Mikaeus, the Unhallowed

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed is mythic rare, which doesn’t affect the game in any way; and is legendary, which is very important.

First of all, Mikaeus falls under the legend rule.

Second, it may be used as a Commander in EDH. In that case you get to play a mono-black deck.

Third, there are rules that allow shortening the names of legendary permanents, but they are not applicable to Mikaeus because… it so happened that there are two of them in Magic: Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Mikaeus, the Lunarch. They are both legal in the same formats. So if you just list “Mikaeus” in your decklist, it won’t be clear which one you declare, and that isn’t correct.

If you look at the text of Mikaeus, the Lunarch, you will see that his abilities refer to him simply as “Mikaeus”. This is possible through the rule 201.4c., which got expanded with the release of Magic2014. This shortening of the name shouldn’t confuse you, because according to rule 201.4, this name only refers to the Mikaeus whose ability has been activated, not any other Mikaeus on the battlefield, be it Mikaeus, the Lunarch or Mikaeus, the Unhallowed.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed has three abilities. The first one is static.

Intimidate

We already know what evasion abilities are from the time we analyzed Flying. A creature may only be assigned blocking a creature with Intimidate in two cases:

• the creature has the Artifact type (in which case its color doesn’t matter).
  
• the creature shares at least one color with the creature with Intimidate it is going to block (they don’t need to have all colors matched).

Captain Obvious sends word that a nonartifact colorless creature (such as Emrakul or basic land animated through Skarrg Guildmage’s second ability) may not be assigned blocking creatures with intimidate. Colorless isn’t a color, it’s the lack thereof.

In terms of Intimidate, the type or color of the blocker creature matter only when blockers are declared.

• If the blocking creature changes its color or loses the Artifact type later on, nothing changes. It continues blocking the creature with Intimidate and deals the normal combat damage to it.
• A token from Flash Foliage may block any creature with Intimidate. It is not assigned as a blocker, so it ignores evasion abilities.

To my greatest concern, many players think that “Artifact Creature” is a whole different card type. In fact, there is no such whole combined term in contemporary Magic. They are two independent card types: Artifact and Creature, and the two may appear on the same object. In that case we treat that object as a creature and as an artifact (permanent, card, spell).

How does it work?

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed may be blocked with:

If Mikaeus, the Unhallowed changes color Cerulean Wisps, then it can be bloked by blue creatures but can’t by non-artifact bleck ones.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed’s second ability is triggered.

”Whenever a Human deals damage to you, destroy it”.

• Whenever — signal word indicating a triggered ability, one that goes off when the triggering event occurs:
• a Human deals damage to you — the triggering event for this ability. Three things are of essence here:
  • According to rule 109.2, if an ability refers to an object by using a type or subtype and doesn’t use the words “card”, “spell”, “source” or “scheme”, it means that the ability refers to the permanent of the specified type or subtype on the battlefield. In our case it means that Mikaeus, the Unhallowed’s trigger goes off only if you (controller) take damage from a permanent with subtype Human.
  • Damage may be combat and noncombat type.
  • Many old cards received errata in course of the game’s development, so make sure you consult the Oracle when you encounter them. For instance, Arc Mage has the subtype Human.
• destroy it — the ability effect. We get it only when the trigger resolves.
  • ”It” refers to the source of the damage that triggered the ability. Even if the object becomes something very different, even if it becomes a Human later, the effect will find it and destroy it.
  • Destruction may be replaced by the effect of Regeneration, or ignored if the object has Indestructible.
  • Mikaeus, the Unhallowed’s trigger does not target, so Protection or Hexproof do not help the object survive.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed’s last ability is static. Its effect gives all your creatures who do not have the Human subtype Undying and increases their power and toughness by one. A creature falls under this effect immediately as it enters the battlefield. There is no such moment in the game when a non-Human creature is already on the battlefield but doesn’t have Mikaeus’s freebies.

---

Translated by Witas Spasovski