Magic: The Gathering® – Assassin's Creed® Mechanics
AHH! Why are you sneaking up on people like that? We're jumping into the historic assassination game with Magic: The Gathering® – Assassin's Creed®. The conflict between the Brotherhood and the Templar Order re-engages on brand-new battlefields with characters, weapons, and locations taken directly from the award-winning action-adventure franchise.
There's one new keyword ability in this set and a few featured returning mechanics to review here. Before you go sneaking off to hide in haystacks or whatever it is you do, let's give you a quick rundown of what's going on with those mechanics so you'll be well prepared. After all, information is your best weapon. Wait, you wield the Spear of Leonidas? Still, pay attention. Information is your second-best weapon.
New Mechanic: Freerunning
No assassination is truly complete until you've escaped in spectacular fashion, bounding effortlessly up and over buildings and whatever other obstacles stand in your way. Freerunning is a new alternative cost that allows you to cast spells for a bit of a savings if earlier in the turn an Assassin you controlled or a commander you controlled dealt combat damage to a player.
Freerunning still applies if you're not playing Commander—you'll just need an Assassin to connect. If you are playing Commander, the commander you strike with doesn't even have to be your commander. You can gain control of a particularly treasonous one and have it act on your behalf. The Assassin and/or commander doesn't even have to be alive or under your control. As long as it dealt combat damage to a player earlier in the turn, the freerunning cost is now available to you.
Casting a spell for its freerunning cost doesn't change its mana value. For example, Eagle Vision's mana value is always 5, even if you paid only {1}{U} for it. Even if you can cast a spell for its freerunning cost, it doesn't mean you have to. You can ignore freerunning and, I don't know, take the elevator or something, paying a spell's mana cost as normal.
Returning Mechanic: Historic
I did say the historic assassination game, so you had to figure this was coming, right? Historic is a returning game term that refers to artifacts, things with the legendary supertype, and Sagas collectively. Historic itself is used as an adjective to describe other things, so on cards, you'll see phrases like "a historic spell," "a historic permanent," or on cards like Abstergo Entertainment, "a historic card."
Just remember that if something refers to casting a historic spell, Abstergo Entertainment won't help you, as playing a land is not casting a spell. Abstergo Entertainment is still historic though, so if you control one and have one in your graveyard, activating the ability of one will allow you to get the other one back to your hand.
Returning Mechanic: Disguise
You are nowhere, and you are no one. Anonymity is somewhere in an assassin's top three weapons, probably behind information and a decent spear. Two returning mechanics, disguise and cloak, will keep your opponents guessing.
If a card has disguise, you can cast it face down, keeping its identity hidden. It becomes a face-down creature spell, which means it's a colorless 2/2 and has no name or creature types. It has ward {2} and no other abilities. It also has no mana cost, so it has mana value 0, but to cast it, you pay an alternative cost of {3}.
The resulting creature is, perhaps still not surprisingly, a face-down creature. It still has no name or creature types. It has ward {2} and no other abilities. It has no mana cost and mana value 0. It's a creature though, so it does creature things—attack, block, don Equipment, get counters thrust upon them, and so on. You can look at face-down permanents you control any time. Other players can't look at your face-down permanents, and you can't look at theirs, unless something says you can.
Any time you have priority, you can turn a face-down permanent face up for its disguise cost. This happens immediately and doesn't use the stack, so it can't be responded to. To do this, first reveal the card and show everyone what that disguise cost is. The resulting permanent immediately has its true characteristics. That innocuous 2/2 creature your opponent was comfortable not blocking? Nope, it immediately (see, I'm going to keep saying "immediately" in this paragraph to emphasize how little you can respond to this action) became Bayek of Siwa, who definitely (although less immediately) smacked them for 6.
Turning a permanent face up doesn't cause that permanent to re-enter the battlefield. It's still the same permanent, so any Auras, Equipment, or counters that were on it still will be. If it was attacking or blocking, it still will be. If it was the target of any spells or abilities, it still will be, although it may or may not now be a legal target.
If you control more than one face-down permanent, they must always be easily differentiated from one another. You're not allowed to physically mix them up to confuse your opponent. The order in which they entered the battlefield must remain clear. For example, if you attacked with one of your three face-down creatures last turn, it should be clear to everyone which one that was.
If the game ends, or if you leave a multiplayer game, you need to reveal your face-down permanents to everyone to ensure they came to be face down legally. This is crucial in tournament games.
Returning Mechanic: Cloak
Another way to have your forces go incognito is cloak, a returning keyword action. If you're instructed to cloak a card, put that card onto the battlefield face down. The resulting permanent is a 2/2 colorless creature with no name, no creature types, and no mana cost. It has ward {2} and no other abilities.
Notably, the resulting creature looks exactly like what you get after you cast a spell using disguise, and a lot of the same rules governing face-down permanents apply. One difference is how you turn a cloaked permanent face up. Rather than pay its disguise cost, which it may not have, you can turn a cloaked permanent face up at any time if it's actually a creature card by paying its mana cost.
If you're lucky, or just planned ahead, you may cloak a card that has another ability to turn it face up, such as morph or disguise. If this happens, you can use any of those abilities that may apply. For example, if you cloak a creature card with disguise, you may turn it face up either by paying its disguise cost or by paying its mana cost, using cloak.
The helper card pictured above is an optional game accessory you can use to give your face-down permanents a little more panache until their identities are revealed.
From the card image gallery to your local game store, get ready to explore Magic: The Gathering® – Assassin's Creed® when it arrives July 5!
