The Deck of Many Things: Card Frequencies, By Type and Function, Across EDH

Ranking Every Battlecruiser Card (8 CMC+) with EDHREC – Part 25: And Now a Bigger Dragon!

Too-Specific Top 10 - Evolving More

Reconstruct History — Sheoldred, Whispering One (and Other Edict Effects)

Do Your Worst - Mono-Red +1/+1 Counters

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dragon&#039;s Approach" href="#" target="_blank">Dragon&#039;s Approach</a> | Art by <a href="http://www.andrewkmar.com/">Andrew Mar</a>)</h6>
<h1>Burn After Reading</h1>
Feel like your deck just is not coming together? Welcome to Solve the Equation, where we take a look at the numbers and see what's making your deck and in-game decision-making fall flat.
I love playing burn decks! There is something about slinging <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lightning Bolt" href="#" target="_blank">Lightning Bolt</a>s at an opponent's face that's cathartic for me. Unfortunately, while burn is a viable aggro strategy in many other formats, it has long been an underachiever in Commander. The math gets a lot hairier here. Burn decks perform best when there is as little thinking to do as possible. Every spell is going straight at your opponent’s face. However, with 120 life points to whittle down, 3 damage feels pretty lackluster, and a singleton format means we can't even rely on the burn spells we need. 
Well, what if I told you there's one burn spell you can rely on having in your hand? Come on! It's 2022, the age of power creep. The last few years have given burn a bunch of new toys which I think might just make it playable.
<hr />
<h2>Damage Output </h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Dragon&#039;s Approach"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Lightning Bolt"></div></div>
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dragon&#039;s Approach" href="#" target="_blank">Dragon&#039;s Approach</a> shares some similarities with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lightning Bolt" href="#" target="_blank">Lightning Bolt</a>. The biggest similarity is, of course, 3 damage, but this spell hits each opponent. Our opponents each have 40 life, which means it would take approximately 13.3 <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dragon&#039;s Approach" href="#" target="_blank">Dragon&#039;s Approach</a>s to kill our opponents. Admittedly, this is much worse than the 6.6 <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lightning Bolt" href="#" target="_blank">Lightning Bolt</a>s it would take to kill an opponent in a 1-on-1 format such as Modern, but when you start to count how many Bolts it would take to kill off each opponent in Commander, 13.3 sounds like a perfectly fine starting point.
Now, what if there was a way to make our Approaches as efficient at killing our opponents as <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lightning Bolt" href="#" target="_blank">Lightning Bolt</a> is in Modern? For this we can turn to one of the game’s most broken mechanics: Companion. Legendary creatures with this mechanic can be played as your commander without any deckbuilding requirement. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Obosh, the Preypiercer" href="#" target="_blank">Obosh, the Preypiercer</a> is the perfect burn commander and can leverage <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dragon&#039;s Approach" href="#" target="_blank">Dragon&#039;s Approach</a> better than any other deck.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Obosh, the Preypiercer"></div></div>
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Obosh, the Preypiercer" href="#" target="_blank">Obosh, the Preypiercer</a> doubles the damage that our odd-costed cards deal. 6 damage to each opponent for 3-mana is a very appealing rate. That's 18 total damage for 3 mana off of one card. That's a combined 15% of our opponent’s life totals, which is the same damage output of a single <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lightning Bolt" href="#" target="_blank">Lightning Bolt</a> in a 60-card format.
18 Damage / 120 Life (3 Opponents) = 15%
vs
3 Damage / 20 Life (1 Opponent) = 15%
&nbsp;
<hr />
<h2>How Many Do We Need?</h2>
Time to break out the <a href="https://aetherhub.com/Apps/HyperGeometric">hypergeometric calculator</a> to figure out how many Approaches we want in our deck. It's always important when deckbuilding that we remember our goal. Are we going to beat the table exclusively with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dragon&#039;s Approach" href="#" target="_blank">Dragon&#039;s Approach</a>? Probably not, so we want to make sure we can at least get a free Dragon out of the deal! If we cast the spell approximately five times, let's see what we get.
Without <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Obosh, the Preypiercer" href="#" target="_blank">Obosh, the Preypiercer</a>:
<ul>
<li>15 damage to each opponent (45 total / ~38% of your opponents’ life) + Dragon of our choice </li>
</ul>
With <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Obosh, the Preypiercer" href="#" target="_blank">Obosh, the Preypiercer</a>:
<ul>
<li>30 damage to each opponent (90 total / ~75% of your opponents’ life) + Dragon of our choice </li>
</ul>
So we don’t actually need to cast this spell a ton of times to have a big effect, but we do need to reliably have the cards in our hand. Let’s imagine a hypothetical game that's expected to go about 10 turns. If we can draw, on average, approximately 2 cards a turn over those 10 turns, then by turn 10 we'll be 27 cards deep into our deck.
Let’s take a look at the odds at different Dragon’s Approach counts:
10 Approaches
<ul>
<li>Chance to draw 5 or more of the wanted card = 9.58%</li>
<li>Chance to draw exactly 5 of the wanted card = 7.25%</li>
<li>Chance to draw 5 or less of the wanted card = 97.7%</li>
</ul>
20 Approaches
<ul>
<li>Chance to draw 5 or more of the wanted card = 69.7%</li>
<li>Chance to draw exactly 5 of the wanted card = 21.8%</li>
<li>Chance to draw 5 or less of the wanted card = 52.1%</li>
</ul>
30 Approaches
<ul>
<li>Chance to draw 5 or more of the wanted card = 96.8% </li>
<li>Chance to draw exactly 5 of the wanted card = 5.99%</li>
<li>Chance to draw 5 or less of the wanted card = 9.16%</li>
</ul>
40 Approaches
<ul>
<li>Chance to draw 5 or more of the wanted card = 99.9% </li>
<li>Chance to draw exactly 5 of the wanted card = 0.421%</li>
<li>Chance to draw 5 or less of the wanted card = 0.533%</li>
</ul>
10 is definitely not enough, as the overwhelming odds suggest we won't draw enough cards. 20 is moving in the right direction, but a 22% chance of failing to draw 5 Approaches is higher than I would like. 40, on the other hand, nearly guarantees we draw the Approaches, but at that point we'll have more Approaches than lands and will barely be able to fit anything else into our deck. It looks like the sweet spot would be somewhere between 30 and 40 Approaches.
<hr />
<h2>The Dragons are Approaching</h2>
All that said, this is not simply a burn deck. One thing many burn players love even more than a <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lightning Bolt" href="#" target="_blank">Lightning Bolt</a> is a Dragon that can dish out even more damage. The exciting text on <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dragon&#039;s Approach" href="#" target="_blank">Dragon&#039;s Approach</a> is not the damage output; we want Dragons! The biggest pitfall a burn deck runs into is running out of gas, but once we cast enough Approaches, they can solve this issue. Plenty of the format’s best Dragons can draw us cards, gain advantage, or just do more burning in general, and we can get them for free just by pursuing our burn strategy.
<h3>Card Advantage Dragons</h3>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Knollspine Dragon"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Dragon Mage"></div></div>
The Approach spells don't add any card advantage on their own, so oftentimes the first Dragon we want to grab should be one that refills our hand. 
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Knollspine Dragon" href="#" target="_blank">Knollspine Dragon</a> - We're dealing loads of damage to our opponents, so this Dragon draws a veritable butt-ton of cards.
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dragon Mage" href="#" target="_blank">Dragon Mage</a> - Not only will <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dragon Mage" href="#" target="_blank">Dragon Mage</a> refill the hand, but it can also screw up our opponents’ plans. It's important to be careful with this one, because if opponents are low on cards, it could help them refuel, too.
<h3>Damage-Dealing Dragons</h3>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Balefire Dragon"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Drakuseth, Maw of Flames"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Terror of the Peaks"></div></div>
Our burn spells won't be enough to finish our opponents off, so we may want to grab a Dragon that can deal out enough damage to take us the rest of the way. We want to focus on odd-mana Dragons, since they'll deal double the damage with our commander’s ability.
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Balefire Dragon" href="#" target="_blank">Balefire Dragon</a> - This card will clear one opponent’s entire board. One of the the biggest factors that can throw a wrench in our plans is an opponent who has a ton of creatures attacking us. This will quickly and continually take care of that issue.
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Drakuseth, Maw of Flames" href="#" target="_blank">Drakuseth, Maw of Flames</a> - Just read the card. So. Much. Damage! And double it!
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Terror of the Peaks" href="#" target="_blank">Terror of the Peaks</a> - The next Dragon we bring out is really going to hurt. Plus, if an opponent tries to take it out, it'll cost them even more life.
<h3>Utility Dragons</h3>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Bladewing the Risen"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ancient Copper Dragon"></div></div>
Some Dragons will help keep our strategy going, including by bringing out even more Dragons!
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bladewing the Risen" href="#" target="_blank">Bladewing the Risen</a> - If one of our Dragons was taken out earlier, we can bring it right back.
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ancient Copper Dragon" href="#" target="_blank">Ancient Copper Dragon</a> - Our spells are expensive, so the more help we have on mana, the better. Not many Dragons can create more mana than this one.
<hr />
<h2>It's All Coming Together</h2>
Time to flesh out the rest of the deck with some key support pieces!
<h3>Cost-Reducers</h3>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ruby Medallion"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Nightscape Familiar"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Locket of Yesterdays"></div></div>
The biggest knock against <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dragon&#039;s Approach" href="#" target="_blank">Dragon&#039;s Approach</a> is that it costs three mana. There are a number of cards that can reduce the cost of the spell and will quickly allow us to cast multiple spells a turn. What makes these spells stand out over a traditional ramp spell is that they apply the discount to each spell we cast in a turn.
<h3>When Dragons Aren't Enough</h3>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Mizzix&#039;s Mastery"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Thrumming Stone"></div></div>
When Dragons and burn spells aren't enough, sometimes we need a little extra push to take us the rest of the way. On the surface, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Mizzix&#039;s Mastery" href="#" target="_blank">Mizzix&#039;s Mastery</a> seems contradictory to this strategy, as it exiles the cards from the graveyard. However, sometimes you just need to push through a little bit more damage, and this spell can deal a boatload to just close things out. 
Oh, and who could forget <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Thrumming Stone" href="#" target="_blank">Thrumming Stone</a>? This artifact is getting a reprint in Double Masters 2022, which will hopefully make it more accessible. This card can potentially cast through an entire library of Approaches and win the game on the spot!
Check out the full deck here:
<div class="edhrecp__deck mtgh"><span class="edhrecp__deck-s" name="Obosh Burn" site="edhrec" archidekt_link="" cards="[Commander]
*1 Obosh, the Preypiercer
[/Commander]
[Sorceries]
*1 Blasphemous Act
*1 Browbeat
*1 Chandra&#039;s Ignition
*1 Crux of Fate
*30 Dragon&#039;s Approach
*1 Jeska&#039;s Will
*1 Mizzix&#039;s Mastery
*1 Night&#039;s Whisper
*1 Read the Bones
[/Sorceries]
[Creatures]
*1 Ancient Copper Dragon
*1 Balefire Dragon
*1 Birgi, God of Storytelling
*1 Bladewing the Risen
*1 Dragon Mage
*1 Dragonlord&#039;s Servant
*1 Dragonspeaker Shaman
*1 Drakuseth, Maw of Flames
*1 Guttersnipe
*1 Knollspine Dragon
*1 Nightscape Familiar
*1 Terror of the Peaks
[/Creatures]
[Instants]
*1 Chaos Warp
[/Instants]
[Enchantments]
*1 Dragon Tempest
*1 Harness the Storm
*1 Pyromancer Ascension
[/Enchantments]
[Artifacts]
*1 Arcane Signet
*1 Locket of Yesterdays
*1 Pyromancer&#039;s Goggles
*1 Rakdos Signet
*1 Ruby Medallion
*1 Sol Ring
*1 Talisman of Indulgence
*1 Thrumming Stone
*1 Wayfarer&#039;s Bauble
[/Artifacts]
[Lands]
*1 Blightstep Pathway
*1 Blood Crypt
*1 Bloodstained Mire
*1 Bojuka Bog
*1 Command Tower
*1 Dragonskull Summit
*1 Evolving Wilds
*1 Exotic Orchard
*1 Fabled Passage
*1 Graven Cairns
*1 Haunted Ridge
*1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
*1 Luxury Suite
*9 Mountain
*1 Myriad Landscape
*1 Prismatic Vista
*1 Smoldering Marsh
*1 Sulfurous Springs
*9 Swamp
*1 Terramorphic Expanse
[/Lands]"></div>

<hr />
What are your favorite burn cards in Commander? Is Obosh the best burn commander out there? I certainly think so, but the <a href="https://www.edhrec.com/themes/burn">EDHREC data shows it at 7th</a> for that dedicated archetype. Some of the more popular include <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Torbran, Thane of Red Fell" href="#" target="_blank">Torbran, Thane of Red Fell</a>, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Toralf, God of Fury" href="#" target="_blank">Toralf, God of Fury</a>, and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Firesong and Sunspeaker" href="#" target="_blank">Firesong and Sunspeaker</a>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Torbran, Thane of Red Fell"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Toralf, God of Fury"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Firesong and Sunspeaker"></div></div>
Which one is your favorite? Is there a better <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dragon&#039;s Approach" href="#" target="_blank">Dragon&#039;s Approach</a> deck? Let me know in the comments below.

Solve the Equation – The Math of Burn in Commander

Ranking Every Battlecruiser Card (8 CMC+) with EDHREC – Part 24: The Real Slinn Voda

Too-Specific Top 10 - Front-Facing

The 600 - Predicting the Popularity of Baldur's Gate Commanders, Part 2

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<a href="https://scryfall.com/card/j17/9/rules-lawyer">Rules Lawyer</a> | Art by <a href="https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/burmak/mtg-rules-lawyer/">Dmitry Burmak</a>)</h6>
<h1><img decoding="async" title="Wait, That's Illegal" src="https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Wait-Thats-Illegal.png" alt="Wait, That's Illegal" width="100%" /></h1>
<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<a href="https://scryfall.com/card/und/4/flavor-judge">Flavor Judge</a> | Art by <a href="https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/mike_burns/flavor-judge/">Mike Burns</a>)</h6>
Hello, I'm Alex, and I'm a judge who loves EDH. Our beloved format was created by judges, and I'm more than happy to uphold that legacy (if only by playing). There may not be a judge available for your casual EDH game, yet the eye-watering number of cards legal in our format creates an incomprehensible number of possible interactions between them. I am sure you've heard by now that <a href="https://youtu.be/pdmODVYPDLA">top scientists</a> have declared Magic the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurenorsini/2019/05/09/its-science-magic-the-gathering-is-the-worlds-most-complicated-game/">most complex game in existence</a>, and it can certainly feel that way when you are staring down a <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Humility" href="#" target="_blank">Humility</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Opalescence" href="#" target="_blank">Opalescence</a>. Or <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ashaya, Soul of the Wild" href="#" target="_blank">Ashaya</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Blood Moon" href="#" target="_blank">Blood Moon</a>. Or anything that has Banding.
The interactions we're looking at today are not necessarily the most complex, but rather those with the most strange and unintuitive results. With these interactions, you are sure to amaze your friends and melt their brains at your next game! By the time you're through reading this article, I can only hope you have called BS and asked another judge if that's really how that works.
<h2><img decoding="async" title="Go Forth and Subtract Negative Numbers" src="https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Go-forth-and-subtract-negative-numbers.png" alt="Go Forth and Subtract Negative Numbers" width="100%" /></h2>
<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Nethroi, Apex of Death" href="#" target="_blank">Nethroi, Apex of Death</a> | Art by <a href="https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/maniaks/nethori-apex-of-death/">Slawomir Maniak</a>)</h6>
Ah, Mutate. Is there any keyword in recent memory that causes as many unintuitive and confusing interactions? However, while our first example may have Mutate and the interaction involves mutating, we don't actually care all that much about the mutation itself. We're more into what that mutation triggers. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Nethroi, Apex of Death" href="#" target="_blank">Nethroi, Apex of Death</a> is a curious Cat (slash Nightmare Beast) that wouldn't look out of place in a monster movie and has a monstrous text box to match.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Nethroi, Apex of Death"></div></div>
When we pay Nethroi's exorbitant Mutate cost of {4}{G/W}{B}{B}, we would expect to get a massive effect in return, and it could be argued that we do. Whenever Nethroi Mutates, we can return any number of target creatures with total power 10 or less from our graveyard to the battlefield under our control. So we could get ten 1/1 creatures, or five 2/2s, or a single 10/10... you get the idea. Let's keep that grade school arithmetic in mind while we look at the other half of this interaction.
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Scourge of the Skyclaves" href="#" target="_blank">Scourge of the Skyclaves</a> looks and feels like a sibling of <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Death&#039;s Shadow" href="#" target="_blank">Death&#039;s Shadow</a>, a well-known one-drop in competitive formats. But while Death's Shadow's behemoth of a 13/13 body would be too much even for Nethroi, what do we make of Scourge's power and toughness? */* (often read star/star) looks like some sort of office shorthand, but here represents one of judges' many treasured initialisms.
A characteristic-defining ability, or CDA, is an ability that tells us information about an object that would normally be told to us in other places. For example, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Transguild Courier" href="#" target="_blank">Transguild Courier</a> might look quite fancy with a colorful beach ball of a five-color color indicator, but Wizards of the Coast opted to go with a CDA instead: "Transguild Courier is all colors." The reminder text "even if this card isn't in play" is quite pertinent here, reminding us that characteristic-defining abilities function in all zones, including in the hand, library, or in this case, graveyard.
So what do we make of Scourge's CDA? The */* points us toward its third ability: "Scourge of the Skyclaves's power and toughness are each equal to 20 minus the highest life total among players." That confusingly worded sentence holds true everywhere that Scourge exists, not just on the battlefield. Now, finally, we get to the strange yet tantalizing interaction itself!
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Scourge of the Skyclaves"></div></div>
Let's say we're in for a bit of a slow game of Commander, the kind with durdling, battlecruisers, and stalemates on the combat side. Sounds like a fun time! In our hypothetical scenario, each player's life total is still at 40, unchanged from their starting life total. What is <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Scourge of the Skyclaves" href="#" target="_blank">Scourge of the Skyclaves</a>'s power and toughness now? Well, that should be easy, it's 20 - 40 = -20. If it were on the battlefield right now, it would be very dead. So let's say it's in the graveyard, where its power and toughness remain at an absurd -20/-20.
Now let's bring Nethroi back into the fray. When Nethroi Mutates (at great expense), we can reanimate 10 power out of the graveyard. But how does that interact with Scourge's unusual power of negative 20? Unbelievably, this interaction works out better than we could have ever hoped, and it's right back to the grade school math: 10 - (-20) = 30. So now that we've selected Scourge as one of the creatures Nethroi will reanimate, our budget skyrockets from 10 power to 30 power!
That's right, as long as one of our creatures is Scourge, we can then choose 30 power worth of creatures to reanimate with Nethroi instead of 10! Will you get an <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Impervious Greatwurm" href="#" target="_blank">Impervious Greatwurm</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Emrakul, the Promised End" href="#" target="_blank">Emrakul, the Promised End</a>? Or perhaps thirty 1/1 creatures that somehow ended up in your graveyard? The sky(clave) is the limit, so pack that 'yard full of bodies for your new best friend Nethroi and its strange and confusing appearance and ability. In a bit of serendipity that beggars belief, at the time of writing, Scourge of the Skyclaves is included in <a href="https://edhrec.com/commanders/nethroi-apex-of-death">20% of Nethroi decks</a>. With an interaction this nifty, shouldn't it be closer to 100%?
<h2><img decoding="async" title="Selvala, Explorer of the illegal World of Failure" src="https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Selvala-Explorer-of-the-Illegal-World-of-Failure.png" alt="Selvala, Explorer of the Illegal World of Failure" width="100%" /></h2>
<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Selvala, Explorer Returned" href="#" target="_blank">Selvala, Explorer Returned</a> | Art by <a href="https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/tylerjacobsonart/selvala-explorer-returned/">Tyler Jacobson</a>)</h6>
Look who got a reprint in Streets of New Capenna! <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Selvala, Explorer Returned" href="#" target="_blank">Selvala, Explorer Returned</a> holds a dear place in my heart. With her Parley ability, she nets her controller green mana and life gain while giving the entire table a free draw! What's not to love? Even if you're not a steadfast group hug enthusiast like me, at least she's not as powerful as <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Selvala, Heart of the Wilds" href="#" target="_blank">her mono-green counterpart</a>, right? ...Right!? Well, you may have already heard Selvala's name uttered in the same sentence as <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Panglacial Wurm" href="#" target="_blank">Panglacial Wurm</a>, a card infamous only in relation to her, but Selvala's exploration of the rules does not start and end with nearly unplayable Wurms erroneously embedded in your library. The true problem? She's too fast! But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Selvala, Explorer Returned"></div></div>
To understand Selvala's strange nature, we must first understand the process of casting a spell. From my experience, most Magic players tend to float their mana before revealing the spell they are about to cast. Somehow, it just feels right. However, "before you begin casting a spell" is most certainly not the only time Magic players can activate mana abilities, and it's not how the rules are written.
<blockquote>601.2a To propose the casting of a spell, a player first moves that card (or that copy of a card) from where it is to the stack. It becomes the topmost object on the stack. It has all the characteristics of the card (or the copy of a card) associated with it, and that player becomes its controller. The spell remains on the stack until it resolves, it’s countered, or a rule or effect moves it elsewhere.</blockquote>
So the first step of casting a spell is moving that card to the stack. Then things like modes and targets are chosen, then the total cost of the spell is calculated. Then, finally, the caster may activate mana abilities to pay the mana cost of the spell.
<blockquote>601.2g If the total cost includes a mana payment, the player then has a chance to activate mana abilities (see rule 605, “Mana Abilities”). Mana abilities must be activated before costs are paid.</blockquote>
Alright, so what's a mana ability? Just an ability that adds mana, no? Let's continue our Magic Comprehensive Rules journey into the definition of exactly what a mana ability is.
<blockquote>605.1a An activated ability is a mana ability if it meets all of the following criteria: it doesn’t require a target (see rule 115.6), it could add mana to a player’s mana pool when it resolves, and it’s not a loyalty ability. (See rule 606, “Loyalty Abilities.”)</blockquote>
Let's compare Selvala's Parley ability with the criteria for a mana ability to see if everything checks out. It doesn't target, so we're good there. It's not a loyalty ability, and she's not even a planeswalker, so no problems there. Finally, the "adding mana" part... ah, so a mana ability doesn't actually have to net a player any mana. It's enough that the ability could do so, but it doesn't necessarily have to. Unlike most mana abilities, Selvala's Parley ability adds a non-deterministic amount of mana between 0 and N, where N is the number of players in the game.
So what's all this fuss with making sure Sevala's Parley ability is technically a mana ability? It's all in the timing. Earlier I mentioned how Magic players seem to have a habit of activating mana abilities prior to casting a spell, but crucially, mana abilities specifically are allowed to be activated during the spell-casting process, not solely before. For example, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Chandra, Bold Pyromancer" href="#" target="_blank">Chandra, Bold Pyromancer</a>'s +1 loyalty ability does add mana, but we can only float that mana prior to casting a spell, not during the casting itself, as it is not a mana ability.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Panglacial Wurm"></div></div>
Now that we have all the pieces, let's zoom out. Say we have three green mana available, Selvala is untapped, and there are 4 players in our pod. We crack a fetch land and begin searching our library, during which time we spy <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Panglacial Wurm" href="#" target="_blank">Panglacial Wurm</a>, which costs {5}{G}{G}, and decide we want to cast it. Incidentally, we can see every card in our library while searching it, but we can't reorder any of them. We'll get back to that.
We begin casting Panglacial Wurm by moving it from our library to the stack, then we get to the part where we activate mana abilities to pay for the spell, so we activate Selvala's Parley ability. Each player reveals the top card of their library, and we see two lands and two nonland cards. We gain two life and add two green mana, then each player draws a card. That's {G}{G}, not enough to cast Panglacial Wurm, and we have no other mana sources available. What happens in this situation? Unfortunately, we've taken an illegal action and our opponents have already called a judge.
<blockquote>726.1. If a player takes an illegal action or starts to take an action but can’t legally complete it, the entire action is reversed and any payments already made are canceled. No abilities trigger and no effects apply as a result of an undone action. If the action was casting a spell, the spell returns to the zone it came from. Each player may also reverse any legal mana abilities that player activated while making the illegal play, unless mana from those abilities or from any triggered mana abilities they caused to trigger was spent on another mana ability that wasn’t reversed. Players may not reverse actions that moved cards to a library, moved cards from a library to any zone other than the stack, caused a library to be shuffled, or caused cards from a library to be revealed.</blockquote>
Well, hey, it's okay. We'll just put <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Panglacial Wurm" href="#" target="_blank">Panglacial Wurm</a> back in the exact spot in our library we pulled it from. You didn't reorder your cards while searching, did you? Then the rules say we just rewind the mana ability we activated and it's no harm, no foul. But wait, two things happened that we can't undo: each player revealed the top card of their library, then each player drew a card. If I could turn back time, if I could find a way to do it, I would, but I can't. Selvala's ability can't be undone because parts of it can't be undone. This isn't just illegal, this is... advanced illegal. While most EDH games are played unsanctioned (read: casually, outside of a tournament setting), tournament rules can still be referenced for relevant issues such as this. Let's check the Infraction Procedure Guide (IPG).
<blockquote>IPG 4.8. A person breaks a rule defined by the tournament documents, lies to a Tournament Official, or notices an offense committed in their (or a teammate’s) match and does not call attention to it. Additionally, the offense must meet the following criteria for it to be considered Cheating:
<ul>
<li>The player must be attempting to gain advantage from their action.</li>
<li>The player must be aware that they are doing something illegal.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
"Cheating," goodness that's a dirty word! We've followed all the rules text on the card and the Magic Comprehensive Rules, how could that be cheating? Consider that while we were searching our library, we happened to see the top card. What if the information about that top card influenced our decision as to whether or not we wanted to draw it with Selvala before completing our search for a land? We could decide we didn't want that top card, finish our search, then shuffle, leaving a potentially different card on top. You can see how this would be a problem.
However, keep in mind that intent is pivotal here. A Magic player who ends up in this scenario purely by accident, never having considered how they might gain an advantage from the interaction, is not cheating. But now that you know about this, if you ever try it, then you are cheating. You're welcome!
Perhaps the worst of it is that Selvala could have avoided this fate. A simple functional errata appended to her Parley ability would nip this in the bud: "Activate only as an instant." This would enforce the already popular mana floating for her ability and forever render any future criminal activity impossible. At the time of writing, there are only <a href="https://edhrec.com/commanders/selvala-explorer-returned">1271 Selvala, Explorer Returned decks</a>, and just <a href="https://edhrec.com/cards/panglacial-wurm">1.18% of them have included Panglacial Wurm</a>. Let's get the first number up, and the second number down to 0%!
So, have you called BS? To the readers, what are some Magic interactions that blow your mind, or that just downright shouldn't exist? Let me know in the comments, and thank you for reading my debut article! See you next time!

Judge Alex, Rules Attorney at Law — That Interaction Does What?!

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