MTG Landfall, Prowess, Magecraft and Delirium guide image showing trigger and condition mechanics as magical fantasy scenes with lands, spells, enchantments, combat, graveyard energy, and Commander gameplay.

MTG Landfall, Prowess, Magecraft & Delirium Guide

July 31, 2026

Some Magic: The Gathering mechanics reward you for doing something. Others reward you for a condition being true. This guide covers eight of them — and starts with a structural fact that explains why they behave so differently from each other.

Of the eight mechanics here, only prowess is an actual keyword ability. Landfall, magecraft, constellation, revolt, raid, delirium, and threshold are all ability words: italicised labels with no rules meaning whatsoever. They exist to group similar cards together for flavour and design. The real rules text is always written out on the card itself.

That single fact is why "read the card" matters more with these than almost anywhere else in Magic — and why two cards with the same ability word can behave differently.

This is the fourth article in our series on advanced MTG mechanics, following our guides to the Eldrazi mechanics, cascade, storm and suspend, and convoke, delve and affinity.

Part One: Mechanics That Trigger on an Event

Landfall

Landfall marks a triggered ability that fires whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control. The crucial word is enters — not "plays".

Any reason counts. Playing a land for the turn triggers it. So does a ramp spell putting a land onto the battlefield, a fetchland fetching, or any other effect. It even triggers if an opponent's effect causes a land to enter under your control.
Fetchlands trigger it twice. Once when the fetchland itself enters, and again when the land it finds enters. One card, two triggers.
Becoming a land is not entering. If a permanent already on the battlefield turns into a land, nothing triggers — it did not enter, it changed.
You order simultaneous triggers. If several landfall abilities trigger at once, you choose the order they go on the stack. The last one you put on resolves first.

Note that Wizards updated the reminder wording in Bloomburrow from "whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control" to "whenever a land you control enters." The function is unchanged.

In stock, Lotus Cobra is the classic enabler-and-payoff in one: each land that enters adds one mana of any colour, helping you chain ramp spells, fetchlands, and extra land drops into bigger turns. Ancient Greenwarden is the multiplier: it causes land-entry triggers to happen an additional time, and lets you play lands from your graveyard — which turns used fetchlands into repeatable triggers. And Field of the Dead carries a land-entry trigger of its own without using the landfall label, rewarding a mana base built on differently-named lands.

Constellation

Constellation is landfall's enchantment cousin: it marks a triggered ability that fires whenever an enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, for any reason.

Enchantment creatures count. A card that is both an enchantment and a creature still triggers constellation when it enters.
An Aura that fizzles never triggers it. If an Aura spell loses its only legal target and is countered on resolution, it never enters the battlefield — so nothing triggers.
You order simultaneous triggers, exactly as with landfall.

Prowess — The Only Real Keyword Here

Prowess (CR 702.108) is a genuine keyword ability: whenever you cast a noncreature spell, the creature with prowess gets +1/+1 until end of turn.

Any noncreature spell. Instants, sorceries, artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers, battles — all of them, as long as the spell is not also a creature.
Artifact creatures do not trigger it. If a spell has the creature type at all, even alongside another type, prowess stays quiet.
Lands never trigger it. Lands are played, not cast.
Once per spell. A spell with several types still gives exactly one prowess trigger.
The trigger goes above the spell. Prowess goes on the stack on top of the spell that caused it, so the pump resolves before the spell does.
Countering the spell is too late. Prowess triggered when you cast it. If an opponent counters that spell, your creature still got its +1/+1.
The zone does not matter. Casting from your graveyard, from exile, or from anywhere else all trigger prowess — casting is casting.
Multiple instances trigger separately. A creature with prowess twice gets +2/+2 per noncreature spell.

Magecraft

Magecraft looks like prowess with a different name, and it is not. It marks an ability that triggers whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell.

Compare the two carefully, because they overlap without matching:

Magecraft is narrower on type. Only instants and sorceries. Casting an artifact or enchantment triggers prowess but not magecraft.
Magecraft is broader on event. It also fires when you copy an instant or sorcery. Copies of spells are usually put onto the stack rather than cast, which means prowess never sees them — magecraft does.
Copying a card is not copying a spell. If an effect copies a card that is not on the stack, no spell was copied and magecraft does not trigger. If you then cast that copy, that triggers it.

Part Two: Mechanics That Check a Condition

The next four do not trigger on anything. They are conditions attached to an ability — the card does something extra, or something different, when the condition is met.

Revolt

Revolt checks whether a permanent you controlled left the battlefield this turn.

It is a yes-or-no check. One permanent leaving satisfies it; ten permanents leaving satisfies it exactly as much. Revolt never scales.
It does not care how or why. Sacrificed to pay a cost, destroyed by removal, bounced to your hand, exiled — all equally valid.
Tokens count. A token you controlled that left the battlefield satisfies revolt, even though it stops existing afterwards.
Where it went does not matter, and neither does whether it is still there.

Raid

Raid checks whether you attacked with a creature this turn. The attack is what matters — not whether the creature survived, whether it was blocked, or whether any damage was dealt. Declaring an attacker is enough, which is why raid decks often attack with something expendable purely to switch the condition on.

Delirium

Delirium checks whether there are four or more card types among the cards in your graveyard.

This is where people miscount, so be precise: it counts types, not cards. The types that can appear are artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, sorcery, battle, and kindred.

One card can contribute several types. An artifact creature in your graveyard counts as two types at once. A single well-chosen card can jump you from two types to four.
Supertypes and subtypes do not count. Basic and legendary are supertypes; Vampire, Equipment, Aura and the like are subtypes. None of them are card types, so none of them help.
Twenty creatures is still one type. A full graveyard means nothing if it is all the same kind of card.

In practice most decks naturally get creature, instant and land into the graveyard. The fourth type is the one you have to build for.

Threshold

Threshold checks whether there are seven or more cards in your graveyard. Cards, this time — not types.

Threshold used to be a keyword ability and was later reclassified as an ability word with no rules meaning; older printings have been updated in Oracle text accordingly.

The Timing Detail That Catches People

Because threshold is now an ability word rather than a single rules engine, the timing depends on the exact wording of the card. That is why reading the full sentence matters.

On an instant or sorcery: the graveyard is usually counted when the spell resolves. If you cast it with seven cards in the graveyard and an opponent removes some in response, the spell may resolve without its threshold bonus.
On an activated ability: if the ability says you can activate it only with seven or more cards in your graveyard, that condition is checked when you activate it. Later changes usually do not undo the activation unless the ability's own text checks again.
On a triggered ability with an "if" condition: the condition may need to be true when the ability would trigger and again when it resolves. If your graveyard drops below seven before resolution, the bonus can disappear.
On a static ability: it is simply on or off, checked continuously. Seven cards means on; six means off, the moment it changes.

Prowess vs Magecraft at a Glance

Situation	Prowess	Magecraft
You cast an instant or sorcery	Triggers	Triggers
You cast an artifact, enchantment or planeswalker	Triggers	Does not trigger
You cast a creature (or artifact creature)	Does not trigger	Does not trigger
An effect copies your instant or sorcery	Does not trigger	Triggers
You play a land	Does not trigger	Does not trigger
Your spell gets countered	Already triggered on cast	Already triggered on cast

Why These Matter in Commander

Landfall scales with the format. Commander games run long, mana bases are large, and ramp is everywhere — so a landfall payoff that would be modest in a shorter format accumulates enormous value. Fetchlands, ramp spells and effects that let you play extra lands all multiply the triggers, and a single doubler turns a good engine into a game-ending one.

Prowess and magecraft reward spellslinger decks. Both turn a deck full of cheap interaction into a genuine clock. The choice between them is a deckbuilding one: if your deck leans on artifacts and enchantments, prowess sees more of your spells; if it copies instants and sorceries, magecraft sees things prowess never will.

Delirium and threshold are self-fuelling in long games. By the mid-game a Commander graveyard is usually deep enough for threshold without any effort. Delirium takes real deckbuilding — you need type diversity, not volume — but rewards you with effects priced well above their cost.

Revolt and raid are cheap to switch on. Both are satisfied by things you were doing anyway: sacrificing a Treasure, attacking with one creature, a token dying in combat. In a format with as many sacrifice outlets and token generators as Commander, these conditions are close to free.

You can find the pieces for these strategies in our full catalogue, or import your decklist directly with our decklist search tool.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does landfall trigger when a ramp spell puts a land onto the battlefield?

Yes. Landfall cares only about a land entering the battlefield under your control, for any reason at all. Playing a land, fetching one, ramping one in, or even an opponent's effect putting a land under your control will all trigger it. The only case that does not count is a permanent already on the battlefield becoming a land — that is not entering.

Do fetchlands give me two landfall triggers?

Yes. The fetchland itself entering is one trigger, and the land it searches up entering is a second. That is a large part of why fetchlands are so valuable in landfall decks even beyond their fixing.

Does prowess trigger when I cast an artifact creature?

No. Prowess only triggers on noncreature spells, and a spell that has creature among its types is a creature spell regardless of what else it is. Artifact creatures and enchantment creatures both fail to trigger it.

Does prowess still trigger if my spell is countered?

Yes. Prowess triggers when you cast the spell, and the trigger is independent of what happens to the spell afterwards. Your creature keeps the bonus for the turn even if the spell never resolves.

What's the difference between prowess and magecraft?

Prowess triggers on any noncreature spell you cast. Magecraft triggers only on instants and sorceries, but also triggers when you copy one. Copies of spells are usually put onto the stack rather than cast, so prowess misses them entirely while magecraft catches them. Neither triggers on creature spells or on playing a land.

How do I count delirium?

Count distinct card types among the cards in your graveyard — not the number of cards. Artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, sorcery, battle and kindred are the types that count. A single card with two types contributes both. Supertypes like legendary and subtypes like Equipment are irrelevant.

When is threshold checked?

It depends on the ability. Instants and sorceries check the graveyard when they resolve, so an opponent can remove cards in response and turn the bonus off. Activated and triggered abilities check when they are activated or triggered, so later changes do not matter. Static abilities are simply on whenever you have seven or more cards there.

Does revolt get better if several permanents left the battlefield?

No. Revolt is a simple yes-or-no condition: either a permanent you controlled left the battlefield this turn or it did not. Losing five permanents gives you nothing more than losing one, and it does not matter how, why, or where they went. Tokens count too.

More guides in our advanced mechanics series:

The keyword abilities series:

Related guides:

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