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Scourge of the Throne
Creature — Dragon
rare
Flying Dethrone (Whenever this creature attacks the player with the most life or tied for most life, put a +1/+1 counter on it.) Whenever this creature attacks for the first time each turn, if it's attacking the player with the most life or tied for most life, untap all attacking creatures. After this phase, there is an additional combat phase.
5/5
Semantic Tags
Benefits from attacking — attack triggers, combat damage triggers, exalted.
Cares about +1/+1 counters — places, moves, doubles, or benefits from counters on creatures.
Punishes or prevents creature-based strategies — makes creatures enter tapped, prevents attacking, taxes creatures.
Difficult to block or grants evasion. Includes flying, menace, fear, intimidate, shadow, skulk, horsemanship, unblockable effects, and cards that grant these abilities.
Takes extra combat phases for additional attacks and triggers.
Takes extra combat phases for additional attacks and triggers.
A keyword ability that restricts how a creature may be blocked. See rule 702.9, “Flying.”
A card or token on the battlefield. See rule 110, “Permanents.”
An effect that untaps permanents, enabling reuse of tap abilities or mana.
Format Legality
Price history
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Printings (9)
| Set | Rarity | TCGplayer | Card Kingdom | Cardmarket |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander#230 | rare | · | · | · |
| Murders at Karlov Manor Commander#160 | rare | · | · | · |
| Commander Masters#253 | rare | · | · | · |
| Commander Masters#549 | rare | · | · | · |
| Tales of Middle-earth Commander#225 | mythic | · | · | · |
| Secret Lair Drop#1033 | mythic | · | · | · |
| The List#CNS-35 | mythic | · | · | · |
| Vintage Masters#184 | mythic | · | · | · |
| Conspiracy#35 | mythic | · | · | · |
Related Concepts
Related Rules
If an ability would produce one or more mana of an undefined type, it produces no mana instead.
Some abilities produce mana based on the type of mana another permanent or permanents “could produce.” The type of mana a permanent could produce at any time includes any type of mana that an ability of that permanent would produce if the ability were to resolve at that time, taking into account any applicable replacement effects in any possible order. Ignore whether any costs of the ability could or could not be paid. If that permanent wouldn’t produce any mana under these conditions, or no type of mana can be defined this way, there’s no type of mana it could produce.
To “tap [a permanent] for mana” is to activate a mana ability of that permanent that includes the {T} symbol in its activation cost. See rule 605, “Mana Abilities.”
An ability that triggers whenever a permanent “is tapped for mana” or is tapped for mana of a specified type triggers whenever such a mana ability resolves and produces mana or the specified type of mana.
A replacement effect that applies if a permanent “is tapped for mana” or tapped for mana of a specific type and/or amount modifies the mana production event while such an ability is resolving and producing mana or the specified type and/or amount of mana.
If an object’s enters-the-battlefield triggered ability or replacement effect refers to X, and the spell that became that object as it resolved had a value of X chosen for any of its costs, the value of X for that ability is the same as the value of X for that spell, although the value of X for that permanent is 0. This is an exception to rule 107.3i.
The tap symbol is {T}. The tap symbol in an activation cost means “Tap this permanent.” A permanent that’s already tapped can’t be tapped again to pay the cost. A creature’s activated ability with the tap symbol in its activation cost can’t be activated unless the creature has been under its controller’s control continuously since their most recent turn began. See rule 302.6.
The untap symbol is {Q}. The untap symbol in an activation cost means “Untap this permanent.” A permanent that’s already untapped can’t be untapped again to pay the cost. A creature’s activated ability with the untap symbol in its activation cost can’t be activated unless the creature has been under its controller’s control continuously since their most recent turn began. See rule 302.6.
Rulings
The +1/+1 counter is put on the creature before blockers are declared.
Once dethrone triggers, it doesn't matter what happens to the players' life totals before the ability resolves. You'll put a +1/+1 counter on the creature even if the defending player doesn't have the most life as the ability resolves.
Scourge of the Throne's ability has an intervening "if" clause. It must be attacking the player with the most life or tied with the most life both when it's declared as an attacker and as it starts to resolve for it to have any effect. If, at either time, the player isn't the one with the most life or tied for the most life, the ability will have no effect. Notably, this is different than how dethrone works. (Dethrone checks only once to see if the ability triggers.)
In a Two-Headed Giant game, dethrone will trigger if the creature attacks either player on the team with the most life or tied for the most life.
Dethrone doesn't trigger if the creature attacks a planeswalker, even if its controller has the most life. The same is true if the creature attacks a battle, even if its protector has the most life.