Celebration is a new MTG ability word introduced with Wilds of Eldraine. In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know about it, including:
- How does MTG celebration work?
- How to enable MTG cards with celebration?
- What interactions does celebration enable?
- And more!
Let’s get right to it!
How Does Celebration Work?
Cards with celebrations get a bonus, if at least two nonland permanents entered the battlefield under your control in that turn.
There are different ways in which these cards work, but for the most part they get a benefit for a turn, as long as 2+ nonland permanents came into play on your side. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples to make things clearer.
Examples
Here’s Gallant Pie-Wielder, a straightforward card with celebration.
For three mana you get a 2/3 with first strike. However, on any turn that at least two nonland permanents entered the battlefield under your control, it’ll also have double strike.
Let’s say that you need Gallant Pie-Wielder to have double strike, so you’ll be able to make a good attack. In that case, you’ll typically want to play some cards in your first main phase. Perhaps a couple of creatures, or a creature and an enchantment. In either case, Pie-Wielder will see two nonland permanents entering the battlefield, and it’ll acquire double strike until the end of the turn.
Not all cards with celebration work in the same way, as you’ll see from this next example.
Ash, Party Crasher has a triggered celebration ability. Whenever it attacks, it checks whether two nonland permanents entered the battlefield under your control this turn. If they did, you get to put a +1/+1 counter on Ash.
This card also highlights an interesting interaction. The celebration cards count themselves for their abilities. So, on the turn you play Ash, you only need to put one more nonland permanent in play in order to enable its ability.
MTG Celebration – FAQ
Here are some commonly asked question players have about the celebration mechanic. Some of this are things we’ve already talked about, while the others cover different scenarios. If you have a question that we didn’t answer, let us know in the comments below, and we’ll get back to you.
Celebration is an ability word. It lets you know that your card will get a bonus, if two or more nonland permanents entered the battlefield under your control.
Nonland permanents are all cards that stay on the battlefield, after you play them, except for lands. They include: creatures, planeswalkers, enchantments, artifacts, and battles.
No, they don’t.
No, the only thing that matters for celebration is that two nonland permanents entered the battlefield under your control. What happens to them afterward, doesn’t affect celebration effects.
Yes, on the turn you play a card with celebration, you only need to play one more nonland permanent in order for celebration effects to work.
Flavor
What’s the flavor of the celebration mechanic? Well, it was made for Wilds of Eldraine set, which was the first one after Phyrexian invasion was defeated. So, now is the time for celebration! And how better to celebrate than by inviting guests.
In this case, the guests are apparently represented by nonland permanents. It looks like this mechanic isn’t the most flavorful, but at least it makes some amount of sense.
MTG Celebration – Interactions
In this section, we’ll explore interesting interactions with celebration. However, it doesn’t look like this mechanic enables man fascinating play patterns. If you feel like we missed something intriguing, let us know in the comments.
Celebrating at Instant Speed
One neat thing you can do with celebration is to trigger it at instant speed. An opponent might not expect that your celebration cards might also become better during their turn.
For that to happen you’ll need cards that can put permanents in play whenever you have priority. One such example would be Raise the Alarm, which can instantly make all your celebration cards work.
Celebration in Draft
Celebration seems like an interesting mechanic for draft. If you want to maximize it, you’ll face some interesting deckbuilding challenges.
You’ll want to have lots of ways to put permanents into play. Thankfully, there are a bunch of ways to do so with cards such as Hopeful Vigil and Edgewall Pack. There’s a whole archetype dedicated to this mechanic in white-red.
You can find more information about this and other archetypes in our Wilds of Eldraine Draft Guide.
Conclusion
That’s all about the MTG celebration. Now you know how it works, so you’ll be able to use it to your advantage.
If you want to try your luck, and perhaps open some cards with celebration, you can order yourself some Wilds of Eldraine Set boosters, and start cracking them.
If you want to find out more about Wilds of Eldraine, check the following articles:
Until next time, have fun and celebrate Magic by winning some games with its newest mechanic!
Does Ash work with Adeline? So you could attack, put the triggers on the stack and get a token from Adeline, resolving Ash’s trigger after that and get a counter? Cause e.g. Mentor didn’t trigger at all if you didn’t already have a stronger creature, so attack triggers in a similar situation wouldn’t work.
No, it won’t work. When Ash attacks, the ability won’t go on the stack, since the token wasn’t created before then. However, cards like Grand Ball Guest would work, as they don’t have an on-attack trigger. Hope this helps.
Exactly. To be precise, the triggered ability or any with a “if” clause checks the condition twice: First, when it should go on the stack and again when the stack is being resolved. So an (other) ability could go on the stack but the condition could no longer be true when the ability resolves.