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by Christopher Askwith
Phasing As many of you are aware, in Mirage and Visions, there arose a strange new set of creatures. They were capable of vanishing mysteriously into time, and reappearing just as mystically. They were the first creatures to possess phasing. Phasing is a rule introduced in Mirage and expanded upon in Visions. Phasing involves the manipulation of time and all things temporal. The color that makes the most use (the only use, it seems) of phasing is blue. This means if you want to exploit this new ability to the fullest, you need to be playing blue. When a permanent has phasing, it phases out during the upkeep of the turn after it comes into play. When a permanent phases out, it is placed temporarily out of play, with any enchantments or counters on it intact. The turn after it phases out, the permanent phases in, or returns to play at the beginning of the untap phase of the turn. It is then untapped. This means that it can be used during the turn. The cycle repeats: phase out; then in; then out; then in; etc. The advantage to a creature having phasing is that when it is phased out, it cannot be affected by any spell, nor can spells target any enchantments placed upon the phased out permanent. Also, if an enemy does not remember a creature that phases and leaves himself unable to defend against it when it phases back in, he will suffer a significant amount of damage, especially if the creature is large, like the Sandbar Crocodile. Of course, when a creature is phased out, it is useless to the owner. Because it is out of play, it cannot be used to block enemy attacks, nor can any of its abilities be used. This is naturally a significant problem, particularly if the creature in question is the only means of defense against a certain attack. Back when Mirage came out, phasing was only used in its basic form: creatures with phasing, or spells that gave creatures the phasing ability. With the advent of Visions, however, even creatures without phasing could be forced out of play temporarily. Certain creatures and spells caused creatures to phase out. This meant that the users of these spells could remove their opponent's best offensive and/or defensive permanents and then launch devastating attacks. These spells can also protect your own permanents from spells which would otherwise destroy them. Hopefully, this has been able to illuminate the rules and applications of phasing to many people who found it confusing and just too hard to work with. If you're brave enough, maybe you'll make a theme deck based on the temporal warpings and reality shifts of phasing.
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