Planeswalker ability question.

Asked by herrickk 5 years ago

My question is in regards to Gideon, Martial Paragon's +2 ability.

It states "Untap all creatures you control. Those creatures get +1/+1 until end of turn."

My question is do I have to have a tapped creature to use this ability?

Gatherer comments state "All creatures you control get +1/+1 from Gideon’s first ability, not just the ones that it untapped." This makes me think that I can still use it even if no creatures are tapped. It just untaps all of my creatures even if none are tapped then gives them the +1/+1.

Is that correct?

Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #1

Yes, that's correct. You don't have to have any tapped creatures and Gideon will affect creatures that were already untapped.

When you're following the instructions from a resolving spell or ability, you skip anything that isn't possible and just do as much as you can. If Gideon's ability required you to have tapped creatures in order to activate it then it would be written in a more specific way to make that clear ("Activate this ability only if..." or something like that).

The "those creatures" part of Gideon's text refers to "all creatures you control". If it were meant to only affect the creatures that were untapped then it would say something more like "Creatures untapped this way get +1/+1 until end of turn".

October 24, 2018 2:54 p.m.