On the surface, this card doesn't look like much. It's a 3-mana artifact with some confusing rules text on it from the Lorwyn set. In reality, it's a card that does cool stuff and fits in a lot of different decks. What can it do?
"Whenever you play an activated ability..."
What's an activated ability, you might ask? Well, activated abilities are all over the place in Magic. Look for things that are formatted like this: {cost}:{effect}. Here's an example.
If I tap this card, pay 1 life, and sacrifice this card, then I get to do the stuff after the colon. I have to "activate" this ability.
"...if it isn't a mana ability,"
Just because an ability is on a land, like Polluted Delta, doesn't mean that it's a mana ability. Mana abilities produce mana. Polluted Delta doesn't. So, it's not. So, there.
"...you may pay (2)."
Putting this all together, Rings of Brighthearth so far lets me pay (2) mana whenever I play an activated ability. If that's all it did, it would be pretty unspectacular, but check out the next part.
"If you do, copy that ability. You may choose new targets for the copy."
Woah! Hold the phone.
Copying things in Magic is often very strong. And this is no exception. Note that you can only copy the activated abilities you play, not the ones that your opponents play. But still, there are plenty of those.
The fetch lands, like Polluted Delta, are great to copy. Here's what happens. You drop your fetch land on the table, tap it, pay the 1 life, and then sacrifice it. Now, you pay 2 mana and copy the activated ability. In other words, you are going to get to search your library for a land card... twice... and then put them into play untapped. Not too shabby. But it gets better.
Guess what else has activated abilities that can be copied?
Yeah, that's right. Planeswalkers. For a measly 2 mana, you can smack-a-roo two cards from a player's hand. Double-activations of Planeswalker abilities are usually very strong. There are plenty of situations where doubling up makes things quite one-sided. Like with Karn's second ability.
Look closely at how the Planeswalker abilities are formatted. Changing the status of the loyalty counters is part of the cost. Rings of Brighthearth copies the "effect" part of the ability. So, you could activate Karn's "Exile target permanent" ability for -3 loyalty, copy it with the Rings, and exile a second permanent too - all while leaving Karn at 3 loyalty to do it again next turn.
If you put your mind to it (and start searching for {cost}:{effect} cards), you'll see plenty of devious opportunities to apply the Rings and bring the heat. But I'd like to point out one other activated ability where the Rings can really kick things into high gear: Cycling.
Cycling is an activated ability. See, there's the colon right there on the card. So, if you are holding a Lonely Sandbar and want to get rid of it, just pay U and discard it to activate the Cycling ability as normal. Then, pay 2 to use the Rings on the effect. Now, draw a card. Then, draw a card again. Not bad. 2U for two cards. And it can't be countered.
No comments:
Post a Comment