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No matter where you are in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering's multiverse, you'll find people ready to stand up and fight. From the Boros Legion of Ravnica to the Cathars of Innistrad, people will come together and fight to protect what they value.
In the game, this is represented with the vigilance mechanic. It's one of the game's most common mechanics, appearing in every set and on lots of cards. But it can be tricky for newcomers to understand how vigilance works, and why it's so powerful. Here is everything you need to know about vigilance.
Updated June 9, 2022 by Joe Parlock: Despite being an evergreen mechanic, we didn't see too much of vigilance in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate. None the less, the counts have been updated to include the few cards from it.
What Is Vigilance?
Vigilance is a keyword ability – text that is put on a card as shorthand for a longer phrase. In this case, vigilance means "attacking doesn't cause this creature to block".
Normally, during combat in Magic, creatures who are 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:being declared as attacking must be tapped (turned on their side). When a creature has attacked, it remains tapped until the untap step of your next turn. Tapped creatures can't block, and can't use any ability that also requires them to tap – they're effectively 'sleepy' until the next turn.
Creatures with vigilance, on the other hand, don't have to tap when declared as attackers. This means they're free to do anything any non-attacking creature can do, such as block and tap as the cost of an 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:activated ability.
Vigilance is an example of an 'Evergreen Keyword'. Most mechanics are tied to a specific set or location, but some are considered so flexible in their use that they are put in almost every single set, making them 'evergreen'. Other evergreen keywords include trample, flying, and deathtouch.
How To Use Vigilance
Vigilance is great for aggressive decks that want to do a lot of attacking. Having a battlefield full of vigilant creatures let you swing out and attack without having to worry about blockers on your opponent's turn.
While vigilance is an evergreen mechanic, and so doesn't get specific support for decks in the same way mutate or ninjutsu might, there are still some interesting ways to use it. For example, Alert Heedbonder gives you one life for each creature you control with vigilance, and Frondland Felidar al♛lows any creature with vigilance to pay one and tap itself to tap another creature on the battlefield.
Vigilance is exclusively found on creatures, as they are the only things that can attack. However, there are a number of enchantments and equipment artifacts that can grant it to a creature, such as Sword of Vengeance and Team Pennant.
Keep in mind, as vigilance was introduced a few years after Magic started, there are older cards that have vigilance without it saying so on the printed card. For example, Jhovall Queen reads "Attacking doesn't cause Jhovall Queen to tap", but officially it just has vigilance instead.
What Colour Is Vigilance?
Vigilance has been part of Magic for a long time, and appears in almost every set. Because of that, there are a massive number of cards with it. However, it does appear in some colours more often than others, with it appearing most frequently in white as one of its primary mechanics.
In total, there are 574 cards that either have vigilance themselves, or mention it on their card text in some way. 291 of them are white, 92 are green, seven are blue, four are red, and just three are black. There are also 51 colourless cards, most of them either being 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:equipment that gra♊nts vigilance or artifact creatures with i💖t.
There are 119 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:multicolour cards:
- 28 Selesnya (white/green)
- 22 Boros (white/red)
- 19 Azorius (white/blue)
- 15 Orzhov (white/black)
- Eight Naya (red/green/white), and Mardu (red/white/black)
- Seven Bant (green/white/blue)
- Five Jund (black/red/green)
- Three Gruul (red/green), Abzan (white/black/green), and WUBRG (white, blue, black, red, green)
- Two Esper (white/blue/black), and Jeskai (red/white/blue).
- One Not-Blue (black/red/green/white), Not-Red (green/white/blue/black), Sultai (black/green/blue), Golgari (black/green), and Simic (blue/green).
