Can you target planeswalkers

Would my opponent, the planeswalker, neither, or both amass poison counters from an unblocked Nafs Asp? Can Lightning Bolt target a planeswalker? Does Syphon Soul affect planeswalkers? Can Oasis prevent damage to a Planeswalker? Would Veteran Bodyguard be obligated to take damage being dealt to a planeswalker? Can a planeswalker gain loyalty from Healing Salve? Can Healing Salve prevent damage to a planeswalker? Planeswalkers are not players or opponents , and they're never treated as players or opponents.

Don't think of them as players, and you'll be a lot less likely to get confused. Along with that, many cards will let you target a player or a planeswalker, e.

Lava Axe says "target player or planeswalker", and Lightning Strike says "any target", which includes planeswalkers. Note that thanks to some updates to the game, some older printings of cards may not make this clear, e. Lava Axe used to just say "target player", and Lightning Strike used to just say "target creature or player"; always check Gatherer for the current oracle text of a card if you need to be sure.

But that's it. None of that actually treats planeswalkers as players; it just lets something happen to them that's similar to what can happen to your opponents. There are no similar rules for any of the things you mentioned, so the direct answer to every one of your questions is no. There is definitely not a blanket revision from "target player" to "target player or planeswalker".

A ton of things that say "player" wouldn't even make sense for planeswalkers - sure, they can take damage, but they don't have hands, libraries, graveyards, or even life! To address your questions in a little more detail some things do still work, just not directly :. Hypnotic Specter - no, attacking the planeswalker won't make your opponent discard. If you want your opponent to discard, attack them, not the planeswalker. Nafs Asp poison counters - no, planeswalkers can't have poison counters; if it deals damage to one it'll remove loyalty as usual.

If you want to give poison counters to your opponent, attack them, not the planeswalker. Further non-canon planeswalkers will be found in sets belonging to the Universes Beyond -series.

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List of planeswalkers. By format. See also Planeswalker novel. A planeswalker is a permanent. Planeswalkers A player who has priority may cast a planeswalker card from their hand during a main phase of their turn when the stack is empty. Casting a planeswalker as a spell uses the stack. When a planeswalker spell resolves, its controller puts it onto the battlefield under their control.

Planeswalker subtypes are also called planeswalker types. Planeswalkers may have multiple subtypes. See rule This rule has been removed and planeswalker cards printed before this change have received errata in the Oracle card reference to have the legendary supertype.

Loyalty is a characteristic only planeswalkers have. Planeswalkers can be attacked. This rule has been removed and certain cards have received errata in the Oracle card reference to deal damage directly to planeswalkers.

Damage dealt to a planeswalker results in that many loyalty counters being removed from it. This is a state-based action. Main article: Planeswalker lore. The Planeswalker redirection rule was implemented in Lorwyn with the introduction of the first Planeswalker cards.

The rule states that you cannot directly target a Planeswalker with damage dealing spells—instead, you must target a player and then redirect the damage from that player to a Planeswalker they control. This change first came to light when viewers noticed Ixalan cards with slightly different wording during the MTG Arena reveal stream last September.

Removing the Planeswalker redirection rule will have a dramatic impact on many existing cards. These spells and abilities can target a planeswalker you control. This seems innocuous, but actually changes the game play on certain cards by quite a bit. Here are the most important changes:. Your opponent had no window to respond to the spell after it resolved, so they had to make their choices without the information of what you were going to target. Now, you have to announce the target as you cast the spell, just like any other target, so they know what is going to be hit before they decide to counter the spell or not.

In this regard, this is a good change for beginners. Imagine going to FNM and having the following interaction:. It was pretty unintuitive how that worked. Since you redirected damage from a player to a planeswalker, your choices were always to redirect all the damage or none of it.

Under the old rule, you could play a Leyline of Sanctity and that would stop your Jace, the Mind Sculptor from getting hit by a Lightning Bolt. This is probably the biggest impact from the new change, since there are decks in Modern that play both Leyline of Sanctity and planeswalkers e. This is also a small nerf to the card Outwit , which can no longer save planeswalkers from burn spells.