26

I heard - (from an official MtG judge) - that Wrath of God ("Destroy all creatures") destroys creatures with the Shroud ability, because it doesn't target a single creature, it targets all creatures.

Is this really true? In my opinion it is very illogical.

Improve this question
2
  • 24
    That phrasing — "targets all creatures" — isn't correct, and if the judge used it, I can understand your confusion. Wrath of God doesn't target creatures at all; it wipes them out in a grand swath.
    – Jadasc
    Sep 6, 2011 at 12:57
  • 3
    In terms of flavour, shroud can represent a creature being "magically" elusive. You can't shoot at a guy if you don't know where he is in a building, but he'll still die if you blow the whole building up.
    – Samthere
    Sep 9, 2016 at 14:26

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
44

Yes, Wrath of God will kill all creatures with shroud. It will also kill all creatures that have protection from white. It won't kill creatures that are indestructible.

To understand why this is, you have to look at the definitions of the terms.

Shroud means: "this creature can't be the target of spells or abilities".

Protection means (among other things): "this creature can't be the target of spells or abilities of the colour in question".

Wrath of God just says "Destroy all creatures". No mention of targets at all. And I think this is where your confusion is arising. Wrath of God doesn't "target all creatures and destroy them". It doesn't target anything. It just destroys them, whether they're slippery customers or not. Boom!

Indestructible creatures survive a Wrath because their ability ("cannot be destroyed") specifically interacts with the word "destroy" on the card Wrath of God. Creatures with Shroud only interact with, and care about, the word "target" on a card. If you can't find "target" written anywhere on the card, then Shroud won't have any effect on what that card can do.

As an interesting side point, take a look at a card like Copy Enchantment. This puts into play a copy of an enchantment already on the battlefield. But note that nowhere on the card does it say "target". This means that if you copy an Aura on the battlefield, you can put that copy onto a creature with Shroud... even if the original Aura would have been unable to enchant that creature when it was cast! Sometimes Magic does some pretty counter-intuitive things, but it's very internally consistent.

Hope that's clarified things more than it's confused them, for you!

Improve this answer
3
  • 5
    Huh, that's an interesting note about Copy Enchantment. Auras do target the object or player you're going to enchant when you cast them as a spell, but not when they enter the battlefield by any other means, according to rule 303.4f in the Comp Rules. Neat!
    – adamjford
    Sep 7, 2011 at 17:14
  • Note that the same enchantment shenanigans can be performed with a card like Lost Auramancers to put Aura Enchantments on creatures with Shroud or Hexproof.
    – ghoppe
    Sep 26, 2011 at 14:25
  • Good unasked for tidbit about protection I didn't know. Thanks.
    – joedragons
    Aug 27, 2015 at 14:09
3

Not only Wrath of God is possible of doing this: Damnation, Hallowed Burial, Infest and Pyroclasm for instance can do it as well. Because they don't target.

Improve this answer
2

Another thing to note is that all the cards mentioned except for Pyroclasm also kills creatures with protection from < color >. Pyroclasm doesn't kill them because protection, besides from making it untargetable, also prevents damage.

I've seen a lot of people missunderstanding this.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    Useful clarification - I didn't want to go too heavily into protection in my answer, in case I strayed too far from the point, but you're absolutely right. A creature with protection from all colours dies to a Wrath of God, and also from an (untargeted) effect giving it -X/-X where X is equal to or greater than its toughness; but no amount of (coloured) damage will kill it, not a million or a million million!
    – thesunneversets
    Sep 6, 2011 at 13:38
-13

First of all, there is a little rule everyone is forgetting and it is the legal target rule which simply states before a permanent can be destroyed or removed from play it has to be a legal target of a spell:

608.2b [During resolution, if] the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal.

All spells target, including those with "all" in their text. If a spell states that it does not target, then it cannot destroy anything according to the legal target rule. For a spell to affect a permanent, the permanent must be a legal target for said spell.

For example, Noxious Ghoul reads:

Whenever Noxious Ghoul or another Zombie enters the battlefield, all non-Zombie creatures get -1/-1 until end of turn.

Zombies do not get the -1/-1 counter because they are not legal targets of Noxious Ghoul's ability. Basically, because there are legal targets for every spell, spells with "all" target "all" as well.

Another basic common sense example is Crux of Fate. Crux of Fate offers a choice of either destroying all dragons or destroying all non-dragons, which means means it will either target and destroy all legal target dragons or target and destroy all legal target non-dragons.

This is basic common sense - if a spell does not target anything then it does not do anything.

Improve this answer
6
  • so creatures with hexproof or shroud cannot be legal targets of spells therefore are not destroyed by wrath of god
    – Joseph Kmiecik
    Aug 25, 2015 at 22:15
  • 8
    This answer is wrong. Wrath of God does not target anything. Neither does Noxious Ghoul or Crux of Fate. Just because a spell affects something does not mean it targets that thing.
    – Rainbolt
    Aug 25, 2015 at 23:00
  • 9
    "All spells target" is where you've gone wrong. Not sure where you got that idea, but it's definitely NOT correct. The only spells that target are ones that have the word "target" in their text, and Aura spells because the rules for Aura spells specifically say they target.
    – GendoIkari
    Aug 25, 2015 at 23:13
  • 2
    The common sense answer is wrong in this case because "target" is a keyword with a specific definition in the context of M:tG. Also, I would be hesitant to argue with a judge unless I myself had been certified as one - those nerds know what they're talking about. :)
    – Andrew Vandever
    Aug 26, 2015 at 15:19
  • 2
    You will notice that 608.2b states that "IF the spell or ability specifies targets...". Obviously, not all spells or abilities have targets, and these are not covered by 608.2b. I can legally cast Wrath of God when there are no creatures on the battlefield (I don't need to specify targets), but I can't cast Terror when there are no non-artifact, non-black creatures on the battlefield (I can't put it on the stack with a legal target).
    – Nuclear Hoagie
    Sep 9, 2016 at 12:41
-13

These are horrible answers, so I'll just kill the Q&A and answer everything quickly

The confusion here is the word "target". The key words MTG really wants you to look at is "a" and "the". Shroud and hexproof prevent single targeting spells. IE: [can't be THE target] Creatures with shroud and hexproof can still technically be "a" target, they just can't be singled out(although the MTG rules don't seperate, have, or recognize the difference because "Target" is only used on spells that single out permanants).

This game really puts your language reading skills to work, but if you take your time and read up on the rules, it'll make sense.

Keep rocking the cards, guys. 👍

Improve this answer
2
  • 2
    No, creatures with shroud and hexproof can't be targets, whether there are other targets ("up to two target creatures") or not ("target creature"). They can be affected by things that don't target at all ("destroy all creatures"), but that doesn't make them "a" target.
    – Cascabel
    Sep 9, 2016 at 4:55
  • 1
    Absolutely wrong.
    – Nuclear Hoagie
    Sep 9, 2016 at 12:34

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .