
During the untap step, players do not receive priority: the first opportunity for the Key’s ability to go on the stack is in the subsequent step, at the beginning of the upkeep. Pay attention, it will trigger, but won’t immediately go on the stack.Īn ability can trigger at any moment, but to go on the stack it will have to wait the first moment a player will be about to receive priority. This second ability will normally trigger during the untap step. “Whenever Key to the City becomes untapped, you may pay (2). If a creature that can’t be blocked loses all abilities, for example because of an Ovinize, the creature keeps the “can’t be blocked” status.


If an attacking creature has already been blocked, we can target it with the Key’s ability, but the creature will remain blocked.To complete the activation, we have to declare a target (or no target), and at this moment Youths is not in play. Madness goes on the stack only after we have completed the activation of the Key’s ability. If we discard Youths to the Key, and cast Youths, are we also able to target it and make it unblockable this turn? No, it doesn’t work. Let’s suppose we have an Incorrigible Youths, a creature with madness and haste, in hand. Discarding is part of the cost of the ability, because it comes before the colon – everything after the colon in an activated ability is the effect. We can’t activate the ability without discarding a card. If instead is played without targets, we can’t respond with Reroute: on the stack the ability has no targets, so it isn’t “an ability with a single target”, therefore casting Reroute is not legal.

If the ability is played with a target, we can respond with Reroute.If there aren’t creatures in play, this ability can’t be activated.ĭifferently, Key to the City’s ability can be activated without targets, so it can be used even with no creatures in play. Panic Spellbomb’s first ability requires a target. As a comparison, let’s have a look at how Panic Spellbomb works. “Up to one target creature” means that this ability can be activated with and without a target. “T”, Discard a card: Up to one target creature can’t be blocked this turn. In Limited or Commander, playing the Key should have its own reasons.įrom a rules point of view, Key to the City is particular enough to deserve an in depth analysis. One or two copies are fine for a constructed deck. Key to the City is not particularly powerful in a aggro deck, nor in a control one, and we will never play the 4x, not even in a slow format like Standard.

