Exert is a keyword action that grants an extra ability to a creature if it stays tapped through the next turn. It is focused in white, red, and green and is introduced in Amonkhet. Exert is removal, dealing 4 damage off the bat, clearing away its own blockers or killing a creature that could attack back on the opponent’s turn. If you give vigilance to a creature with exert, you can exert it when it attacks without suffering its drawback.
Exert is an option that happens as part of declaring attackers. The ability that triggers when you exert it goes on the stack after that point. You don’t get to use it as much as you want. For example, you may exert Rhet-Crop Spearmaster as it attacks, which gets +1/+0 and gains first strike until the end of the turn.
Exert works reasonably well with Vigilance, as your creature won’t tap when it attacks so it usually won’t worry about not being able to untap on your next turn. If the creature exerts, it means the creature is expending a large amount of effort, resulting in a bonus. As a result, the creature is exhausted by the effort, and it doesn’t untap in the next untap step.
A creature with an exert ability can be exerted any time it attacks, no matter who’s doing it. You can also use Exert as a cost, such as in several cards in the Hour of Devastation set.
In summary, Exert is a keyword action that allows you to exert your influence and power over your creatures, pushing them past their limit to achieve certain feats. It is an option that happens as part of declaring attackers and can be used as a cost in various cards.
📹 Did You Know the Difference? A Design Change to Fix Triggers! | Magic: The Gathering MTG Rules
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📹 #479: When to Keyword
I am often asked what factors determine when we choose to keyword a mechanic. In this podcast, I talk all about this topic.
The thing I like about “When you do” (and if you do) is that it’s easy enough to understand the full effect only goes off if the condition is fulfilled, in contrast to older cards that did similar but attempting to respond doesn’t actually work because the whole thing is on the stack. I honestly didn’t realize the “If you do” targets right away.
I always thought the “if you do” on certain triggers would care about whether you actually managed to satisfy the condition beyond the initial trigger. Like for Promise of Bunrei, your opponent could destroy it in response after your creature died but before you sacrificed it, preventing you from sacrificing it and getting the bonus. I don’t think that’s how it actually works, but that’s the gut read I had on it.
On a similar note, I’ve noticed you’ve gone from “you may destroy target X” to “destroy up to one target X” on triggers. A friend of mine was very upset to learn that deflecting swat can save his stuff from aura shards, but can’t also destroy mine. The wording on newer cards on the other hand would have allowed it.
I noticed this difference (and understood the rules meaning right away, mostly because I’m the kind who loves the rules) when looking at some new cards, and always thought it had been brought along to make sure the first half of the trigger resolved first (e.g., for the mill example). I never thought it was created specifically to allow the opponent to respond, although I could tell it was used for that purpose in some cases. Interesting story!
I remember looking at Grave Peril in my C15 Daxos precon as a new player and being super confused. “Whenever a nonblack creature comes into play, sacrifice GP. If you do, destroy that creature.” I was like, “If I do?? When would I ever not sacrifice it??” I understand the rules necessity behind that wording now, but when you do makes so much more sense! Great change.
Why does Keen Duelist have the bad wording: you and target opponent each reveal the top card of *your* library. It’s worded as if your opponent is revealing the top card of your library, which would be hidden information to them. But it actually means they reveal the top card of their library. Why doesn’t it say something like: you and target opponent each reveal the top card of your libraries Or: you and target opponent each reveal the top card of your respective library. Great article on explaining the rules of how targets need to be selected immediately when effect is on the stack and bow reflective triggers work.
Some of the if you do ones make sense because they would be on the stack and someone could kill your creature meaning when the ability resolves you have nothing to sacrifice hence you did not sacrifice yata yata. Honestly one of the best parts of magic is debating the wording of cards with your friends in the middle of a game especially if it’s the first time a weird scenario with the card has come up.
The wording and order of operations is why this makes no intuitive sense. If you want the effect to resolve in the way you described, it would make more sense to read as “Whenever __ creature attacks, chose any target. You may pay X cost; if you do, Y effect” Where the former reads as “Whenever X creatures attacks, you may pay Y.” and because that is a full stop, you have have to decide during the attack declaration whether you pay the cost. That is a complete statement. which then carries into “If you did; Z effect occurs” It reads very much like, Only if the former condition is met do you get the second condition. This is the one time I will harp on WotC’s use of the English language, I am sure there is a technical reason for the wording, but the order of operations for the effect are not stated in the order in which they occur.
I understand the general distinction between when and if here, and agree that when is in better keeping with how discrete triggers are handled in Magic, but I also think most people have been playing “if you do” like “when you do” as you describe. “If you do” feels like it is and should be a discrete trigger in a linear progression, and not a connected clause of the full ability. Even after perusal you explain the intro example twice, it just felt awkward and unintuitive that you could choose to go through with the sac or not after declaring the target, a choice which is both in another sentence at the other end of the paragraph and after the “if you do” gate.
Coming from Yugioh, it’s interesting to hear he designers talk about things like this. Konami basically never says anything. There’s a thing in Yugioh where you send cards on resolution, so you don’t know what your opponent will choose until it’s too late to respond. Seeing Magic move away from this is interesting to see.
I think I also noticed, on Arena and MTGO, those “when you do” reflexive triggers usually places 2 things on the stack? Can you insert stuff between them? I think you can’t manually do so since there usually isn’t a priority chance between two lines of card text, but when you have multiple triggers, it might be possible? Edit: For example, a creature with “When etb, sac a creature. When you do, XXX”. If I have another triggered ability like “When you sac a creature, do YYY”, I think I can reorder them freely and decide whether X or Y happens first?
Is this the case with Ziatora the incinerator? I had an issue in a game where I had the dictate of erebos, ziatora and another creature on my board. My opponent had two creatures. I wanted fling my creature at his creature #1 using ziatora and I wanted his creature #2 to die because of the dictate of erebos trigger. He was saying that only one of his creature had to die. IT was a very weird interaction.
The use of reflexive triggers is an improvement, but it does show a weakness in Magic’s templating arsenal: There isn’t a (common, accepted) way to write costs that are paid when you stack a triggered ability. Reflexive triggers almost do this, but at the cost of having two different triggers (which is worse for digital). Other games like Yu-Gi-Oh! do have the templating conventions to put costs on their (equivalent of) triggered abilities. Magic doesn’t. I don’t know what a good convention would be, to denote costs paid at the time a triggered ability goes onto the stack.
Essentially you read until the next “when” to decide where the ability ends. If the word “target” is anywhere in there, targets are chosen as the ability goes on the stack. Everything else happens at resolution, up to but not including the next “when” in the paragraph. “Reading the card explains the card” my ass
The “rules” interpretation of Throwing Knife is unintuitive. It READS like a reflexive trigger. If you wanted it to work like you (and the rules) say it does, you’d write it as follows: Whenever equipped creature attacks, you may choose a target and sacrifice Throwing Knife. If you do, it does 2 damage to that target. Obviously targets for activated abilities must be chose before you activate. Targets for triggered abilities are chosen when they’re triggered. But, intuitively, Throwing Knife’s trigger doesn’t have targets. It’s a trigger to sacrifice it, which you’re using like a cost to pay for a separate ability. A separate ability that should, intuitively, trigger off of sacrifice. In short, it’s a trigger for a trigger Maybe there’s a rules reason why “if” works the way you say it does. But I’m inclined to think it should work the intuitive way, especially since that’s how your new (grammatically confusing) “when” wording works.
Yugioh is not a perfect game but this reads really stupid compared to there where you always separate costs from effects, by using a “;”, and whether they are triggers or activated abilites, you get to write the costs separately. There’s still some modal effects where you decide in resolution if you sacrifice to destroy, etc. and you are left with the same guessing game, but it’s never ambiguous if that decision is going to happen on activation or resolution. Having “mandatory optional triggers” in magic is fucking stupid, either you sacrifice to put the trigger on the stack or the trigger does not go, in general being forced to put a trigger on the stack that can do nothing at all is weird. I get where some part of the effect is optional, but having an effect on the stack that can do nothing at all?
Sorry, but I find this article confusing. You are going way too fast. Somehow the fast blue of multiple examples makes this sound way more difficult of a concept than it probably is. Please try to keep the articles simple when assessing concepts that seem counter-intuitive. I find my 8 forced to re-watch this multiple times just to keep things apart.