You can also give an indestructible creature -X/-X with an effect like Toxic Deluge or Tragic Slip. The same goes with sending permanents back to their owner’s hands or into their library. Any effect that specifically says “send to graveyard” also gets around indestructible, since you’re not dealing lethal damage but simply moving the permanent from one zone to another. The most obvious way would be to exile the indestructible thing, be it a creature, artifact, enchantment, or land. If we’re talking just getting them off the board, then you’re not completely out of luck. Technically you can’t kill indestructible things. How Can You Actually Kill Things with Indestructible? They wouldn’t be very indestructible if they were susceptible to something so simple as damage, now, would they? This of course includes both combat and any other types of damage like that from spells, abilities, etc. No, damage will not kill an indestructible creature. Does Damage Kill Creatures with Indestructible? Deathtouch, combat damage, spell and ability damage, and “destroy” effects are all covered in indestructible’s wheelhouse. The fun thing is that there are a few different ways to deal lethal damage. The most concise way to explain it is to say that indestructible permanents can’t be destroyed by lethal damage. Indestructible doesn’t protect against everything, but it does protect against some things. What Things Does Indestructible Protect Against? Basically, this means the keyword can be used in every set. In case you’re not familiar, a keyword being evergreen means that it’s one of the core keywords in Magic. Little fun fact: white sometimes uses temporary indestructibility instead of protection. Black and green have their fair chunk of indestructible baddies and, finally, blue and red boast pretty minor features. We’ll get to why that is in just a second, though.įirst let’s talk about colors! Indestructible features on hundreds of cards, white being the main benefactor. The next notable event in indestructible’s history would be with Kaladesh in 2016 when regeneration was replaced with “gain indestructible until end of turn.” I’m not going to go over every set that indestructible has ever featured in since it’s been in quite a few. Plenty of players were confused about it and R&D eventually just made indestructible an official keyword in Magic 2014. If this sounds kind of confusing to you, then you’d be right. It’s also important to note that it wasn’t considered a keyword back then, just a normal descriptor of an attribute that some permanents had, starting with Darksteel. Guardian Beast was the next time this destruction-proof keyword was seen in Arabian Nights later that same year. Not a bad first use of indestructible, but we’ve seen better for sure.

Our first introduction to this keyword was all the way back in 1993’s Alpha with Consecrate Land. I mean, you can if you want, but you’re just wasting your resources.

Oh, and side note: don’t bother trying to stack indestructible on top of itself. It’s a static ability that prevents a permanent from being destroyed from damage or anything that says “destroy.” That’s… pretty much it. Indestructible is pretty simple, and it’s about what you’d expect from the name.

Athreos, Shroud-Veiled | Illustration by Igor Kieryluk

Shroud in mtg