Coven in MTG: Rules, History, and Best Cards

Dawnhart Wardens | Illustration by Joshua Raphael

Three's the charm, they say. And it's also a crowd, or so the saying goes. But in Magic, three's a coven, although with a caveat: The coven's three members must have different power values. Those are the coven's rules.

But don't worry: It's a lot simpler than it sounds. Even if math isn't your strongest suit.

As a matter of fact, Magic's coven mechanic is as easy as counting to one… two… three!

How Does Coven Work?

Candlelit Cavalry | Illustration by Viko Menezes

Coven is an ability word that checks to see if you control creatures with three different powers. In this case, “powers” is not abilities but rather just the number before the slash opposite toughness.

Matt Tabak writes in the official Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Mechanics article: “For example, a 1/1 creature, a 3/1 creature, and a 4/6 creature have three different powers (specifically, 1, 3, and 4).”

By contrast, if you have a 2/2, a 2/3, and a 3/3, you don’t have coven because two of your creatures share power 2.”

If you have more than three creatures and a couple of them have the same power, that's not a problem for coven as long as there's at least three different powers among them. If you have a 2/2, a 2/3, a 3/3, a 3/4, and a 5/5, then abilities with coven will work since you do have three different power values on the board.

Because Coven is an ability word, you have to follow the exact text on the card that mentions it. While all cards with the same ability word share some commonality (all landfall cards care about you dropping lands; all coven cards care that you have at least three creatures with different powers, etc.), the exact effect changes from card to card.

Take for example Candlelit Cavalry, Candletrap, and Might of the Old Ways

Candlelit Cavalry is a triggered ability that only fires off if you have coven on your board at the start of your combat step. Candletrap is an activated ability that you can only activate if you have coven (and can pay , plus sacrificing Candletrap). And Might of the Old Ways has an additional effect if you control three or more creatures with different powers as it resolves.

Might of the Old Ways also has an additional quirk: The +2/+2 happens first; Coven is checked after that, so the +2 power can be used to actually form a coven… or, if timed incorrectly, ruin an existing coven if the +2 means that two of your creatures now have the same power.

The History of Coven in MTG

The first 16 coven cards appeared in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, released in September, 2021. The Midnight Hunt Commander precons introduced three more coven cards.

The mechanic was never revisited in new cards from later MTG sets, aside from a cameo (Redemption Choir) in one of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan precons. And they haven't seen many reprints, with the exception of Augur of Autumn, which was reprinted in Edge of Eternities Commander in 2025, and one of Duskmourn‘s precons in 2024.

In other words, this is a very set-specific mechanic, and definitely not evergreen.

Is Coven a Triggered Ability?

Short answer: Sometimes!

Longer answer: Coven is an ability word, and as such it varies from card to card.

There are indeed triggered abilities with coven, like Redemption Choir and Stalwart Pathlighter, which only trigger if you control three or more creatures with different powers (and meet the other requirements: It's the start of combat on your turn in Stalwart Pathlighter‘s case, or whenever Redemption Choir enters or attacks).

But that's for those specific cards. Other coven cards are activated abilities (as we'll see in a bit), or an additional effect as in the case of Might of the Old Ways.

There's a quirk with some of these abilities: Triggered abilities with an “If…” clause check for this “intervening if” condition twice. First at the time the ability would trigger, and later when it would resolve. If the first check fails (for example, because Redemption Choir is your only creature when it enters, and therefore you don't have coven), then nothing happens – the ability never triggers.

If you do have coven when Redemption Choir enters, then its ability triggers and the trigger goes onto the stack. The game will check again if you have coven when the trigger tries to resolve. If you no longer have coven at that point (because, say, somebody pointed the pointy end of Swords to Plowshares at one of the creatures in your coven), then nothing happens when the trigger resolves.

Note that it doesn't have to be the same coven in both cases, though. As long as you have any three creatures with different powers when Redemption Choir enters, its coven ability triggers. And as long as you have any three creatures with different powers when the trigger tries to resolve (even if it's three other entirely different creatures, or the same creatures but with a different set of powers), then it will resolve.

Is Coven an Activated Ability?

Short answer: Same as above!

Longer answer: Since you have to handle ability words on a card-by-card basis, some coven cards are activated abilities (but others are triggered abilities, and others are additional effects, etc).

For example, look at Candletrap, Sungold Sentinel, and Dawnhart Mentor.

These all have activated abilities that you can activate only if you have a coven on your board (and can pay the other costs, like in Sungold Sentinel‘s case, or in Dawnhart Mentor‘s case).  

You must control a coven when you activate the ability, but that's it. Once activated, the ability goes onto the stack and then, unlike triggered abilities, it doesn't matter what your board looks like as the activated ability tries to resolve.

Can You Counter Coven?

It depends on what you mean by “counter” in this case.

Triggered or activated abilities use the stack and can be countered by effects that counter abilities (like Stifle or Disallow). This is true for any triggered or activated ability, though, not just for coven – in other words, you're countering the ability on the stack here, not countering coven itself.

Something similar happens with a coven spell like Might of the Old Ways: You can use Counterspell against it because it's a spell, not because it has coven.

But you can very much kill one of the three creatures in the coven, or mess with their power so that they aren’t different. In this case, it all depends on the timing:

• If I activate Sungold Sentinel, then the activated abilitty goes onto the stack and there's nothing you can do to my coven to stop that. You can Stifle the ability on the stack, or kill my Sungold Sentinel before the ability resolves (and the Sentinel gains hexproof), but the Sentinel's activated ability doesn’t care about coven after activation, so nothing you do to my coven will matter in this scenario,
• But, on the other hand, if I trigger Redemption Choir, you can stop the trigger from resolving if you mess with my coven while Redemption Choir‘s ability is on the stack.

Can You Have More Than 3 Creatures with Different Powers?

Absolutely!

Coven checks for “three or more” creatures you control with all different power values. Four, five, or more is fine; duplicates are also fine so long as you control at least three with different power numbers.

Does Negative Power Count for Coven?

Yes, it does!

A creature’s power can be negative (due to effects), and negative numbers are valid numbers in Magic rules. So a creature with power –1 helps meet coven's “three different powers” requirement.

Do */* Creatures Count for Coven?

Yes, creatures with variable * power do count for coven.

A star (“*”) power always has a specific numeric value at any given moment; coven cares about the current value. As long as the value at the exact moment when coven checks it meets the coven conditions, then it counts.

Remember that in the case of triggered abilities, it doesn't have to be the same power at resolution. If you have a 2/2, a 3/3, and a */4 which happens to be a 4/4 when triggering, and by resolution you have a 2/2, a 3/3, and the */4 now happens to be a 1/4, the coven ability will resolve. But it will do nothing if the */4 happens to be a 3/4, since then you won't have three creatures with different powers.

What If You No Longer Have 3 Different Powers When a Coven Ability Resolves?

It depends on whether it's an activated ability, or a triggered ability.

Activated coven abilities (like Candletrap, Sungold Sentinel, or Dawnhart Mentor): No problem! The “Activate only if…” condition is checked only on activation. Later changes don’t stop it from resolving.

Triggered coven abilities (like Dawnhart Wardens): Yes problem!

This is true for all triggered abilities: The triggering condition is checked when it would trigger and again on resolution. If you’ve fallen below three different powers at either point and don't have coven, then the ability does nothing.

Is Coven Counters a Good Deck?

It's… okay, as far as Commander precons go.

Coven Counters is one of the two Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Commander precons, led by Leinore, Autumn Sovereign. It’s a Selesnya precon () whose payoffs improve with coven online, and (in typical Selesnya fashion) it just loooves +1/+1 counters. It's not the worst precon to get started with, although counters may be a bit of a pain to handle for new players.

Then again, it's not really “good” in the sense of “can win”, even when facing other, more recent, out-of-the-box precons (let alone an upgraded precon).

Gallery and List of Coven Cards

• Ambitious Farmhand / Seasoned Cathar
• Augur of Autumn
• Candlegrove Witch
• Candlelit Cavalry
• Candletrap
• Contortionist Troupe
• Dawnhart Mentor
• Dawnhart Wardens
• Duelcraft Trainer
• Duel for Dominance
• Harvesttide Sentry
• Leinore, Autumn Sovereign
• Might of the Old Ways
• Redemption Choir
• Ritual Guardian
• Ritual of Hope
• Sigarda, Champion of Light
• Stalwart Pathlighter
• Sungold Sentinel
• Wall of Mourning

Best Coven Cards

Augur of Autumn

One of Magic's best humans, Augur of Autumn is the most popular coven card in Commander, usually with Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Zimone, Mystery Unraveler or Edge of Eternities‘ Hearthhull, the Worldseed in the command zone. Augur of Autumn‘s non-coven skills are pretty good already, and the coven upgrade is just gravy.

Leinore, Autumn Sovereign

Leinore, Autumn Sovereign isn’t really a strong Selesnya commander, but it's a good roleplayer in your 99. And it does what Selesnya does: Toss +1/+1 counters around, which in turn makes coven fairly easy to achieve.

Ambitious Farmhand

Ambitious Farmhand saw lots of play during its Standard tenure, usually in mono-white control decks. And it sees competitive play in Duel Commander, usually with Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd as the commander.

Redemption Choir

Redemption Choir showcases why coven is a nice, but definitely not great mechanic: Coven cards need to be costed according to their ceiling, meaning that they tend to have a very low floor. A 3/3 for is simply unplayable even in low-power formats, even though it's really nice when it does work.

Wrap Up

Dawnhart Mentor | Illustration by Fariba Khamseh

Most of coven's complications arise from it being an ability word, meaning the specifics change from card to card (sometimes triggered ability, sometimes activated ability, sometimes something else). But, in a nutshell, it's really as simple as 1-2-3: As long as you have three creatures with different powers, you've got a coven. Easy as that!

I hope you've enjoyed this mechanical deep dive about Magic's coven mechanic, and if you have comments or questions please drop a comment below, or stop by the Draftsim Discord for a chat.

And good luck out there!