Ravnica may be known for its seedy underbelly filled with cheats and liars, but Innistrad is the real home of two-faced characters in Magic. I am of course talking about “double-faced” cards, the often loved, occasionally loathed cards of Innistrad that can transform between two printed sides.

Double-faced cards have a lot going for them. They enable cards to play multiple roles at different points in the game, can drive your opponent to make decisions or play in a certain way without even attacking, and can help you plan out complex lines of play and play around opposing removal spells.

There are a lot of them in Shadows over Innistrad, so it’s well worth understanding how and why you should play with double-faced cards at your pre-release and beyond.

The etiquette of double-faced cards

With double-faced cards, the fun begins at deck building. Clearly, when both sides of a card are printed on, it’s pretty easy to identify which cards are which if they’re in an unsleeved deck. For that reason, it is heavily advised that you use opaque card sleeves with any deck containing double-faced cards.

It’s worth noting that not all card sleeves are completely opaque, and some will be reasonably easy to see through. If you choose to use double-faced cards in sleeves like these, your opponent may well complain about the fact that you can see through them, effectively giving you information about the top card of your deck that you shouldn’t have. Don’t be offended if they raise this issue, it happens very frequently, and if it does come up, just talk to a judge or tournament organizer to find the best solution.

If you’d prefer not to use sleeves, there is an alternative. Checklist cards are randomly inserted into Shadows over Innistrad booster packs, and function like proxy cards for your double-faced cards.

Simply tick the box next to the name of the card you want the checklist to represent, and keep your double-faced card in your deck box, ready to present when you pay for the spell.

The power of proactivity

The ways in which you flip over double-faced cards varies from card to card, but the requirements of flipping can largely be placed into two main groups: proactive conditions that you can trigger whenever you please, and reactive conditions that happen in response to something out of your control.

A card like Heir of Falkenrath is very much in the “proactive” camp. You choose when you want to discard a card to flip it, so you can do it at the best time possible. That might be in response to a removal spell that would otherwise kill it, at the end of an opponent’s turn so you can immediately attack with your transformed creature, or just when you’ve drawn the best madness card so you don’t lose value by discarding.

Turning nothing into something

Many double-faced cards, especially those featuring werewolf creatures have that flip condition “if no spells were cast during the last turn, transform”. This can appear slightly weak at first, as it feels a bit out of your control, and not casting spells is rarely a good idea, but it is actually very powerful in its own way.

This condition puts pressure on your opponent to make plays very turn, or face your transformed threats. That can cause them to make poor decisions, or cast spells off-curve, which both work to your advantage.

It also gives you the option to do nothing on your turn, and have that actually be a good play. Having the option to do nothing, cast no spells, and still progress your board state is very powerful, and there is basically no risk involved. With a couple of cards like these on the board, sometimes doing nothing really can be your best play for a turn.

Wrapping up

Whatever you want to do with them, double-faced cards are a huge amount of fun to play with. If you didn’t get to give them a try the first time around, or if you weren’t lucky enough to open any flip planeswalkers in Magic Origins, Shadows over Innistrad is your chance to play with a very unique mechanic that’s unlike anything else in the game, so get hyped!

Look out for more

I hope that you found that short introduction to double-faced cards useful. Keep your eyes peeled this week for more thoughts on the themes and mechanics of Shadows over Innistrad, and make sure you go into your pre-releases prepared!