Activated Ability? Embalm and Mentor?

Asked by 9-lives 3 years ago

Is Embalm an activated ability? Or Mentor? I'm trying to fit Zirda, the Dawnwaker into my deck, but I fear that having Sacred Cat and Truefire Captain are both non-activated ability cards.

Caerwyn says... Accepted answer #1

Embalm is an activated ability but Mentor is not--it is a triggered ability.

As a general rule, you can tell something is an activated ability because you have to pay a cost to put said ability on a stack.

Triggered abilities go on the stack not when you activate something, but "whenever" or "when" a certain triggering event occurs (they will always use "whenever" or "when" in the text--for mentor, that "whenever" appears in the reminder text for the ability).

Just so you also have the rules:

702.127a Embalm is an activated ability that functions while the card with embalm is in a graveyard. “Embalm [cost]” means “[Cost], Exile this card from your graveyard: Create a token that’s a copy of this card, except it’s white, it has no mana cost, and it’s a Zombie in addition to its other types. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.”

702.133a Mentor is a triggered ability. “Mentor” means “Whenever this creature attacks, put a +1/+1 counter on target attacking creature with power less than this creature’s power.”

March 22, 2021 2:18 p.m.

legendofa says... #2

The fastest way to tell:

Does it have a colon ":"? If yes, it's activated. (This includes reminder text, see Sacred Cat .)

Does it have one of the words "when," "whenever," or "at?" If yes, it's a triggered ability. (Also includes reminder text, see Truefire Captain .)

Does it have neither? It's not activated or triggered.

March 22, 2021 2:37 p.m.

9-lives says... #3

March 22, 2021 3:38 p.m.

legendofa says... #4

9-lives No, there's no cost-indicating colon in the text or reminder text of The Akroan War , so it's not an activated ability.

I just double checked, Sagas use triggered abilities.

714.2. A chapter symbol is a keyword ability that represents a triggered ability referred to as a chapter ability.

714.2b “{rN}—[Effect]” means “When one or more lore counters are put onto this Saga, if the number of lore counters on it was less than N and became at least N, [effect].”

Algebra stuff aside, the italicized "When" indicates a triggered ability for the second part. All italics mine.

March 22, 2021 4:10 p.m.

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