Adventure is yet another attempt to fit two sets of characteristics onto a single card. We've already seen Morph and Manifest, split cards, flip cards, double-faced cards, meld cards, and cards with Bestow. Generally, all of these mechanics don't fit well into the rules and behave illogically in any moderately complex situation. Adventure is no exception.
Oracle Text:
Brazen Borrower {1}{U}{U}
Creature — Faerie Rogue
Flash
Flying
Brazen Borrower can block only creatures with flying.
Petty Theft {1}{U}
Instant — Adventure
Return target nonland permanent an opponent controls to its owner’s hand.
The first glance at such cards brings old-timers back to Who/What/When/Where/Why. But, of course, it’s not all that bad. Adventure cards only have two sets of characteristics. It's a creature card with a sorcery or instant spell “embedded” into its text. This means that by holding a single card, you can cast one of two spells. We'll discuss casting later, but for now, let's focus on the new subtype.
“Adventure” is a spell subtype (i.e., of sorceries or instants).
In general, a spell with a subtype is quite rare in Magic.
There are only three such subtypes: Arcane, Trap, and Adventure.
The trigger from Lucky Clover specifically refers to a spell with the Adventure subtype.
As is often the case, the game engine doesn’t concern itself much with alternate characteristics in any zones other than the stack.
715.4. In every zone except the stack, and while on the stack not as an Adventure, an adventurer card has only its normal characteristics.
You cannot find Brazen Borrower using Firemind's Foresight.
If you reveal Brazen Borrower when Delver's trigger resolves, the transformation will not occur.
Cognivore will not “see” Petty Theft in the graveyard and will die if there are no instant cards there.
In other words, everywhere except on the stack, it is a creature card with two “buts”:
- It is a card with Adventure (CR 715.2a).
- You can name the Adventure if an effect allows you to choose a card name (CR 715.5).
A cunning opponent can put your Brazen Borrower from exile into the graveyard using Memory Theft, regardless of how Brazen Borrower ended up in exile.
If a cunning opponent names Petty Theft for Gideon's Intervention, you won’t be able to cast it, but this won’t prevent you from casting Brazen Borrower.
Naming the Adventure for Thought Hemorrhage is a bad idea because no card with that name exists in the graveyard, hand, or library.
Since mana value often causes confusion, I’ll clarify this separately: everywhere except on the stack, the game engine only recognizes the mana cost of the creature, meaning Brazen Borrower’s mana value in any zone other than the stack is 3. On the stack, the mana value is determined by which spell is being cast: 3 for Brazen Borrower and 2 for Petty Theft.
To counter Petty Theft, you need a card with mana value 2; for Brazen Borrower, you need a card with mana value 3.
Mistmeadow Skulk is a legal target for Petty Theft.
Casting a card with Adventure
At any given time, you can cast either of the two spells on an Adventure card if the rules or an effect allow you to do so.
Petty Theft is still the good old instant spell, which can be cast whenever you have priority.
Since Brazen Borrower has flash, you can also cast it at any time you have priority.
In the simplest case, the card is in your hand, and you can choose to cast either Petty Theft (if there is a legal target) or Brazen Borrower. When you cast the Adventure, the card is exiled upon resolution, giving you the opportunity to cast the creature from exile.
There are no time restrictions on casting the creature from exile. You can do it immediately or after several turns. The only condition is that the card must remain in exile continuously.
715.3d. Instead of putting a spell that was cast as an Adventure into its owner's graveyard as it resolves, its controller exiles it. For as long as that card remains exiled, that player may cast it. It can't be cast as an Adventure this way, although other effects that allow a player to cast it may allow a player to cast it as an Adventure.
It's important to remember that the effect allowing you to cast the creature from exile is created upon the resolution of the Adventure spell. If that spell does not resolve, the effect won’t exist:
If the spell is countered, its card goes from the stack to the graveyard. And yes, Adventure spells can be countered by Negate.
Exiling the Adventure from the stack before it resolves deprives you of the ability to cast the creature from exile without the help of other effects.
If, in response to casting Petty Theft, your opponent makes its target illegal, Petty Theft won’t resolve and will be sent to the graveyard.
Occasionally, an Adventure spell resolves, but due to another effect, the card ends up in a different zone or exile for a different reason. In this case, you are no longer dealing with the Adventure. Whether or not you can cast the card will be determined by other effects and rules:
If you cast Petty Theft immediately after Narset’s second loyalty ability resolves, the Adventure will have the Rebound ability.
Upon the resolution of Petty Theft, you have two options*:
- Exile the card due to the Adventure effect
- Exile the card due to Rebound
If you choose Rebound, during your next upkeep, you can cast either Petty Theft or Brazen Borrower from exile without paying their mana cost.
*We have two replacement effects applied to one event. You choose the order in which to apply them. Once one is applied, the other has nothing left to modify.
Now for the most interesting part. Let’s figure out which spell you can cast under different effects that allow you to cast a card from a zone other than your hand:
If Brazen Borrower is exiled during the resolution of Cascade, you can cast either Brazen Borrower or Petty Theft without paying their mana cost, as Petty Theft’s mana value is less than 4. You cannot cast Adventure if you exiled Flaxen Intruder.
Djinn of Wishes also allows you to cast either the creature or the Adventure. If you don’t want to or can’t, the card will be exiled. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to cast the creature from exile, as it wasn’t the Adventure that sent it there.
If you activated the second loyalty ability of Vivien, Champion of the Wilds and exiled Brazen Borrower face down, you will only be able to cast it as Brazen Borrower, since the effect exclusively refers to creatures.
Vizier of the Menagerie allows you to cast only Brazen Borrower from the top of your library. Petty Theft, however, cannot be cast this way.
If you thought Vivien’s first ability “speeds up” the sorceries of Adventure to instant speed, that’s not the case.
Finally, we arrive at the trickiest interactions with Adventures:
By controlling Wrenn and Six’s emblem, you can cast Petty Theft from the graveyard by paying the Retrace cost. Brazen Borrower, however, does not have Retrace because it is a creature card. Why can this trick be pulled off?
It works thanks to rule 601.3e, which dictates that only the alternative characteristics of a card are used to determine its legality for casting. By this rule, we “forget” about Brazen Borrower and only see Petty Theft, which gains Retrace from Wrenn and Six’s emblem. This ability allows you to cast Petty Theft from the graveyard by discarding a land as an additional cost.
Note that this trick does not work with Past in Flames.
Past in Flames' effect takes place upon resolution and only applies to objects that were in the correct zone at that time.
When Past in Flames resolves, the game engine only sees a creature card in the graveyard, so it skips over it when granting Flashback. If we try to check the legality of casting Petty Theft, we won’t find Flashback, so there’s no reason to allow it to be cast from the graveyard.
Copying a Card with Adventure
Everything is simple here:
715.2b. The existence and values of these alternative characteristics is part of the object's copiable values.
715.3c. If an Adventure spell is copied, the copy is also an Adventure. It has the alternative characteristics of the spell and not the normal characteristics of the card that represents the Adventure spell. Any rule or effect that refers to a spell cast as an Adventure refers to the copy as well.
If Clone enters the battlefield as a copy of a creature with Adventure, it will get a counter from Mysterious Pathlighter for its resourcefulness.
If an instant spell with Adventure becomes the target of Narset's Reversal, when Narset’s Reversal resolves, you return the original card to your hand and leave a copy on the stack. Upon resolving the copy, it will be exiled, but at the next state-based action check, it will cease to exist. You won’t have any opportunity to cast the creature from exile.
How Petty Theft Works
In the text of Petty Theft, the first thing to note is the word “target” and the description of the target.
Permanent refers to a card or token on the battlefield. This means you cannot return a card from exile, the graveyard, or the stack to its owner's hand — only from the battlefield.
You cannot return a permanent under your own control. You can only target a permanent controlled by your opponent.
You cannot return a permanent that has the Land card type, even if it also has other types.
The object is returned to the owner's hand. This means that if your opponent borrowed a permanent from you, that permanent will return to your hand.
Lastly, tokens that leave the battlefield cease to exist the next time state-based actions are checked.
How Brazen Borrower Works
We already know everything about flash and flying. What's left is to discuss “can block only creatures with flying.” If you block an opponent's flyer with Brazen Borrower, and that creature later loses flying, nothing changes. The block remains in place, and during the combat damage step, the creatures will deal damage to each other according to their power.
Translated by ChatGPT
If your cunning opponent plays cards like Perplexing Chimera or Commandeer, they can steal control of the Adventure right under your nose. In that case, if the Adventure resolves and the card is exiled, only your opponent can cast the creature from exile.