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The Ancient One

one blue manaone black manaLegendary Creature — Spirit GodPower and toughness8/8

Card text

Descend 8 — The Ancient One can't attack or block unless there are eight or more permanent cards in your graveyard.

two generic manaone blue manaone black mana: Draw a card, then discard a card. When you discard a card this way, target player mills cards equal to its mana value.

Showing The Lost Caverns of Ixalan#222

Price

1.63 $

Foil 2.89 $

18 printings · up to 2.22 $

Daily estimate from Scryfall, not a shop quote.

The Ancient One rulings

  • Once The Ancient One has legally attacked or blocked, removing permanent cards from your graveyard so the descend 8 ability no longer applies won't remove The Ancient One from combat.

  • You don't choose a target for The Ancient One's activated ability at the time you activate it. Rather, a second "reflexive" ability triggers when you discard a card this way. You choose a target for that ability as it goes on the stack. Each player may respond to this triggered ability as normal.

  • Cards with the ability word "descend N" have abilities that care if you have at least N permanent cards in your graveyard.

  • Some descend triggered abilities include intervening "if" clauses (i.e. "if you have [four or eight] permanent cards in your graveyard" in the middle of the ability). Each of these abilities checks your graveyard at the moment it would trigger to see if it does. If you don't have the required number of permanent cards in your graveyard at that time, the ability doesn't trigger at all. If it does trigger, it will check again as it tries to resolve. If you don't have the required number of permanent cards in your graveyard at that time, the ability won't resolve and none of its effects will happen.

The Ancient One keyword rules

Mill Rule 701.13

For a player to mill a number of cards, that player puts that many cards from the top of their library into their graveyard.

A player can’t mill a number of cards greater than the number of cards in their library. If given the choice to do so, they can’t choose to take that action. If instructed to do so, they mill as many as possible. Similarly, the player can’t pay a cost that includes milling a number of cards greater than the number of cards in their library.

An effect that refers to a milled card can find that card in the zone it moved to from the library, as long as that zone is a public zone.

If an ability checks information about a single milled card but more than one card was milled, that ability refers to each of the milled cards. If that ability asks for any information about the milled card, such as a characteristic or mana value, it gets multiple answers. If these answers are used to determine the value of a variable, the sum of the answers is used. If that ability performs any actions on “the” card, it performs that action on each milled card. If that ability performs any actions on “a” card, the controller of the ability chooses which card is affected.

The Ancient One format legality

Constructed

  • StandardLegal
  • PioneerLegal
  • ModernLegal
  • Future StandardLegal

Eternal

  • LegacyLegal
  • VintageLegal
  • PauperNot legal
  • PremodernNot legal
  • Old SchoolNot legal
  • Penny DreadfulLegal

Commander

  • CommanderLegal
  • OathbreakerLegal
  • Pauper CommanderNot legal
  • Duel CommanderLegal
  • PreDHNot legal

Arena & online

  • HistoricLegal
  • TimelessLegal
  • AlchemyNot legal
  • GladiatorLegal
  • BrawlLegal
  • Standard BrawlLegal
  • Competitive BrawlLegal

Other

  • TLRLegal

All printings of The Ancient One 18

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Card data

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