Magic: The Gathering – What Is Phasing?
If you’d asked anyone in 2018 or 2019 which mechanics they’d expect to see come back to Magic: The Gathering, they almost certainly wouldn’t have said phasing. An old mechanic that was steeped in confusion, phasing caused so many problems for the game that it was eventually… phased out.
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And yet, phasing has become a surprisingly common part of the game, and plays a significant role in multiple formats. Though it’s the ultimate way to protect your permanents, phasing can still be tricky for newcomers to understand.
Phasing is a mechanic that comes in two different forms: a keyword ability, and a keyword action called “phasing out”.
Whenever a permanent phases out, it is no longer affected by anything going on in the game. It can’t be targeted, damaged, destroyed, exiled, or otherwise interacted with in any way – it essentially ceases to exist. Whereas exiling a permanent moves it to the exile zone, phasing simply acts as if it ceased to exist. Unless the source of the phasing says otherwise (such as with Oubliette), phased permanents phase back in at the start of your next upkeep.
The reason phasing is so confusing is because the way it works today is very different to how it did when it was first introduced in Mirage. When it debuted, phasing was a keyword ability like trample, hexproof, or first strike.
If a permanent has the “phasing” keyword ability, it alternates between phased in and phased out every turn. For example, a Tolarian Drake will spend its first turn phased in, its second phased out, and its third phased back in. This proved to be very difficult to track, especially when more than one permanent with phasing was in play at the
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