What is Convoke in Magic: The Gathering?

What is convoke in MTG?

Convoke allows you to tap creatures to pay for casting costs. Convoke allows you tap creatures you already have in play to help pay the casting cost of a card. So, if a card with convoke costs 5 colorless mana, you can tap 5 mana to cast the card like normal or tap 5 creatures you control instead. Alternatively, you could pay 2 mana and tap 3 creatures to reach 5 mana. Basically, convoke makes it easier to cast a card. The color of the card determines the color of the mana generated. For example, if you own two copies of Stoneforge Mystic, you can tap them to generate the two white mana you need to pay for Devouring Light. Creatures of any color can make colorless mana if you prefer. Alongside token generation and +1/+1 counters, convoke is considered to be a core mechanic of the Selesnya Guild from Ravnica—the representatives for the Green-White (GW) color pair. There are a few black and red cards with convoke, but they’re generally not very good. Convoke is a static ability that is only relevant when a card is being cast. It has no impact on the card outside of the time it is being put into play.

Rules for Using Convoke

You can only generate mana to cast cards with convoke. You cannot use convoke to pay for activated abilities, triggered abilities, or any other purpose beyond actually casting a card. Cards with convoke aren’t like Elvish Mystic where you can tap them to generate mana for whatever you want—convoke only pertains to casting. This is why convoke isn’t a big buildaround or combo mechanic. Once a card with convoke is on the battlefield, the convoke ability is no longer relevant.

You cannot use tap abilities or attack and use convoke. Even if the convoke card is an instant, you cannot tap a creature to pay for the card’s casting cost and use any other ability that requires tapping. Any creature you use to pay for a convoke cost cannot attack or be tapped—even in response to the convoke card being cast. Convoke uses the stack all at once. In other words, either the creature remains untapped when the convoke card goes on the stack, or the creature is tapped to pay for the card as it goes on the stack.

You must pay convoke costs all once. You must announce what you’re tapping to pay for a card all at once. This is especially important when playing with X cards like Chord of Calling. You cannot decide to change how many creatures you’re tapping to pay the convoke cost while you’re casting the card.

You can use creatures with summoning sickness to tap for convoke. This is a key thing to remember if you’re using any convoke cards—summoning sickness is irrelevant. This is part of what makes convoke an occasionally explosive mechanic—you can dump your hand quickly if your deck is built appropriately. For example, if you want to cast Fallaji Wayfarer but you only have 3 mana available, you can use one mana to cast a Birds of Paradise and then immediately tap the Bird to help cast the Wayfarer!

You don’t have to use convoke. If you want to cast a card with convoke by simply tapping your lands, go for it. This might seem obvious, but convoke is entirely optional—you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to tap your creatures or you have no creatures to tap. Whether you use your lands, creatures, or some combination of the two is often a question of how many defenders you need or how much mana need to keep open.

MTG’s Best Convoke Cards

Chord of Calling Chord of Calling is probably the most popular and powerful convoke card in the game. It allows you to tutor out any creature in your deck, all at instant speed. This makes it a great “toolbox” card for fetching unique one-ofs in your deck, and it’s a great way to find combo pieces in decks like Kiki-Chord or Eldritch Evolution shells. This is a card where convoke actually matters a lot. You probably want to play a lot of small mana-generating creatures to enable a card with an X in the casting cost that fetches creatures, so it’s usually pretty easy to cast a fast Chord of Calling if you build your deck right.

Chief Engineer Chief Engineer is a core combo piece in Blue Steel decks. Often paired with Etherium Sculptor, the Chief Engineer allows you to cast powerful artifacts way ahead of curve. Wurmcoil Engine and Walking Ballista are often the big payoffs in Blue Steel decks.

Venerated Loxodon Venerated Loxodon is a popular high-end curve topper in white aggro decks (usually called White Weenie). Weenie decks don’t normally want a 5-mana 4/4, but the Loxodon buffs any creature that helps cast it so it’s bring up to 5 additional power to your board.

Devouring Light Devouring Light is probably the best removal spell with convoke (with Conclave Tribunal following closely behind). It’s not a great removal spell in eternal formats because it only targets attacking or blocking creatures, but if you need a cheap removal spell in your EDH deck you could do a lot worse than Devouring Light. Chord of Calling, Chief Engineer, and Venerated Loxodon are the only convoke cards that see play in eternal formats like Modern, Pioneer, and Legacy. The remaining convoke cards tend to slot into casual EDH or pet decks.

Impervious Greatwurm Look, is Impervious Greatwurm good in competitive play? Not really. Is it a powerful card, though? Also, no. But it is a lot of fun to cheat out a giant 16/16 if you can pull it off!