Welcome back to our semi-regular series Judge’s Corner. This week we have a special Kaladesh edition of Judge’s Corner where we go over some important rules notes and reminders about the new set in preparation for the upcoming prerelease.
Kaladesh mechanics and general notes
Vehicles
● Vehicles are a new artifact subtype that can be “crewed” by creatures in a way similar to how Equipment can be equipped to creatures. To understand how Vehicles work, just think about what makes intuitive sense: e.g., a Blind Seer cannot crew a Vehicle, and so on.
● Note importantly that Vehicles are not creatures themselves. Thus they are not affected by summoning sickness and can tap and attack the turn they come into play.
● Vehicles can crew other Vehicles. In a pinch, a Vehicle can even crew itself! Step aside Google; in Kaladesh, self-driving cars are already a reality. :)
Energy Counters
● Energy counters are a new resource in Magic: the Gathering. Certain cards in Kaladesh give you energy counters. Unlike mana, energy counters don’t go away at the end of the turn.
● We’ve created the following “energy economy” chart to show what you can do with energy counters:
Thus at any time you may spend one energy counter to deal two damage to your opponent, spend two energy counters to put a +1/+1 counter on target creature, and so on.
● Players will need to keep track of their energy counter total at events. Unfortunately, energy counter token cards were inadvertently omitted from the initial print run of Kaladesh. They will appear in subsequent print runs. So for the prerelease, please use the following downloadable energy counter token:
The return of gold-bordered cards
● Kaladesh marks the long-awaited return of gold-bordered cards, which will be randomly inserted in certain Kaladesh boosters.
● Gold-bordered cards, originally available in World Championship Decks from 1997 to 2004, are “official proxies”: they’re a great way to represent powerful cards like Sword of Fire and Ice when playing with your friends, but they are not legal for tournament play in any setting.
Card-specific notes
Animation Module: We recommend stores running prereleases have some extra copies of Failed Inspection, Disappearing Act, etc. on hand to give to players lucky enough to open up an Animation Module.
Bomat Courier: If the controller of a Bomat Courier accidentally looks at it he should be given a “looking at extra cards” penalty. Players may cover their Couriers with pieces of paper to avoid looking at them. At the professional REL, Bomat Couriers will be double-opaque-sleeved during drafts to avoid inadvertent looking.
Ceremonious Rejection: Remember that, even if they produce colored mana, lands are colorless.
Empyreal Voyager: “That many” means with respect to the energy economy; e.g., if Empyreal Voyager deals 2 damage to your opponent, you get one energy counter.
Saheeli Rai: A token copy of an artifact created with Saheeli Rai’s -2 ability counts as two artifacts for the purposes of cards like Welding Sparks.
Now go have fun at the prerelease!
Submit your questions to @goodgamery on Twitter using #judgescorner.
Stabbing the air with inky fingers, Blugar protested: “It’s completely unreasonable that we battle mages aren’t allowed to duel this way if we want to. If I summon a merfolk spy and tell him he’s Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and Zhazha agrees to suffer a complete mental breakdown as if he really was Jace, then what’s the harm?”
