It seems as though"Can I Stifle such-and-such?" questions keep rolling in, despite my best efforts to clarify the card. There are currently fifty-eight rulings alone under Stifle in our"Ask the Virtual Judge" database. Our beloved editor-in-chief has been on me for some time to write a Stifle article, and now here it is.

Stifle counters an activated or triggered ability that's not a mana ability, so the answer to"What can I Stifle" boils down to what's activated or triggered and what's not. Once you know a few tricks, it's generally easy to tell. Apply the rules of identifying which abilities are which, and soon you'll be Stifling like a Pro.

There are three types of abilities in Magic: activated, triggered, and static. Mana abilities can be either of the first two. The reason you can't Stifle mana abilities is because they don't use the stack. You don't get priority until after they've already resolved. (That, and Stifle says you can't.)

(Roughly five percent of the Ask The Judge questions are butt-stupid questions that could be settled by reading the card. And we're not talking vaguely-confusing questions about Phage the Untouchable; we're talking questions like,"Does Wrath of God destroy all creatures? Even mine?" - The Ferrett)

A mana ability is either:

(a) an activated ability that could put mana into a player's mana pool when it resolves, or

(b) a triggered ability that triggers from a mana ability and could produce additional mana.

A mana ability can generate other effects at the same time it produces mana (rule 406.1). Examples include Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Forest, Fertile Ground, Metalworker, and Lion's Eye Diamond. Lion's Eye Diamond is strange in that you can only play it when you can play an Instant (so not during the payment for a spell or ability), but it still doesn't use the stack.

Activated Abilities (Stifle Away)
You can identify activated abilities by this template:"[cost]: [effect]."

Everything to the left of the colon is the cost and must be paid on announcement (rule 403). Everything to the right is the effect and happens on resolution. The following are activated abilities:

Cycling, such as with Decree of Justice:"Cycling 2W" (plus discarding the card). Decree of Justice and particularly its interaction with Stifle has been the subject of much Judge and player debate recently. See the Sidebar below.

Isochron Scepter:
"2,Tap: You may copy the imprinted instant card and play the copy without paying its mana cost.

Prodigal Sorcerer
"Tap: Prodigal Sorcerer deals 1 damage to target creature or player.

Bosh, Iron Golem.
"3R,Sacrifice an artifact: Bosh, Iron Golem deals damage equal to the sacrificed artifact's converted mana cost to target creature or player."

Let's chant the mantra together:"Nothing ever changes a card's converted mana cost."

Planeswalker's Scorn.
"3B: Target opponent reveals a card at random in his or her hand. Target creature gets -X/-X until end of turn, where X is the revealed card's converted mana cost. Play this ability only any time you could play a sorcery.

Eternal Dragon:
"3WW: Return Eternal Dragon from your graveyard to your hand. Play this ability only during your upkeep; Plainscycling 2." Obviously Eternal Dragon has two separate activated abilities.

Triggered Abilities (Stifle Away)
In the long, dark past, when I was just a fledgling writer here at the World's Best Magic Site (August of 2000 to be exact), I wrote an entire article devoted triggered abilities. Take a look when you have the chance.

Here's the condensed version: triggered abilities are identified by the words"when,""whenever," or"at." They look for a condition and when that condition is met, they do (or instruct players to do) something (rule 404). These are triggered abilities:

Decree of Justice
"When you cycle Decree of Justice, you may pay X. If you do, put X 1/1 White Soldier creature tokens into play."

Isochron Scepter
"Imprint - When Isochron Scepter comes into play, you may remove an instant card with converted mana cost 2 or less in your hand from the game."

Loxodon Warhammer
"Whenever this creature deals damage, you gain that much life."

Contamination
"At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice Contamination unless you sacrifice a creature." The choice whether or not to sacrifice is made on resolution.

Astral Slide
"Whenever a player cycles a card, you may remove target creature from the game. If you do, return that creature to play under its owner's control at end of turn." This one triggered ability that sets up another, delayed triggered ability. Remember that once the first one resolves, the second one will happen even if the Astral Slide is no longer in play.

Last Laugh
"Whenever a permanent other than Last Laugh is put into a graveyard from play, Last Laugh deals 1 damage to each creature and each player."

Oath of Druids
"At the beginning of each player's upkeep, if that player controls fewer creatures than any of his or her opponents, the player may reveal cards from the top of his or her library until he or she reveals a creature card. The player puts that card into play and all other cards revealed this way into his or her graveyard."

Lingering Death
"The controller of enchanted creature sacrifices it at the end of his or her turn." This one is unusual because the trigger event ("at end of turn") isn't listed first, as you'll already have noticed is most common with triggered abilities.

Static Abilities (Sorry, No Stifling)
A static ability does something all the time rather than being activated or triggered. The ability isn't played, it just is (rule 405). Because they're not played, static abilities don't go on the stack, and therefore can't be countered by Stifle or anything else (rule 408.2b). A static ability may generate a continuous effect or a prevention or replacement effect. These effects last as long as the object with the static ability remains in the appropriate zone (rule 412.1). Other static abilities may apply when a spell is on the stack. Here are examples of static abilities:

Keywords, such as Flying, Double Strike, and Affinity.

Loxodon Warhammer
"Equipped creature gets +3/+0, has trample, and has"Whenever this creature deals damage, you gain that much life." This one's kind of tricky. The static ability granted by the Warhammer grants the triggered ability to the creature. The static ability (the one that says that the creature has Spirit Link, +3/+0, and trample) can't be countered, but the triggered ability (the life gain from the Spirit Link ability) can.

Crusade
"White creatures get +1/+1."

Contamination
"If a land is tapped for mana, it produces B instead of its normal type and amount."

Trash for Treasure
"As an additional cost to play Trash for Treasure, sacrifice an artifact..."

Rushwood Legate
"If an opponent controls an Island and you control a Forest, you may play Rushwood Legate without paying its mana cost."

Clutch of Undeath
"Enchanted creature gets +3/+3 as long as it's a Zombie. Otherwise, it gets -3/-3."

Phyrexian Dreadnought
"If Phyrexian Dreadnought would come into play, sacrifice any number of creatures with total power 12 or greater instead. If you do, put Phyrexian Dreadnought into play. If you don't, put it into its owner's graveyard."

The Dreadnought and Clone are often confused for coming-into-play triggered abilities, but they are not.

Engineered Plague
"As Engineered Plague comes into play, choose a creature type. All creatures of the chosen type get -1/-1." This is another that people confuse for a coming-into-play triggered ability. The choice is made during the resolution of the Engineered Plague spell.

Static Abilities Linked to Triggered Abilities (Um...kinda)
There are a few cards have a static ability that's linked to a triggered ability. They combine both abilities into one paragraph, with the static ability first, followed by the triggered ability (rule 404.5).

Primitive Etchings
"Reveal the first card you draw each turn. Whenever you reveal a creature card this way, draw a card."

You can Stifle the triggered ability, but not the static. You can't Stifle putting the counters on the Chalice or the revealing of the card, but you can certainly Stifle a Chalice of the Void's 'counterspell that card' effect and Primitive Etching's card draw.

Sidebar: Decree of Justice, Cycle Triggers, and Stifle

How many times have you heard"okay, at your end of turn, I'll cycle Decree of Justice for X?" Is than an acceptable shortcut or incorrect play? For the time being, that's still up in the air while the minds at the DCI work on it.

Cycling Decree of Justice and the cycle-trigger are two separate abilities. The trigger goes on the stack on top of the card draw. Many players tap all the necessary mana at once. If their opponent then Stifles the cycle-triggered ability, the original player suddenly has a bunch of mana and nothing to do with it, because the payment of X doesn't happen until the triggered ability resolves. The correct way to play it is to announce cycling, pay 2W, put the triggered ability on the stack, wait for it to resolve and then pay X. That way you won't have the insult of mana burn to go with your lack of Soldier tokens.

The debate amongst Judges centers around the issue of the illegal payment. Some believe that the player paying X is taking an illegal action in trying to pay X too early. The appropriate action is backing up to the last legal action, namely putting the trigger on the stack, then untapping the land. Others believe the stricter view that tapping the mana is perfectly legal, but the attempted payment is not, so the land stays tapped and the player has X mana in his pool, which must be spent if he wants to avoid mana burn.

I'm going to give you my opinion, but I'm going to caveat that it's my opinion only, because I'm not a DCI policy-maker. It is how I'm going to run it at events I judge until something more comes down.

I like the latter ruling. Players are responsible for knowing how their cards work. The payment is made on resolution. You can't pay for Cycling Decree of Justice and pay for its trigger at the same time any more than you can pay the mana cost of two creatures at the same time. Each happens at a different time. I'm all for enforcing technically correct play if it doesn't dramatically slow down the game. The extra second it takes to say"Cycle Decree of Justice, put the trigger on the stack, I pass priority," instead of"Cycle Decree for seven" doesn't negatively impact the pace of play.

Spells Without Abilities (No Stifling)
There are some spells that have no abilities at all, and therefore they can't be Stifled. They just do things once when they resolve; they have no additional costs aside from the mana, and they don't have a trigger like"at" or"when."

Wrath of God
"Destroy all creatures. They can't be regenerated."

Shock
"Shock deals 2 damage to target creature or player."

Plow Under
"Put two target lands on top of their owner's library."