Summary
Tapping is a core mechanic ofMagic: The Gathering, and being able to tap your own creatures can be used as a resource, much like mana or your own life total. Besides just during the attack phase, there are many different ways to forcibly tap your own creatures that are used to trigger any number of effects.
Whether you are building an entire deck around tapping your own creatures or just want to rely on a previously unused resource, you’re able to combine card types, keywords, and multiple combat phases to do so reliably. As long as you don’t mind frequently sliding your cards across the playmat for most of your games.
9Crew
Crew is aused by Vehicle artifactsthat require you to tap creatures equaling a certain power to transform the Vehicle into a creature for the turn. There are over a hundred Vehicle cards. with most being colorless, meaning you can place them in almost any deck that uses creatures.
you may also use Pilot creatures, which have abilities that allow them to crew Vehicles larger than their power or give crewed Vehicles additional abilities. There are also creature cards like Captain Rex Nebula which turn any nonland permanent into a Vehicle, allowing you to reliably tap your creatures every turn without attacking.
8Convoke
Convoke is a keyword that gives spells an alternate cost, allowing you to tap creatures in place of mana. This can potentially allow you to cast powerful spells and massive creatures for no mana, as long as you have the creatures to tap for it.
There are many cards that use convoke, with most being found in green and white, and have very large mana costs that encourage convoking. Convoke creatures like Impervious Greatworm can make use of cards like Contest of Claws to deal 16 damage and cast a 16/16 creature while only spending two mana the whole turn.
7Saddle
Saddle is a keywordfound on Mount creaturesthat acts similarly to Vehicles, and requires you to tap creatures equaling a certain power to activate their unique abilities. For example, Calamity, Galloping Inferno requires you to tap a creature of at least one power so that it can create a token copy of it.
Unlike Vehicles, Mount creatures don’t need to be saddled to attack. You just get extra triggers if you do saddle it first.
You can saddle as a sorcery, but it is only really useful during your first main phase before attacking. Most Mount creatures are found in green, but all colors have at least one mount that can be used. However, many saddle creatures have the potential for powerful synergies, such as Seraphic Steed and Wylie Duke, Atiin Hero.
6Enchantments
Some battlefield enchantments have activated ability costs requiring you to tap your creatures to trigger specific effects. This is mostly used to swap the tapped status of various permanents on the battlefield, including on your opponent’s side of the board.
Cards like Earthcraft can allow you to trade your creatures for untapping your lands, essentially increasing your mana pool by the amount of creatures you control. Glare of Subdual gives you control of your opponent’s creatures and artifacts, allowing you to tap both sides of the board at the same time, preventing them from attacking or gaining mana.
5Creatures
Many creatures have passive and active abilities that allow you to tap other creatures for a variety of effects. This is especially found in Merfolk creature decks using Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca, which has three separate abilities that allow you to tap your other Merfolk creatures for various effects.
Most creatures that allow you to tap your other creatures rely on specific creature types, but can be found in Pirates, Knights, Spirits, Spiders, and Warriors. Other creatures have activated abilities that rely on creatures that are already tapped, such as Anafenza, the Foremost and Alibou, Ancient Witness, buffing them while dealing damage.
4Attacking
The only way to tap a creature without additional cards or abilities, creatures without vigilance always tap when attacking. With cards like Anzrag, the Quake-Mole and Aggravated Assault, you can set up multiple combat phases during your turn and swing to attack multiple times while untapping and tapping again.
The best way to make use of this phase is with activated effects that trigger when creatures are declared as attackers, such as Asari Captain or Isshin, Two Heavens as One. This also gives you an incentive to attack and tap your creatures as often as possible, as long as you don’t have strong blockers to worry about.
3Mana Abilities
One of the most used tap abilities, creatures thattap to add manato your mana pool are very powerful cards that get you ahead of your opponent, allowing you to cast large spells early. Most of these cards are in green, and include Elvish Mystic, Birds of Paradise, and Delighted Halfling.
You can also use equipment artifacts that give any of your creatures this ability, such as Paradise Mantle, which is colorless and taps for any color mana, making it useable in any color deck. You can also turn lands into creatures with cards like Nissa, Who Shakes the World, which can act as creatures while still tapping for mana.
2Conspire
Conspire is a keyword that allows you to tap creatures you control that share a color with the casting card to be able to copy it. This is useful for token decks or decks with many creatures, as you need two untapped creatures to copy the spell.
Since there are only a handful of conspire cards, you can use Rassilon, the War President or Wort, the Raidmother to give conspire to your other cards, which you can use to build a whole deck around. Otherwise, Rally the Galadhrim and Gleeful Sabotage are the stronger conspire cards.
1Untapping
Making use of other abilities and combat phases that force creatures to tap, you can allow them to tap continuously by repeatedly untapping them. This is done with cards like Thornbite Staff or Derevi, Empyrial Tactician which require conditions for untapping your creatures reliably.
There are also instants and sorceries that can quickly untap creatures in one-off effects, like Flying Crane Technique and To Arms!, which untap all of your creatures at once. When combined with mana abilities, you can set up potentially infinite combos with untap effects.
Tidewater Minion equipped with Illusionist’s Bracers can be used to infinitely tap and untap lands and the creature itself.
