Targeting & Legality

Legal targets, fizzling, and the difference between hexproof, shroud and protection.

The rules are CR 115 ("Targets") and CR 608.2b — the target re-check on resolution, which is where fizzling comes from. Hexproof is 702.11, protection 702.16, shroud 702.18, ward 702.21.

Targets are chosen when a spell is cast or an ability is put on the stack, and checked again when it resolves. Almost everything interesting about targeting lives in the gap between those two moments.

Choosing targets

By default, only permanents are legal targets — unless the spell specifies another zone ("target creature card in a graveyard"), targets a player, or targets something that can't exist on the battlefield at all, like a spell on the stack. "Target creature" therefore never reaches a creature card in a hand or graveyard.

"Any target" is a defined shorthand used by damage effects, and it means exactly four things: creature, player, planeswalker, or battle. It is not a licence to target anything — an artifact isn't a legal choice for "deals 3 damage to any target".

The same object can't be chosen twice for one instance of the word "target". But a spell that says "target" in two places may take the same object once for each instance, provided it legally matches both descriptions.

A spell or ability on the stack is always an illegal target for itself.

Timing differs by ability type: an instant or sorcery's targets are chosen as it's cast; an activated ability's as it's activated; a triggered ability's as it's put on the stack — not when it triggers. That last one matters, because the board can change between triggering and stacking, and you pick with the state as it is at that later point.

Losing targets

When a spell or ability begins to resolve, the game rechecks every target.

• A target no longer in the zone it was in when targeted is illegal, always. That's why bouncing your own creature saves it from a removal spell — the object in the new zone is a genuinely new object.
• Other changes may make a target illegal: its characteristics may no longer match what the spell can target, or an effect may have changed the spell's text.

Then:

• If all targets, for every instance of the word "target", are illegal, the spell doesn't resolve. It's removed from the stack and put into its owner's graveyard. This is "fizzling", and crucially it is not being countered — so "can't be countered" doesn't help, and "whenever a spell is countered" doesn't trigger.
• If at least one target is still legal, it resolves normally. Illegal targets aren't affected by the parts of the effect for which they're illegal; other parts may still affect them. A two-target removal spell still kills the one creature you can still hit.

If the source of an ability has left its zone, the ability's last known information is used during this check.

Changing targets

Two different phrasings, two different rules:

• "Change the target(s)" — each target can only be changed to another legal target. If no legal alternative exists, the original stays unchanged, even if it's now illegal. ("Change a target" does this for one of them; "change any targets" for any number.)
• "Choose new targets" — you may leave any number unchanged, even illegal ones. Only the targets you actually change need to be legal.

Either way, only the final set is evaluated for legality, and a divided effect's original division can never be redistributed.

The evasion family, precisely

Hexproof — "can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control." You can still target your own hexproof creature with a pump spell.

Shroud — "can't be the target of spells or abilities" full stop, you included. A real drawback.

Protection from [quality] — can't be targeted by spells with that quality or abilities from sources with it; can't be enchanted/equipped by objects with it (existing ones fall off as a state-based action); and damage from sources with it is prevented. Nothing about blocking, sacrifice, or -X/-X.

Ward — a triggered ability: the spell legally targets, and then ward counters it unless a cost is paid. It does not prevent targeting at all.

Two corners worth knowing

An Aura on the battlefield doesn't target. Only the Aura spell targeted, when it was cast. So giving a creature hexproof does not remove Auras already attached to it, though it stops new Aura spells from targeting it. Protection is different — it specifically prohibits being enchanted, so the Aura falls off.

Zero targets means not targeted. A spell saying "up to one target creature" for which you choose zero targets still requires targets, but is only targeted if one or more were actually chosen. With zero chosen it slides past hexproof, shroud and ward, past "whenever a spell targets…" triggers, and can't fizzle — there are no targets to become illegal.

25 questions in this track, checked against the 2026-06-19 Comprehensive Rules.

Rules covered: 115.1, 115.1a, 115.1b, 115.1c, 115.1d, 115.1e, 115.2, 115.3, 115.4, 115.5, 115.6, 115.7a, 115.7d, 115.7e, 115.7f, 400.7, 601.2c, 603.3, 608.2b, 702.5, 702.11, 702.11b, 702.16b, 702.16c, 702.18, 702.18a.