborg's ability causes each land on the battlefield to have the land type Swamp. Any land that's a Swamp has the ability "{T}: Add {B}." Nothing else changes about those lands, including their names, other subtypes, other abilities, and whether they're legendary, basic, or snow.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth isn't a Swamp while it's not on the battlefield.
Colorless and generic mana symbols ({C}, {0}, {1}, {2}, {X}, and so on) in mana costs of permanents you control don't count toward your devotion to any color.
Hybrid mana symbols, monocolored hybrid mana symbols, and Phyrexian mana symbols do count toward your devotion to their color(s).
If an activated ability or triggered ability has an effect that depends on your devotion to a color, you count the number of mana symbols of that color among the mana costs of permanents you control as the ability resolves. The permanent with that ability will be counted if it's still on the battlefield at that time.
If you put an Aura on an opponent's permanent, you still control the Aura, and mana symbols in its mana cost count towards your devotion.
Mana symbols in the text boxes of permanents you control don't count toward your devotion to any color.
The amount of life you gain is the total amount of life lost, not simply the value of X.
When this creature enters, each opponent loses X life, where X is your devotion to black. You gain life equal to the life lost this way. (Each in the mana costs of permanents you control counts toward your devotion to black.)
Gray Merchant of AsphodelCreature — ZombieNormal - ~$7.79
Priest of Forgotten Gods #478Creature — Human Cleric
Because it may have targets, the ability of Priest of Forgotten Gods isn't a mana ability. It uses the stack and can be responded to, even if no targets were chosen.
You can activate the ability of Priest of Forgotten Gods without choosing any targets if you wish. You'll still add {B}{B} and draw a card.
You may target players who can't sacrifice a creature. Those players still lose 2 life.
As an additional cost to cast this spell,sacrificean artifact or creature.
Draw two cards and create a Treasure token. (It's an artifact with ",Sacrificethis token: Add one mana of any color.")
Deadly DisputeInstantNormal - ~$0.73
Haunted One #624Legendary Enchantment — Background
An effect that checks whether you control your commander is satisfied if you control one or both of your two commanders.
Both commanders start in the command zone, and the remaining 98 cards (or 58 cards in a Commander Draft game) of your deck are shuffled to become your library.
Choose a Background is a variant of the partner ability. You may have two commanders if one of them is a legendary creature with the choose a background ability and the other is a legendary Background enchantment. Backgrounds and cards with choose a Background do not interact with cards which have any other partner ability.
If a card refers to a commander creature you own, a Background won't usually be counted or included for that effect. If another spell or ability causes your Background to become a creature, however, it will be included. Any effect that refers to your commander or a commander you own or control without specifying creature will apply to a Background that is your commander, as appropriate.
If something refers to your commander while you have two commanders, it refers to one of them of your choice. If you are instructed to perform an action on your commander (e.g. put it from the command zone into your hand due to Command Beacon), you choose one of your commanders at the time the effect happens.
If you control a Background that grants an ability to commander creatures you own, and you own more than one commander creature, each of them will have that ability.
If your Commander deck has two commanders, you can include only cards whose own color identities are also found in your commanders’ combined color identities.
If your commander loses the choose a Background ability or stops being a Background during the game, as appropriate, it is still your commander.
Once the game begins, your two commanders are tracked separately. If you cast one, you won’t have to pay an additional {2} the first time you cast the other. A player loses the game after having been dealt 21 combat damage from any one of them, not from both of them combined (although your Background won’t usually be a creature anyway).
You can choose two commanders that are the same color or colors.
Commander creatures you own have "Whenever this creature becomes tapped, it and other creatures you control that share a creature type with it each get +2/+0 and gain undying until end of turn." (When a creature with undying dies, if it had no +1/+1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a +1/+1counteron it.)
If a spell you cast has {X} in its mana cost, you choose the value of X before calculating the spell's total cost.
If there are additional costs to cast a spell, or if the cost to cast a spell is increased by an effect (such as the one created by Thalia, Guardian of Thraben's ability), apply those increases before applying cost reductions.
The ability can't reduce the amount of colored mana you pay for a spell. It reduces only the generic mana component of that cost.
The ability doesn't change the mana cost or mana value of any spell. It changes only the total cost you pay.
The cost reduction can apply to alternative costs such as flashback costs.
All creatures on the battlefield when Toxic Deluge resolves are affected. Ones that enter the battlefield or become creatures later in the turn are not.
If you cast Toxic Deluge without paying its mana cost, you'll still choose a value for X and pay X life. This is because it doesn't have {X} in its mana cost.
Other Clerics you control get +1/+1.
, ,Sacrificeanother Cleric: Search your library for a black creature card, put it onto the battlefield, thenshuffle
Shadow-Rite PriestCreature — Human ClericNormal - ~$0.67
Doomed Necromancer #426Creature — Human Cleric Mercenary
Whenever Ayara or another black creature you control enters, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
,Sacrificeanother black creature: Draw a card.
Ayara, First of LocthwainLegendary Creature — Elf NobleNormal - ~$15.68
Whenever a creature dies, put a chargecounteron this enchantment.
At the beginning of your first main phase, add for each chargecounteron this enchantment.
If multiple creatures you control die at the same time, Grave Pact's ability will trigger that many times.
If two players each control a Grave Pact and a creature controlled by one of those players dies, a chain reaction happens. First the ability of that player's Grave Pact will trigger, causing each other player to sacrifice a creature. That sacrifice causes the ability of the other player's Grave Pact to trigger, and so on.
If you control more than one Grave Pact and a creature you control dies, each of the triggered abilities will trigger. Each other player will sacrifice a creature each time one of those abilities resolves.
In a Two-Headed Giant game, when a creature you control dies, Grave Pact's triggered ability will cause each other player, including your teammate, to sacrifice a creature. Grave Pact's ability won't trigger when a creature your teammate controls dies.
None of the players are targeted. A player with hexproof would still sacrifice a creature.
When the triggered ability resolves, first the player whose turn it is (if it isn't your turn) chooses which creature they will sacrifice, then each other player in turn order does the same, then all chosen creatures are sacrificed at the same time.
Exotic Orchard checks the effects of all mana-producing abilities of lands your opponents control, but it doesn't check their costs. For example, Vivid Crag has the ability "{T}, Remove a charge counter from Vivid Crag: Add one mana of any color." If an opponent controls Vivid Crag and you control Exotic Orchard, you can tap Exotic Orchard for any color of mana. It doesn't matter whether Vivid Crag has a charge counter on it, and it doesn't matter whether it's untapped.
Exotic Orchard doesn't care about any restrictions or riders your opponents' lands (such as Ancient Ziggurat or Hall of the Bandit Lord) put on the mana they produce. It just cares about colors of mana.
Lands that produce mana based only on what other lands "could produce" won't help each other unless some other land allows one of them to actually produce some type of mana. For example, if you control an Exotic Orchard and your opponent controls an Exotic Orchard and a Reflecting Pool, none of those lands would produce mana if their mana abilities were activated. On the other hand, if you control a Forest and an Exotic Orchard, and your opponent controls an Exotic Orchard and a Reflecting Pool, then each of those lands can be tapped to produce {G}. Your opponent's Exotic Orchard can produce {G} because you control a Forest. Your Exotic Orchard and your opponent's Reflecting Pool can each produce {G} because your opponent's Exotic Orchard can produce {G}.
The colors of mana are white, blue, black, red, and green. Exotic Orchard can't be tapped for colorless mana, even if a land an opponent controls could produce colorless mana.
When determining what colors of mana your opponents' lands could produce, Exotic Orchard takes into account any applicable replacement effects that would apply to those lands' mana abilities (such as Contamination's effect, for example). If there are more than one, consider them in any possible order.
If Path of Ancestry's last ability produces two mana (most likely due to Mana Reflection), spending those two mana to cast creature spells that share a creature type with your commander will cause two abilities to trigger. Each of those abilities will cause you to scry 1. You won't scry 2. This is true whether you spend the mana on one creature spell or two.
If you cast your commander with mana from Path of Ancestry, and your commander hasn't somehow lost all of its creature types while on the stack, you'll scry 1.
If you don't have a commander, Path of Ancestry's ability produces no mana.
If your commander has no creature types, it can't share a creature type with any spell that you cast.
If your commander is a card that has no colors in its color identity, Path of Ancestry's ability produces no mana. It doesn't produce {C}.
If you have two commanders, the last ability adds one mana of any color in their combined color identities. When you spend that mana on a creature spell that shares a creature type with either of your commanders, you'll scry 1.
Your commander's creature types are checked immediately after you cast a creature spell spending mana from Path of Ancestry's last ability. They aren't set before the game begins, and they may not be the same types your commander had when you activated that ability.
This land enters tapped.
: Add one mana of any color in your commander's color identity. When that mana is spent to cast a creature spell that shares a creature type with your commander, scry 1. (Look at the top card of your library. You may put that card on the bottom.)
At the beginning of your first main phase, choose one or more —
• Sell Contraband — Create a Treasure token. You lose 1 life.
• Buy Information — Draw a card. You lose 2 life.
• Hire a Mercenary — Create a 3/2 colorless Shapeshifter creature token with changeling. You lose 3 life. (It is every creature type.)
Black Market ConnectionsEnchantmentNormal - ~$18.57
Abilities such as shroud and protection function only on the battlefield unless otherwise specified. A creature card with shroud may be targeted by Animate Dead, and Animate Dead will become attached to the creature that enters the battlefield.
Animate Dead is an Aura, albeit with an unusual enchant ability. You target a creature card in a graveyard when you cast it. It enters the battlefield attached to that card. Then it returns that card to the battlefield, and attaches itself to the card again (since the card is a new object on the battlefield). Animate Dead itself never moves into a graveyard during this process.
If Animate Dead isn't on the battlefield as its triggered ability resolves, none of its effects happen. The creature card won't be returned to the battlefield.
If the creature put onto the battlefield has protection from black—or if the creature can't legally be enchanted by Animate Dead for another reason—Animate Dead won't be able to attach to it. It will be put into the graveyard as a state-based action, causing its delayed triggered ability to trigger. When the trigger resolves, if the creature's still on the battlefield, its controller will sacrifice it.
Once the creature is returned to the battlefield, Animate Dead can't be attached to anything other than it (unless Animate Dead somehow manages to put a different creature onto the battlefield). Attempting to move Animate Dead to another creature won't work.
Enchant creature card in a graveyard
When this Aura enters, if it's on the battlefield, it loses "enchant creature card in a graveyard" and gains "enchant creature put onto the battlefield with this Aura." Return enchanted creature card to the battlefield under your control and attach this Aura to it. When this Aura leaves the battlefield, that creature's controller sacrifices it.
Enchanted creature gets -1/-0.
If multiple effects modify your hand size, apply them in timestamp order. For example, if you put Null Profusion (an enchantment that says your maximum hand size is two) onto the battlefield and then put Reliquary Tower onto the battlefield, you'll have no maximum hand size. However, if those permanents enter in the opposite order, your maximum hand size would be two.