B · Engine & Sequencing · §8

The Beginning Phase, Played Properly

Dusk Rose Lab and Sprite Fountain both trigger while the Sprites are dying, so the deck’s worst phase is also its most profitable.

Every other deck’s Beginning Phase is bookkeeping. Yours is where the board disappears, and it is also where two of the deck’s best cards do their work.

Dusk Rose Lab

At the start of your Beginning Phase you may kill a unit you control at to draw a card. In most decks that cost is real. Here the unit standing there is usually a Sprite that does not survive the phase either way, so the Lab converts a scheduled loss into a card.

Pilot noteThis does not mean walking Sprites to the Lab instead of conquering with them. The Lab pays when a Sprite happened to be there; it does not pay enough to redirect the turn.

Sprite Fountain

The Fountain makes a Sprite when it is played, carries Temporary itself, and has a Deathknell that repeats its play effect. So it dies in the same phase as the Sprite it made, and makes another one on the way out.

Rules noteOne is two Sprites across two turns for two Energy and one card. It is the most efficient card in the deck by a distance, and it is the reason a hand with a Fountain is a keep and a hand with a single often is not.

What this guide does not claim

⚠ WarningWhere several of your own triggers want to resolve in the same phase, this guide does not tell you the order is yours to choose. The rules text available to us covers ordering for replacement effects and does not settle simultaneous triggered abilities from one controller, so the guide states what each card does and leaves the ordering to the judge in front of you.