Effects
This page is current as of Comprehensive Rules October 2010. Please direct your feedback to: The Staff
Summary
- One-shot effects --- updated by Turycell
- Continuous effects --- updated by Turycell
- Replacement effects --- updated by Turycell
Effects
When abilities and spells resolve, we carry out the instruction they give in the order they're written; as long as a static abilities applies, something is stated to be true. Everything that happens because of spells or abilities is an effect; the spell or ability that generates an effect is the source of that effect. [CR 609.1]
Effects should not be mixed with abilities.[1] They are very different game concepts. Abilities can refer to either of the following:
- Any text printed on a card or granted to it [CR 112.1a]
- The pseudo-spell object that we put onto the stack when an ability is activated or triggers [CR 112.1b]
Effects, on the other hand, are the things that happen or change because of spells and abilities, including lingering results on the game.
| Example. Prodigal Sorcerer has an activated ability: it's the text printed on it that says "Prodigal Sorcerer deals 1 damage to target creature or player."
When we activate the Sorcerer's ability, we put on the stack an object that's not exactly a spell, but closely resembles one. It used to be called a "pseudo-spell" by older versions of the rules, but now we simply call it ability, albeit in a different sense that we call the text on the creature an ability. When this object on the stack resolves, it generates an effect. In this case, its effect is that it causes a permanent on the battlefield (the Prodigal Sorcerer) to reach out and poke the target for a point of damage. |
Prodigal Sorcerer |
Effects can be divided in three categories, and it's very important to be able to correctly assign effects to the appropriate category, since each one follows its own rules.
An effect will always belong to one (and only one) of the following groups:
An important rule that's common to all kind of effects is that if an effect tries to do impossible things or can't complete what it's trying to do, it will perform all the possible actions and as much as possible of the incomplete ones. [CR 609.3]
| Example. I play Sleep targeting my opponent, who controls both tapped and untapped creatures. Its effect tries to tap them all, but since some of them are already tapped, this action is partially impossible. The effect shrugs, and does as much as it can: it taps untapped creatures, and ignores the rest. Then the other half of the spell kicks in, and "locks down" all creatures - since there's no correlation with the way they were tapped and the creatures that were already tapped can be locked down just fine, it does. | Sleep |
| Example. A player activates Goblin Charbelcher, but no lands are left in his libraries. The effect will start doing things, reveal all cards left in the library, and then will see it's unable to complete the action. Since it can't keep going until a land is revealed, it goes on to deal the damage and then instructs the player to stack its library. | Goblin Charbelcher |
Footnotes
↑ This happens partly because older cards used the term fast effect to collectively indicate abilities, instants and interrupts.
