MTG Arena - All Abilities Explained

hey guys Wells Knight here and welcome back to another episode of Magic the Gathering arena today we are going to be covering what all the various abilities on creatures means I'm not going to go over every ability of every single creature that exists like all of this stuff I'm not gonna talk about those what I'm going to cover are the bold abilities the things that are generally you know that are general abilities that you will fly on multiple or that you will find on multiple cards things that say like flying lifelink etc etc there's a ton of examples and I'm going to cover all of them I'm going to divide these into three basic categories you've got your attacking abilities you have your evasive abilities and then you have your utility abilities so let's just kind of go right down the list and start with life link basically life link is life steel it means any damage that this creature deals you get as life so if Bishop soldier attacks and deals two damage you get two damage added to your life total if daybreak chaplain blocks and blocks a creature it still deals one damage to that creature and you get one added to your life total etc etc it's basically life steel next we have vigilance that would be on something like Dan atha or any number of other creatures most of the I mean there are non-white creatures that have vigilance but I think there's a disproportionate number of white creatures that have it you'll see a lot of white creatures with vigilance vigilance basically means that when this creature attacks it does not tap which means it can still block on the same terms that it would be attacking most creatures they can either attack or block on any given turn they can't do both if they have vigilance vigilance will allow them to still block because they don't tap attacking very very useful also means that they're essentially immune to stuff like seals Oh like seal away when they attack because they don't get tapped from attacking so very very useful ability next we have first strike first bird tell you what first strike first strike basically adds an additional damage phase and what it means is that creatures with first strike will hit their opponents before their opponents have a chance to hit them back so say this son Holmes stalwart with first strike attacks this cavalry drillmaster they both have to power so if it weren't for first strike son home stalwart and cavalry drillmaster would kill each other because they both have to power and they both have two or less toughness however because son home stalwart has first strike he's going to deal his two damage to cavalry drill master burst cavalry drill master will then die and son home stalwart will stick around that's basically what first strike is it adds an extra damage phase where it checks to see if the damage that your first strike creature is dealing is enough to kill its opposing creature whatever is being blocked and if so it will live then the other creature just doesn't even get a chance to attack similar to first strike is double strike and this is one of my favorite this might actually be my favorite ability in the game double strike allows a creature to attack twice once during the first strike phase and once during the regular damage phase so basically it allows them to attack twice during the same turn and they will always attack twice it's it's not an optional thing if it has double strike it will attack twice you can't be like I want to attack here and then attack again it's it's it's a man it's a mandatory thing but basically it allows them to hit twice that means that this is a Tulpa does not hit for a four damage per turn he hits for eight damage per turn it can be a very very powerful ability especially when coupled with stuff like quendi that allows you to suddenly give your creatures double strike out of nowhere suddenly the amount of damage that's coming in is how far higher than what an opponent was expecting one of my favorite abilities in the game so enough next let's talk about death touch speaking of damage any damage that a death touch creature deals to an opposing creature is enough to kill them period if this hired poisoner deals one damage to an opponent I don't know Galt ax that's a twelve twelve creature the kultur will still die the hired poisoner will die too it doesn't make them immune to taking damage themselves but it will instantly kill the GALT ax and it's very very good it's it's great free using cheap creatures like this hired poisoner to take down big powerful creatures that are far more valuable and it also can make your opponent really hesitate to attack because they don't want to trade their big powerful stuff for your dinky little hired poisoners that are worth almost nothing so very very cool ability also death touch plus first strike is a brutal combo because I'm basically death death struck and words are hard death touch plus first strike is enough to basically allow you to instantly kill anything that does that first strike which is fantastic after death touch we have trample trample is basically I'm going to run my opponent over so any damage that is left over when a trample creature gets blocked is dealt to your opponent so say for example you have this carnage right that has seven power and say it attacks and it's blocked by this charging Tufts codon that has for toughness we'll carnage tyrant with its seven power is dealing three more damage than this charging Tusker Don's toughness so that extra three damage would be dealt directly to the player so think of it as basically running over whatever is blocking it and just continuing on it just keeps going that's trample finally our last attacking related ability and this is one that I didn't really know where to put it you could make an argument that it's under that it's under attacking you could make an argument that it's under utility you can even make an argument that it's under evasive but I put it under attacking basically what haste does is any creature with haste does not have summoning sickness so as soon as it hits the battlefield it can attack on that same turn which can be very powerful if your opponent isn't expecting it if they don't think they have any damage coming in because you have no monsters on the field and then suddenly you slam a charging monster sore and hit them in the face for five that can be a little scary so it can be a very useful ability especially in very aggressive decks you will usually find it in fairly aggressive decks it's almost all going to be read creatures that have haste you can you can see just looking through there's very very few things that don't have or that aren't read at least partially read that have haste so very very useful in kind of a cool ability for for burst damage so now let's talk about evasive abilities I couldn't add evasive words are hard guys evasive abilities are basically things that mean it's hard for your opponent to block or get rid of the things that have them so the first example that comes to mind is flying flying basically means that the only creatures that can block something with flying are other things with flying because if a flying creature is attacking the guy on the ground is not going to be able to reach it pretty straightforward so a pegasus courser could block a skyline so L skyline Scout only gets flying sometimes but one of these guys could block one of these guys but if one of the two creatures does now flying can't happen on the other hand a creature with flying is still able to block a ground creature it it just that's why they can fly down and block the soldier on the ground it's just that the soldier on the ground can't jump up and fly into the air to block them when they're trying to fly overhead an attack pretty straightforward next would be menace menace means that a creature with menace can only be blocked by two or more creatures so if this two-headed zombie is attacking and your opponent only has one creature on the board that one creature by itself cannot block the two-headed zombie so it it makes creatures with menace a bit harder to block next we have Indy struck Tim oh there we go and indestructible is pretty much what it sounds like it means your creature cannot be destroyed by damage so something like a phylactery lich or is a Tulpa any damage that they take is not enough to kill them there's a couple of things that will allow you to get indestructible on a creature a donto Vanguard is a good example you can pay for life Anna dhaan tow van card becomes indestructible until the end of the turn now it's important to note what indestructible does not protect you foam indestructible does not protect you from exile effects because that is not something that would cause them to die that is something that would cause them to be exiled so you are still open to things like excellence binding or Conclave tribunal or seal away indestructible will not prevent those from half indestructible also does not protect from - abilities and what I mean by that is stuff like moment of craving that says target creature gets - - - - that is technically not dealing damage that is altering the stat line so moment of craving would still kill a creature if it drops them low enough if it would drop them below zero they will still die even if they have indestructible what indestructible does prevent you from dying - our stuff like I don't know lightning bolt that's not how you spell like stuff like lightning strike or wizards lightning or deafening clarion or anything that deals damage or it will also prevent you from anything that says destroy if it says destroy target creature that will also be prevented with indestructible it means that they're immune to those types of things they'll still technically take the damage it just won't kill them finally the last evasive ability is hex proof hex proof is also one of my favorites it basically means that a creature with hex proof cannot be the target of opponent's spells or abilities they cannot target your creature something like this carnage tyrant a player a permanent with hex proof can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control now there are two key parts to that first of all it's the your opponent's part you can still target your own creatures with spells and abilities but your opponent can't so if you for example have a carnage tyrant that is hex proof and you drop on it a blanche wood armor that's a pretty strong combo because you can still target your own creature they just can't the other key part of that is that the creature cannot be the target so for example if we have something like ake lensing Nova this does not target a creature it just kills everything so it doesn't mean that they're immune to being destroyed it doesn't mean they're indestructible well indestructible as an actual ability it doesn't mean that they're immortal there are still ways to get rid of hex proof creatures they could still take damage and die in combat or they could be killed by something that doesn't specifically target target them but it makes them a lot harder to get removed it makes them a lot harder to get rid of pretty common ways to get rid of hex proof creatures like cars tyrant are stuff like bored wipes cleansing Nova deafening clarion etc settle the wreckage is another good example because settle the wreckage targets the player not the creature but they can be pretty tricky to get rid of and there it can make them very annoying especially to a very kind of control heavy deck that focuses a lot of removal and stuff like that so now let's get into the utility abilities first of all I want to go with a send and a sends kind of a weird one because it sort of explains itself on the card so basically there's this thing called the city's blessing and basically the idea is as long as you control 10 or more 10 or more permanence you then get the city's blessing and you get it for the rest of the game it doesn't mean it doesn't matter once you have it if you drop below 10 permanence it makes no difference so permanence include lands creatures enchantments any of that kind of stuff those are all permanence so basically in order to get the city's blessing you have to have ten permanence and you have to have a creature on the board that says ascend once you ascend you get it and with the city's blessing from you then get extra benefits from all of these ascend spells so for example sky March our aspirant then gets flying ready and destiny means that creatures you choose instead of just getting plus one plus one plus one they also get vigilance and so on and so forth so that's ascend I thought it's a little weird because it kind of explains it on the tin but not really sort of kind of anyway so Cynthia's blessing basically a sin just means you get the city's blessing if you have at least ten permanence and then you get it for the rest of the even if they're gotten rid of okay next mentor this is an ability that I also very strongly consider putting into attacking what I said to put it into into utility instead when you have a creature that has mentors such as this blade instructor basically whenever you attack with that creature you can then put a permanent +1 +1 counter on another creature that is also attacking at the same time so for example say you're attacking with this blade instructor and this son home stalwart the blade instructor could mentor the some the son home stalwart now it is important to note you can only put that +1 +1 counter on a creature that is attacking that also has less power so the blade instructor could mentor the son home stalwart because this guy's 3 power and this one's at 2 but the soul the stalwart could not mentor the blade instructor because this one has higher power so it only works on creatures that have you can only mentor a creature that is lower in power than the the mentee must be weaker than the mentor let's just put it that way but it can also lead to some pretty ridiculous stuff you can turn your army of little one ones into an army of two twos and then suddenly they're a lot more formidable but anyway next let's talk about con VOC so convoke is a mechanic that is very strong right now in Silesia in green and white and basically what convoke is is you can use your creatures to essentially become manna for the spell by tapping them so say we have this Conclave tribunal this Conclave tribunal is for mana it is a converted mana cost of four three of any color and one white if you had on the board for white creatures you could tap them instead of your lands to play this Conclave tribunal if you have paws from reflection you could do the same thing except you need to make sure you still have at least one green basically when you tap a creature for convoke it will generate mana of its color so if you were to tap flight of the equinox for convoking a different spell it would generate white mana not red pretty straightforward essentially it allows you to play things with convoke much faster than you might be able to otherwise because you don't have to rely only on lands you can also use your creatures to pay for them and you and you don't lose those creatures you just tap them okay next up we have kind of a two part we have defender defender is one of the few abilities in the game that is not actually a positive ability defender means that the creature cannot attack you're pretty much always gonna see it on walls on defensive creatures like wall of mist or electrostatic field or wall of vines these are creatures that are defensive they're meant to block and that's it they don't attack to go along with defender we also have reach and actually this grappling sundew happens to have it what reach means is that it can block something with flying so even though the creature itself does now flying it can still block something with flying and you will see that on things that are not just defenders things like this giant spider is not a defender but it can reach flying creatures crawl harpooner has reached basically reach means that it can block flying creatures even though it doesn't have flying itself finally the last ability is flash utility flash means that you can play that card at any time as if it were an instant so for example we've got like this dire fleet poisoner normally you can only play creatures during your second and first main phase flash since this creature has flash you can play it in the middle of your opponent's combat phase right before blockers are attacked and since this thing has death touch they attack and suddenly you flash in this dire flee poisoner take the block and kill off their big powerful creature or maybe you are waiting to do something say you've got a counterspell in hand you're playing blue and you plan to counter their thing but they don't play anything over the course of their turn that's worth countering maybe at the end of the turn since you have a little bit of mana left over you flash in a merfolk trickster etc etc flesh basically means that you can play a card at any time even though it is the type of card that you would normally not be able to play at any time such as a creature or an enchantment or whatever so that's flash and I think that's all the abilities that are actually in standard excuse me that are actually in the standard right now there will possibly be more coming when the new set drops in early June or in I think late January is when the next set comes out but this video is current as of December 2018 so there you go guys I think that is gonna do it for today's video if you enjoyed it you know what to do links in the description below so check that out as well otherwise my friends thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Wels After Dark

Views: 65,900

Keywords: welsknight, Wels After Dark, Welsknight Gaming, MTG Arena, MTGA, Magic the Gathering Arena, MTG, Arena, MTG: Arena, Magic: The Gathering Arena

Id: mF-ymqCsSuc

Length: 21min 22sec (1282 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 08 2018