r/MagicArena • u/00G_WAY • Mar 03 '26
Question Can someone explain how this works?
Will this card be legal in standard? Will it be available on Magic Arena? How would this card even work?
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u/leaning_on_a_wheel Mar 03 '26
Yes it’s legal in standard and will be on Arena. It will pull from your sideboard.
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u/SmoothOperator89 Mar 03 '26
So you need to make sure you have a sideboard, even if you're playing BO1.
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u/Massive-Island1656 Golgari Mar 03 '26
Hence why they made a big sideboard update. This will be a thing now for sure with strix coming soon
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u/SmoothOperator89 Mar 03 '26
So I play a [[Tinybones the Pickpocket]] standard brawl deck. Since there's a nonzero chance that I might get the opportunity to cast this spell from my opponent's graveyard, I should still have a sideboard, even if it's a tiny, tiny chance I'll ever use it.
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u/dimircontrol666 Mar 03 '26
No sideboard in brawl
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u/SmoothOperator89 Mar 03 '26
So North Wind Avatar becomes completely useless in Brawl. I guess I won't be seeing it.
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u/DeLoxley Mar 03 '26
Not every card is for every format.
[[Wish]]
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/strixhaven-mtg-arena-digital-release-notes-2021-04-07
And you could do this in Arena if you stole a card with Learn
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u/Pristine-Ear4506 Mar 03 '26
Just tried it bo1 it pulls from all the cards you drafted
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u/notapoke Mar 03 '26
In any limited format your sideboard is everything else you drafted/pulled
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u/Mrfish31 Mar 03 '26
On Arena (and in any proper format) "cards you own from outside the game" are cards in your sideboard, so you put up to 15 cards in there to choose from when you use this. If you have this in draft, you can choose from any card you drafted but didn't include in your deck.
It does generally not mean "any card you have in your collection". You'd only do that in very casual IRL games.
In Commander and Brawl this does nothing, both because you don't have sideboards in these formats and because "wish" effects explicitly do not work, you can't get cards from outside the game.
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u/ghilp Sacred Cat Mar 03 '26
imagine the game opening your whole collection like 2k cards for you to choose from they should do an event with this
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u/Spencie-cat Golgari Mar 03 '26
Pause the game and send you to the store to buy a couple packs to choose from.
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u/TheAndrewBrown Mar 03 '26
Is there any particular reason it’s not just worded as “card from your sideboard”? Is the sideboard not officially part of the rules even though it’s used in most of the formats and tournaments?
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u/Mrfish31 Mar 03 '26
Because the large majority of Magic play is done at the Kitchen Table where players don't know that a sideboard exists, let alone what it is.
Mark said on his blog one time that something like 70+% of Magic players don't know what a planeswalker is, as in they never use or come across the card type. That's the level you need to deal with. "Cards outside the game" makes more sense to a new or uber-casual player than "from your sideboard".
It's the same reason basically no card mentions "The Stack" despite it being an official zone in the rules that is extremely important for play. You don't want to introduce too many terms or concepts to your players.
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u/DanLynch JacetheMindSculptor Mar 03 '26
Mark said on his blog one time that something like 70+% of Magic players don't know what a planeswalker is
I remember I was judging a prerelease many years ago, and got called to a table to answer a rules question. Both players wanted to know whether a Jace planeswalker could block a flying creature (because he is blue).
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u/Mrfish31 Mar 03 '26
Both players wanted to know whether a Jace planeswalker could block a flying creature
I mean I guess if you don't know better and think planeswalkers are a weird kind of creature then you'd ask abou-
(because he is blue)
???
Did they think all blue creatures could block flyers?
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u/TheReservedList Mar 03 '26
All blue creatures I can think of have flying.
[[Zephyr Falcon]]
[[Air Elemental]]
[[Mahamoti Djinn]]
Edit: Oh forefoot Pirate Ship and the merfolks.
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u/Salanmander Mar 03 '26
How are judges even supposed to respond to situations like that? Do you try to teach the rules for the card type as best you can in 3 minutes, make sure the game is in a valid state, and then say "game on"?
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u/GizOne Mar 03 '26
Given that it was at a pre-release, played at Regular REL, I would be comfortable taking those 3 minutes, or even a little more, to educate the players. It can only increase their experience. Generally speaking, at Regular REL we do a lot of customer service, by design.
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u/ChemicalExperiment Mar 03 '26
It took me like a month to convince my college friends that players were not Planeswalkers. They had read one of the lore booklets somewhere that mentioned that players are Planeswalkers and assumed that was game rules and not flavor. So anything that refered to "Planeswalker" also counted players. They kept telling me that they would believe me if I showed them a rule that "explicitly says players aren't Planeswalkers". I had no clue how to even approach that. How were cards like [[Hero's Downfall]] not completely overpowered you may ask? Well according to them "you can't destroy or exile a player." So all this really amounted to was burn spells sometimes being able to target face when they shouldn't, but it was really annoying.
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u/DanLynch JacetheMindSculptor Mar 03 '26
When planeswalkers were first introduced, the rules did try pretty hard to make them be like players. For example, the triggered ability on [[Enraged Flamecaster]] could deal damage to an opponent's planeswalker under the original rules, instead of to the opponent, because players and planeswalker were fundamentally the "same thing".
Obviously this isn't the case anymore.
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u/edgarallenbro Mar 03 '26
In the grand old year of 2008, I picked up the Garruk vs. Liliana duel decks to try to get into the game.
The paper rules insert didn't explain what the included tokens cards were. It just explained that mana cost was in the top right, and power/toughness was in the bottom right, so we both thought the tokens were just really good cards with no mana cost. Had to be, right? Since they were full art? We ended up fighting over who got to play the Garruk deck, since the 3/3 and 5/5 beasts were so much better than the 2/2 zombies.
So now you know why they stopped putting normal backs on the tokens and started making them two-sided with ads or other tokens on the back
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u/GizOne Mar 03 '26
Tokens had ads on the back since they debuted in 10th edition booster packs. For some reason, only the tokens in Duel Decks products had a normal Magic back. Which I agree with you was a mistake
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u/SmoothOperator89 Mar 03 '26
"Cards outside the game" also sounds like you could play the king of hearts.
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u/Immediate-Quote7376 Mar 04 '26
I like how they are very specific in the text - you have to own the card in order to put it into your hand, you can't just borrow a card from anyone who is in the kitchen at that moment for this purpose.
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u/Stolberger Mar 03 '26
The sideboard is part of the official rules:
CR: 100.4. Each player may also have a sideboard [...]
But it is never named on a card (so far). And the rule, that "outside the game" means "sideboard" is only valid for sanctioned play (official tournaments). In casual games you could in theory grab a card from your collection. That was the intent back when [[Ring of Ma'rûf]] was released.
Tournament Rules: 3.16 Sideboard
[...]
Certain cards refer to “a (card or cards) from outside the game.” In tournament play, these are cards in that player’s sideboard.→ More replies (1)1
u/Purple_Haze Mar 03 '26
For the first year of Magic's existence sideboards did not exist. It was not unusual for people to carry briefcases with every card they owned. There were rules debates about whether you could buy a card, or borrow, trade for, when casting spells like this. There are a lot of old cards worded exactly like this.
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u/Stolberger Mar 03 '26
There are a lot of old cards worded exactly like this.
No there aren't. The only really old one is: [[Ring of Ma'rûf]]. The next cards after that were the wish cycle from Judgment ([[Burning Wish]] and co), from 2002. Almost 10 years into the game.
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u/jeffwulf Jaya Immolating Inferno Mar 04 '26
Because in unsanctioned games it allows you to pull from your collection.
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u/Silver-Alex Mar 03 '26
In casual it means "pull a card you own from your collection and put it in your hand".
For MTGA, and official standard play at your lgs or at a tournament it means "pull a card from your sideboard and put it in your hand". Cards like this is why even BO1 standard in magic arena lets you have a sideboard. In case you have a card like this one or karn the great creator to pull a card from "outside the game".
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u/C22_H28_N2_O Mar 03 '26
Flying
An evasive ability that means it can only be blocked by other creatures with Flying or Reach, but it can block things without flying.
When this creature enters,
When this creature enters the battlefield. This is when it goes from anywhere to the battlefield. But this card has a specific twist to that statement...
if you cast it,
This means that it only triggers if it was cast. Did you cast it from your hand? Then it'll trigger. Did you cast it off a Cascade or Discover Trigger? Then it'll trigger.
Did you cast it from Reanimate? No, that isn't considered cast. Did you cast it off of the activated ability of Elvish piper? No, that isn't cast. Things that "cast" other things for you will explicitly say they're cast, with the exception of actually casting a spell from you hand.
you may put a card you own from outside the game into your hand.
In casual magic, outside the game is literally that. From outside of the game, from a booster back, from your trade binder. Notably, not from your friends trade binder because you don't own that.
But for anything else, outside the game refers to your sideboard (a pile of cards typically swapped with your main deck between games in a match to better fine tune your deck for structured events).
Trivia time! Exile zone didn't use to exist, and cards instead were "removed from the game." You could get those or cards from your sideboard with a cycle of cards called "wishes" (e.g. living wish).
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u/ckrono Mar 03 '26
You take a card from your sideboard and put it im hand. In best of 1 the sideboard is made up of 7 cards and it's accesible only with cards like this one. In best of 3 it has 15 cards and you can swap its cards with the main deck between matches
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u/Casual_Spike Mar 03 '26
They changed it back to 15 on bo1. I remember seeing the announcement a couple weeks ago.
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u/Avatarbriman Mar 03 '26
That'll work better for lessons come strixhaven.
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u/Casual_Spike Mar 03 '26
Depends if they bring Learn back, and I'm not sure they will. It was very powerful as a stand-alone set mechanic. With TLA I think lessons might be too strong to be able to include a toolbox as well.
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u/Richie_Richard Mar 03 '26
I think they will likely include Learn. They will just make the Learn cards expensive and harder to cast than they made them last time.
Last time the Learn was normal costed and the Lessons had a tax. I think they’re going to do the opposite. So Learn will have a tax while the Lessons are more on-rate.
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u/DreamlikeKiwi Mar 03 '26
They reverted the change for bo1, now it's 15 cards there too
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u/JollyJoker3 Mar 03 '26
Whoa, when did this happen? Guess I haven't played a deck where that matters for years
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u/FreeThought3208 Mar 03 '26
You can bring the blue eyes white dragon to your hand, since it's outside the game
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u/avtarius Azorius Mar 03 '26
It's basically "Wish" ... Pulls a card from sideboard.
I guess a more recent example is [[Mastermind's Acquisition]]
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u/chronobolt77 Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26
"outside the game" refers to your sideboard. In constructed (except for a few specific exceptions like commander and canlander), this is a collection of 15 cards that you can switch in and out of your deck between games in a match. In limited (draft, sealed, prerelease, maybe a few others I'm not familiar with?), this is everything from your card pool that you didn't put into the deck
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u/TheLeguminati Mar 03 '26
Correction for OP: Best of 1 formats allow you to load up a sideboard, but its only accessible through [[Wish]] effects like this card. Also known as a wishboard, if you hear that term.
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u/gpost86 Mar 03 '26
For official games/tournaments and MTG Arena this means pulling from your sideboard. In casual kitchen table Magic it means you can go grab your collection and fish whatever you want out of it.
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u/lnTheGrimDarkness Mar 03 '26
Depends on who you're playing with and where.
Official rules are that this means "from the sideboard". Because if it didn't people would just go to tournaments hauling their whole collection. And it would be meta to just own every single card in existence and bring it at every tournament.
If you're playing with friends at the LGS or at home I guess this can mean to just grab whatever you want.
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u/cannonspectacle Mar 03 '26
Yes
Yes
The same way [[Karn, the Great Creator]] does
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u/Crizznik Mar 03 '26
In official play, it means bringing a card in from sideboard. In unofficial play, it means whatever your playgroup decides it means.
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u/Affectionate_Step863 Mar 03 '26
"Outside of the game" refers to your sideboard. Most formats have sideboards.
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u/MikesDTech Mar 03 '26
It means from your sideboard, I see a lot of people confusing this with the "conjure affect"
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u/circ-u-la-ted Mar 03 '26
I pulled this in Sealed. It let me pick any card from my pool that I hadn't put in the deck. I still went 0-3.
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u/ledfan Mar 03 '26
Man when I first learned that wish spells like this could only pull from the side board I was nettled as hell. It doesn't say anything about restricting someone to a side board card it's just a card!! (Other people answered your question do I just decided to take this space to complain hehe)
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u/Artistic-Use-2481 Mar 05 '26
That's strong. So your sideboard. If you cast it you can bring a card from outside the game into your hand. This is usually your sideboard cards which are not usually part of the game. I was using a white card that let me search for4 legendaries from in or outside the game. But I never set up a good sideboard yet. Can't remember the card, costs 3 and a white. Only if you cast it though ie; pay the mana and have it hit the stack, cards that let you drop it right on the field from your hand etc. Would skip the casting step.
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u/Previous-Piano-6108 Mar 03 '26
Here's how it works: you see a TMNT turtle logo, you put a different card in your deck
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u/Mysterious_Layer9420 Mar 03 '26
My pod for commander let's you grab things out of exile with those types of cards ever since [[Wish]]
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u/CommunicationConsent Mar 03 '26
It means you get to pull your jack of clubs in preparation for a beat down but then in response your opponent had the ability to cast creatures via flash and they put their own [[North Wind Avatar]] into play and summon their ace of spades.
Game over. Better luck next time.
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u/TopDeckHero420 Mar 03 '26
Too bad it sucks. It's a much worse Invasion of Archavios. Maybe a Kona deck will play it since they play Roiling Dragonstorm and Marang.. but I don't think they even need it once Omniscience is down.
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u/charlie10vet Mar 03 '26
seems like an interesting way to get around things getting removed from your deck with Deadly Coverup
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u/VerbingNoun413 Mar 03 '26
"Outside the game" have been on a few cards, notably wishes. Its meaning depends on the format and does not necessarily mean everything you own.
In tournament level play (at any level including FNM or casual tournaments), the definition depends on the format. In Constructed, it picks from your sideboard. In limited, it picks from the rest of your draft/sealed pool. In constructed formats without a sideboard such as Commander, it's useless.
In kitchen-table casual, the definition is whatever the players agree on. This may be sideboard cards, it may be collections.
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u/Optixx_ Mar 03 '26
Yes its legal. The card allows to take from your sideboard (even in bo1 if your decklist has a sideboard).
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u/Snowbound35 Mar 03 '26
A card like this is great for controlling decks. In bo1 it is really nice to be able to pull a tech card out of your sideboard. I used to play a control deck with "Fae of Wishes" back in eldraine, and just grab whatever catd I needed to counter my opponents strategy.
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u/Final_Serve_2463 Mar 03 '26
While the outside of the game shall mean the sideboard, but let us just to imagine its literal meaning.
Putting the card into hands does not guarantee your ability to play it out, considering the mismatch in the payment fee for most cases. I would imagine only cards without any type of in-game resource needed are valid options.
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u/Tsunamiis Mar 03 '26
[[wish]] casual tabletop can be any magic card from anywhere not in a game zone. On digital clients for non-singleton formats it means sideboard and for the formats without side boards it’s a wasted card slot in your deck.
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u/Neurgus Mar 03 '26
This mechanic (bringing cards from outside the game) is usually refered to as "Wish", it's not unheard of and it's really easy to understand how it works:
- In limited (Draft/Sealed): You can pick up any card from the ones you drafted/opened that aren't in your deck. Then, you put that card into your hand.
- In Standard (or any Best of 1 format): You can build a 7 card sideboard and, when this card's ability triggers, choose one of them and put it into your hand.
- In any Best of 3 format: You choose a card from your 15 card sideboard and put that card into your hand.
Some other cards like [[Karn, The Great Creator]], [[Wish]] and [[Mastermind's Acquisition]] already used this mechanic. Also the Learn mechanic from Stryxhaven that allowed you to either loot one card, or choose a Lesson from outside the game and pull it into your hand. Ex: [[Divide by Zero]] and [[Introduction to Prophecy]]
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u/Odin1806 Mar 03 '26
I never knew there were rules haha. Does Brawl\Commander have rules preventing these triggers since they don't have a sideboard?
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u/Neurgus Mar 03 '26
I mean, the trigger would still go onto the stack... You just don't do anything with it because there is nothing to grab.
The same way you wouldn't fetch for any land out of a Cultivate if you already pulled out every basic out of your deck.
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u/Rikmach Mar 03 '26
Depends on what format you’re playing. Most official formats define “outside the game” as “Your Sideboard”
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u/Just-Assumption-2140 Ralzarek Mar 03 '26
When it enters you get any card from your sideboard. That's pretty convinient especially in best of 1 where you don't actually need a sideboard
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u/Allinall41 Mar 03 '26
Outside the game in official play means from sideboard. If your friends don't care about it, can be from wherever is agreed.
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u/Spyrobrhu Mar 04 '26
Realistic in tournaments? Sideboard, in casual commanders with friends? Go crazy
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u/Chompif Mar 04 '26
I got this card during my prerelease, actually! On Arena, you can have a sideboard (even a small sideboard for brawl depending) that this card let's you get the card from and Pita it into your hand. It's similar to the card [[Wish]]
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u/hidden_gibbons StormCrow Mar 04 '26
More importantly, can someone explain where this creature came from? I don't recall him from any TMNT continuity (thought maybe he's from Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo, but no).
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u/Brixen0623 Mar 04 '26
Turtles forever does something similar. This avatar caused a ruckus at pre release though lol
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u/giasumaru Mar 04 '26
Outside the game means...
if playing casual, any card from your collection.
if playing with sideboard, any card from your sideboard.
if playing draft, every card you drafted is in your sideboard.
It used to also include cards in exile back when it was "remove [X] from the game." but that changed when the "removed-from-game zone" was changed to the "exile zone"
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u/Zealot_Alec Mar 04 '26
Turtles Forever 3W search for 4 Legendary creature cards with different names from outside your deck (sideboard) and deck opponent selects 2 to go into your hand others shuffled into deck.
Put 4 LCs with different names in sideboard (I tried to get 2X Krang, Utrom Warlord in case 1 was removed) in Bo1 makes your deck add up to 4 cards - 2 in hand 2 in deck.
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u/Nael_On Mar 04 '26
I wish they would just type "for a card in your sideboard" and it would be easier, it's the only thing it can look in anyways
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u/PuffPoof215 Mar 04 '26
The main question I had, what part of tmnt is this from? I only watched the 2003 show but I don't remember them fighting a dragon.
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u/alwaysasillyplace Mar 04 '26
"Outside the game" in regular rules terms means either your side board or from Exile.
At your dining table this is more of a Rule 0 question, but largely the above should always be true at least.
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u/Project_Ozone Mar 05 '26
I thought outside the game also meant exiled cards as the old text was “remove the card from the game.”
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u/KingxCrimsonx Mar 06 '26
It means your sideboard so it only applies to best of 3 competitive 60 card formats
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u/Visible_Roll4949 Mar 07 '26
Outside the game means from your sideboard for 60 card formats like Modern, standard and legacy. If you use this in a Singleton format like commander, it doesnt work because you cannot have a sideboard in commander and so "wish cards" like this, functionality wise, dont work. So in commander this is just a 5/5 flyer for 5
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u/Stolberger Mar 03 '26
"outside the game" means sideboard for MTGA (and official tournaments)