Top 5 Keywords

So yeah, I’ve decided to make this a regular feature – Monday Magic. I’m quite interested in the game at the moment, so for the foreseeable future look forward to Magic on Mondays!
Anyway, this article is about keywords. Magic has literally hundreds of keywords, all that do different things and affect the game in different way. So for this article, I’m going to list 5 keywords that so far I’ve really liked and say why. Might not be for you, but who knows!
5. Exalted
A nice add on for quite a few cards, that rewards flavourful play… Well, I can’t exactly see some cards being exalted as such, but the flavour is there regardless! Allows for some good, fun plays. A turn one Akrasan Squire can lead to a nice early advantage that can be passed onto a more powerful creature a few turns later.












4. First Strike
Evergreen still count! In a list like this it could be easy to forget about the evergreen keywords, so I have to cover my favourite one. It’s pretty influential, seeing as alongside Double Strike it has an entire phase of the combat step dedicated to it. I don’t know every keyword, but I can’t think of another that has the game stop for a second to consider every single turn. Beyond that, it’s a very nice mechanic, it allows for a card to be a completely different threat. It allows for nice design like Porcelain Legionnare, which looks extremely fragile, but you have to get the hit in first – this is seen elsewhere, yet also shows a simply amazing warrior. The best evergreen mechanic for me.



3. Kicker
If I could choose to make one keyword evergreen, this would be it. It’s brilliant, allowing a card to serve a dual purpose, or gives a way to spend excess mana in a long game. There are some crazy fun designs like Conquerer’s Pledge with crazy numbers, yet still serves a purpose while low on mana.













2. Suspend

This mechanic by itself is cool, but does not earn second place by itself. It’s use in Delay does that. I love the idea of rather than dealing with the threat, sending it to the future either to be dealt with later, or when make it turn up when it’s too late. There’s not much more to say than that I love this interaction.











1. Cascade

Number one, the short lived cascade, but it pretty much sums up everything I love about magic, or to an extent card games in general. The first, I love multicolour cards, and cascade was exclusive to multicolour, so there’s reason to like it from the start. I like random events making each game different, and while you can control the cascade effect, it is pretty random as to what you get.(This may also be why I love commander.) And finally, I like card advantage, and you’re nearly always going to get it from playing a cascade card. These three factors combined into one word makes Cascade my favourite mechanic, earning Bloodbraid Elf and Bituminious Blast a place in my Kresh commander deck.

Thanks for sticking with us. Next week - a report on how the Magic Celebration with Pack wars went!