Check back here for our "Ask the Pro" feature. This will be your chance to get any questions about games answered by the pros who know them best.

First on tap, we'll have your Magic: The Gathering answered by pro tour qualified professional Magic player, Ryan Spring.

Q: What's the best creature in the Ravnica Block?
How about the best one ever?

A: Any time you get a question about what's the best anything it's obviously a matter of opinion, but I'll attempt to back mine up with some logic. First up is the best creature in the Ravnica block, which currently only has two of three sets out, with Dissension (the third set of the block) having prerelease events on April 22nd and 23rd. Anyway, with several cards jumping to mind, I've made a list of what I think are the five best creatures in the Ravnica block for constructed play.

5. Selesnya Guildmage (Ravnica uncommon) This card is the only uncommon to make the list, and is easily the best guildmage that's going to be printed. There were four copies of the mighty saproling creating mage in the deck that won the 2005 world championship, it is the best possible card you can open in Ravnica limited, and it wins the late game all by itself. Not only does it pump out mass saprolings at instant speed, but it makes each and every one of your creatures bigger as an instant too. Winning in combat is very unlikely when you're against this powerful 2/2.
4. Burning-tree Shaman (Guildpact rare) The best creature in Guildpact is a good one indeed, and is rather large as a 3/4 for only three mana. At the recent pro tour in Hawaii, four copies of Burning-tree Shaman were played in both the winning and the runner-up decks. Not only is it large and under-costed, but it has an extremely relevant triggered ability, which makes a player take a point of damage each time they use an activated ability. That means each time you activate Glare of Subdual, or any time you try to equip some equipment, or each and every time you activate any of the guildmages, you take a point. Combine that with fast, aggressive creatures and a lot of red burn and you'll have a dead opponent before your sixth turn.
3. Loxodon Hierarch (Ravnica rare) That's right, an elephant! This is one of the best creatures that's ever been printed for stopping aggro decks. It's a 4/4 for four mana, which is extremely reasonable, and a real problem for fast decks with swarms of 2/2's and 3/3's to try to get around. It gains a full four life when it comes into play, which makes you that much harder to kill, and it has an ability that should read "Never trade creatures in combat". You see, for just two mana, the Hierarch can sacrifice itself to regenerate every single one of your creatures, so when you go all in, or make a block on every single one of your opponent's attacking creatures, the only thing you're losing is the Hierarch, after you've stacked his damage of course, and already gained your four life. This card was in over 50 decks at the pro tour.
2. Dark Confidant (Ravnica rare) Yes, this creature is just a 2/1 for two mana. Yes, this creature will make you lose life sometimes. Yes, this creature is really, really good. Created by 2004 magic invitational winner Bob Maher Jr., this card allows you to draw an extra card each and every turn at the price of losing life equal to the casting cost of the drawn card. If you flip a land, you take no damage, and if you're playing a deck with Dark Confidant, you're more than likely a really aggressive deck, so flipping over a 2/2 for two mana will hurt your opponent a lot more than it will hurt you. This is the closest thing to Necropotence since, well, Necropotence, and this version even has a 2/1 body to attack with! Best of all, you'll never actually die to his ability, since whenever you're done using him and drawing two hundred fifty nine cards, you can just use him to block, or sacrifice him to an ability. He was in roughly 100 decks at the pro tour, and is the key to every black/white beatdown deck. This would easily be the best card in the block if not for....
1. Birds of Paradise (Ravnica rare) Are you joking??? A 0/1??? Yes folks, a 0/1 is at the top of my list. A 0/1 that fixes mana problems, allows you to play three or four colors in your deck, and speeds your entire deck up by a turn by adding extra mana, that is. This card has been around since Alpha, which was the very first release over ten years ago of Magic: The Gathering, and it's been reprinted over and over in more recent sets ever since. This cards remains popular not just because it's a classic, but just because it really is that good. Speeding your deck up a turn is so valuable. It lets you play your three mana creature before your opponent even plays their two mana creature, and so on throughout the game. I'd be shocked if this card was somehow not one of the best ten creatures of all time.

As for part two of the question, the best creature of all time, there are soooo many monsters that you could make a valid argument for. Exact orders are close to impossible, so with an honorable mention to Morphling, Goblin Welder, Wild Mongrel, and Meloku the Clouded Mirror (they make up five through two of my top five list in some order that I've yet to decide) the winner of the R. Spring award for the best creature of all time goes to the man known (because of his art) as Doctor Teeth. That man is the three mana, 20/21, Psychatog.

Is he literally a 20/21 for three mana? Well, no, but when you have a full grip of seven cards in hand, and when your graveyard has ten cards or so in it, his instant speed, amazingly synergy-based pump abilities make him really big, really fast. More than half the time he really does do twenty damage all in one shot. Because of this threat, you need to block him each and every time he attacks, you can't attack safely into him, and he's the cheapest way to instantly kill an opponent that's ever been printed. This goes without mentioning that's he's a black and blue creature, meaning the deck based around him is loaded with counters and removal, meaning even if you wanted to block Doctor Teeth, you probably couldn't. And by the way, as for accomplishments, he won the world championship back in his hay day, as well as the second most recent pro tour that was held in L.A.

Q: Can creatures use their abilities while tapped?
How about while on their way to the graveyard?
How about when removed from the game?

A: This is a three-part question and will therefore receive a three-part answer. The first part is the most complicated, as to if abilities can be used while tapped. It depends specifically on what the ability is exactly. The general rule is, as long as you can pay the mana and all other costs (like losing life or discarding a card) you can use the ability even when the creature is tapped. The exception is when the ability requires the creature to tap. How do you know this?? There's a box on the cards, with a little arrow pointing to the right. If such a box is there, and then there's a colon, that simply means the creature needs to tap itself in order to use the ability that follows, and once it is tapped for any reason, whether it's previous use of the ability or combat etc, it cannot be tapped again in the same turn, unless you use some special effect to untap it. No matter what, you need to be able to pay all the costs of the ability.

Part two is worded in a tricky way that makes the question hard to answer. It really depends by what you mean by "on their way to the graveyard", but it works like this. If lethal damage (meaning enough damage to kill the creature) is on the stack, whether it's from combat or from a spell or ability, you have a chance to use any abilities, once again as long as you can pay all costs. If the damage has already resolved, you have no chance to use the ability, and the creature is dead and already in the graveyard. This really comes down to part of Magic known as priority. In combat, after damage is assigned, when an opponent plays Shock on your creature, or when an opponent uses a removal spell (pretty much ANY time the opponent does something that will make your creatures die) you have a chance to respond. You have priority. You can now respond to the spell or the damage by using any ability you please. Once you're finished, you pass priority back to your opponent, and the damage or the spell happens. Once your creature is dead, you no longer have a chance to respond and use abilities.

Part three is the easiest to answer and remember. Unless the creature or another card in play specifically says otherwise, which is extremely rare, you can never use the ability of a creature while it is removed from the game.

Please send more questions or any comments you might have, and give me something to do:

Thanks for reading, Ryan Spring