Tossing Magic: The Gathering cards into the graveyard now has an added bonus through the new Descend mechanic that’s being introduced in Lost Caverns of Ixalan.
Reanimation has always been a popular archetype within Magic and WotC gave the archetype a buff through Lost Caverns of Ixalan (LCI). The Descend mechanic rewards players for tossing cards into the graveyard. The new mechanic cares about permanents in a player’s graveyard and has three spinoff keywords: Descend Four, Descend Eight, and Fathomless Descent.
MTG Descend mechanic, explained
Descend is a versatile mechanic in that the design team created multiple uses for it. The LCI Elder Fungus Mythic Rare card, for example, cares about the number of times its controller Descended that turn. A card that was sent to the graveyard that turn and was later moved somewhere else still counts toward the number of permanents that Descended that turn. And cards like Broodrage Mycoid only care if its controller Descended that turn at all.
- Descend definition: You Descended if a permanent card was put into your graveyard from anywhere. Instant and Sorcery cards don’t count as permanent.
Descend Four and Eight
And then there are cards like Uchbenbak, the Great Mistake. The Skeleton Horror features a keyword ability called Descend Eight. The keyword abilities Descend Four, Descend Eight, and Fathomless Descent are similar to the Descend mechanic in that they care about permanents in your graveyard.
Both Descend Four and Descend Eight, like the ability on Uchbenbak, the Great Mistake, care about there being at least four or eight permanents in your graveyard at that moment. The Skeleton Horror also has its controller pay a mana cost in addition to the Descend Eight, returning the skeleton to the battlefield with a Finality counter on it.
Finality counter
A Finality counter is a new definition of an existing ability in MTG. Cards that return from a graveyard are typically exiled when they die. Going forward, a Finality counter on a card will by definition mean that the card is exiled when it dies.
- Finality counter definition: If a creature with a Finality counter on it would die, exile it instead.
Fathomless Descent
The last form of Descend is Fathomless Descent. Instead of assigning a minimum number of cards that need to be in your graveyard, Fathomless Descent powers up its permanent based on the total number of permanents in your graveyard. The more you have, the better the rewards are.
