Emblems in Magic: The Gathering often come from planeswalkers that have powerful ultimate abilities. Once an emblem is out, it’s not something you can simply bounce, exile, or destroy like you would a creature or enchantment. It exists outside the usual zones, so standard removal spells won’t touch it. Players who face an emblem for the first time are sometimes caught off guard, wondering why they can’t target it with anything in their mtg deck. If you’ve ever been in that situation, you’re not alone. Emblems feel almost intangible, which leads many players to ask: do they stack?

What Are Emblems?

Emblems are special effects that aren’t permanents, tokens, or cards in any traditional sense. If a planeswalker says “You get an emblem with…” that means once the ability resolves, you have a continuous effect that can’t be removed by conventional means. You can’t bounce them back to a hand or shuffle them into a library. They aren’t creatures or enchantments, so you can’t cast a spell like “Destroy target permanent” to get rid of them. Emblems hover around for the rest of the game, applying their effect in a way that’s often strong enough to tilt the match in your favor or doom you if the opponent controls them.

In some ways, it helps to think of emblems as a persistent reminder of a planeswalker’s influence. They’re the lingering legacy of a powerful ability, and the only real trick to preventing them is to stop that planeswalker from reaching its ultimate in the first place. Once the emblem is made, you can’t do much about it except try to overpower or outmaneuver the effect.

How Emblems Are Created

Most emblems come directly from planeswalkers. Cards like Elspeth, Sun’s Champion can create an emblem that buffs your creatures significantly. Others, like Liliana, the Last Hope, might produce an emblem that reanimates a creature every turn. Typically, these are ultimate abilities, meaning you need to add loyalty counters to the planeswalker over several turns, or use trickier methods like proliferate to get there faster. When you finally reach the required loyalty and activate the ability, you get the emblem as a reward.

Some players build entire decks around producing and abusing these effects. They might protect a planeswalker with defensive spells, or load up on ways to increase loyalty quickly. If you face a deck like that, your best bet is to focus your attacks on the planeswalker itself. Don’t give it the chance to generate an emblem that could change the game’s dynamics permanently.

Do Emblems Stack?

Yes, emblems do stack. If you somehow acquire more than one copy of the same emblem, each one applies independently. For example, if you have an emblem that says “Whenever you cast a spell, create a 1/1 white Soldier token,” and you get a second copy of that same emblem, you’ll create two Soldiers each time you cast a spell. Each instance of that effect triggers on its own, so you gain double the benefit.

If an emblem provides a static buff, such as “Creatures you control get +1/+1,” having two of them provides +2/+2. The same logic applies to any triggered or static abilities tied to those emblems. They’re treated like two separate sources that just happen to produce the same effect, which is often enough to overwhelm an opponent in a long game.

Why Stacking Emblems Matters

Stacking emblems can make a deck explode in terms of value or damage output. If you’re able to activate a planeswalker’s ultimate ability more than once, you might end up creating multiple copies of a single emblem. Most people assume that once you’ve used a planeswalker’s ultimate, you’ve done the big thing and it’s game over. But some decks try to re-trigger that ultimate repeatedly.

When those extra triggers accumulate, you can end up with massive benefits that no opponent can easily undo. A small effect that used to chip away at an opponent’s life total might become a massive drain when stacked. A token-generating emblem can swarm the board in record time if you create a second or third emblem of the same kind.

Can You Remove Emblems?

In general, you can’t remove them with standard spells or abilities. They don’t live on the battlefield, so you can’t target them. If a card states “Exile all permanents,” it won’t affect an emblem. They’re not in the graveyard, so reanimation or graveyard hate won’t help. They’re not in any zone that typical removal can handle. About the only known loophole is restarting the game with something like Karn Liberated’s ultimate. When the game restarts, everything resets, and that includes emblems. But that’s a rare scenario, and most games won’t see that happen.

If you want to avoid dealing with powerful emblems, your best strategy is to focus on stopping the planeswalker before it can activate that final loyalty ability. Getting rid of the planeswalker early is usually the simplest way to ensure you don’t end up staring down an emblem you can’t interact with.

Strategies and Closing Thoughts

If your goal is to generate multiple emblems, plan to protect your planeswalker with creatures or counterspells. Cards that add loyalty counters or give you extra activations each turn will speed up the process. If you succeed, each new emblem adds another layer of power or synergy to your board state. Keep in mind that many opponents will do whatever it takes to prevent you from stacking emblems, so it may become a race to either remove your planeswalker or kill you before your strategy fully materializes.

From the other side, if you see someone close to their ultimate, focus your efforts on attacking that planeswalker. Don’t underestimate how quickly multiple emblems can spiral out of control. And remember: once an emblem is out, there isn’t much you can do to get rid of it. You just have to play around it.

So yes, emblems do stack in MTG, and they can create strong, game-altering effects that are nearly impossible to undo. Whether you’re the one stacking them or trying to fend them off, understanding how they work can be the difference between winning and losing. If you’re not prepared, an emblem can sneak up and lock in a decisive advantage. If you plan for it, you might just harness that power for yourself.