Magic the gathering, am I using protection right?

Question

I've been playing magic for a few weeks and I've recently assembled a sliver deck. One of the slivers is Ward Sliver, which gives all slivers protection from a chosen color. Lets say that I chose protection from white, so all my slivers have protection from white. My friends play a spell like Wrath of God, a white spell that destroys all creatures. I say that my creatures should not be affected by the spell, but they insist that because the spell does not specifically target any creature the ability goes through. Whats right?

Cynthia · Accepted Answer

Protection only protects your creatures from spells and abilities that specifically target it and damage effects from the chosen color. Wrath of God isn't specifically targeting and because its not a damage effect all creature, except indestructible creature, will be destroyed by Wrath of God.

Protection is somewhat misleading at times. Having protection doesn't mean a creature is untouchable. Cards with mass effects like Evacuation and Wrath of God and cards that target you like Evangelize and Cruel Edict are ways of getting rid of them.

? · Answer

1

Makotto · Answer

Your friends are right.

Protection from X is defined as: Can not be the target of spells or abilities that come from X, and can not be blocked for creatures that are X. If the creature with protection from X receives damage from X, that damge is prevented.

Ward slivers will give all your slivers pro-white. However wrath of god does not target, nor deals damage. Therefore it kills your slivers.
Let's say that you give them pro-red and your opponent plays inferno (6 damage to all creatures and players). Since inferno does not target, 6 red damae will be assigned to all your slivers. However since your slivers have pro-red, the damage will be prevented and they will survive without a single point of damage.
Any spell that targets will have the word 'target' (kinda silly, but useful when analyzing situations life this). Usually white removal spells are unavoidable.

Good Luck

Kristian D · Answer

Cynthia is correct about the way protection works.  The one thing I would add is that protection also makes a creature unblockable by creatures of a given color or type.  (a creature with protection from black cannot be blocked by black creatures.  a creature with protection from goblins cannot be blocked by goblins, etc.)

escaped_mental_case · Answer

They are right. "Protection" protects from "debt"

D-Damage
E-Enchantments/Eqiupment
B-Blocking
T-Targeting

Wrath does none of the above. 

A good card to add to the mix might be "Voidmage Apprentice" as he can counter stuff a normal counterspell can't.. but even he has weaknesses.

olleicua · Answer

Escaped has got it.  A good resource is magicthegathering.com.  The forums there are a great way to resolve these things.

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Magic the gathering, am I using protection right?

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