Watchful Radstag

Card text

Evolve (Whenever a creature you control enters, if that creature has greater power or toughness than this creature, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.)

Whenever this creature evolves, create a token that's a copy of it.

Don't mistake timidness for defenselessness.

Market price

Latest aggregated market price for the normal finish of this printing: $1.01 (as of 2026-11-12).

The figure covers this printing only; other printings carry their own price on their own page.

Format legality

Legality of Watchful Radstag by format. Formats in which it is not legal are not listed.

Other printings of Watchful Radstag

The other printings are listed newest first, with the rarity and release year of each.

Official rulings

The 8 most recent official rulings for Watchful Radstag, newest first.

• 2024-03-08 Rad counters don’t go away as steps, phases, or turns end. They only go away when an effect instructs a player to remove rad counters from themselves.
• 2024-03-08 Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, check its power and toughness against the power and toughness of the creature with evolve. If neither stat of the new creature is greater, evolve won’t trigger at all.
• 2024-03-08 There is an inherent triggered ability associated with having rad counters. This triggered ability has no source and is controlled by the active player. The full text of this ability is “At the beginning of the precombat main phase of a player with rad counters, that player mills cards equal to the number of rad counters they have. For each nonland card milled this way, that player loses 1 life and removes one rad counter from themselves.”
• 2024-03-08 If multiple creatures enter the battlefield at the same time, evolve may trigger multiple times, although the stat comparison will take place each time one of those abilities tries to resolve. For example, if you control a 2/2 creature with evolve and two 3/3 creatures enter the battlefield, evolve will trigger twice. The first ability will resolve and put a +1/+1 counter on the creature with evolve. When the second ability tries to resolve, neither the power nor the toughness of the new creature is greater than that of the creature with evolve, so that ability does nothing.
• 2024-03-08 Watchful Radstag “evolves” when its evolve ability resolves and a +1/+1 counter is put on it. If a replacement effect causes the evolve ability to put more than one +1/+1 counter on Watchful Radstag, its last ability triggers only once. If no +1/+1 counter is put on it (perhaps because it left the battlefield while its evolve ability was still on the stack), then its last ability doesn’t trigger.
• 2024-03-08 If evolve triggers, the stat comparison will happen again when the ability tries to resolve. If neither stat of the new creature is greater, the ability will do nothing. If the creature that entered the battlefield leaves the battlefield before evolve tries to resolve, use its last known power and toughness to compare the stats.
• 2024-03-08 Keep track of how many rad counters each player has. Potential ways to track this include writing them down on paper or using dice, but any method that is clear and mutually agreeable is fine.
• 2024-03-08 When comparing the stats of the two creatures for evolve, you always compare power to power and toughness to toughness.

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