2 INET GATE INR00102 98/10/20 09:00 薼F[O] FOR RELEASE: Urza rulings Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 08:54:49 +0100 From: Paul Barclay Subject: [O] FOR RELEASE: Urza rulings To: Recipients of MTG-L digests Magic Rulings & Errata A Summary of Recent Rulings compiled by Beth Moursund Rules Changes as of Urza's Saga: 1) If an effect doesn't specify its duration, it lasts "permanently." In other words, it lasts until another effect changes the situation. 2) Trample is no longer a damage-redirection ability. Now, when an attacking creature with trample deals combat damage, the player distributing that damage can simply assign some or all of it to the defending player once blockers have been dealt lethal damage. Assigning trample damage is subject to the following rules: * If the attacker is unblocked, it deals all its damage to the defending player. * If the attacker is blocked by one creature, it first deals damage to the blocker. If it deals lethal damage to that creature, any remaining damage may be divided as its controller chooses between the blocker and the defending player. Because this distribution happens before damage prevention, some or all the damage on the blocking creature may later be prevented; this won't change the damage dealt to the defending player. * If the attacker is blocked by more than one creature, it first deals damage to the blocking creatures. If it deals lethal damage to all the blockers, any remaining damage may be divided as its controller chooses between them and the defending player. Again, this distribution happens before damage prevention. Blocking creatures that can't receive combat damage, such as a creature enchanted with Gaseous Form, are completely ignored when assigning trample damage. If such a creature is the only blocker, then all the trample damage is dealt to the defending player. 3) When an effect changes a permanent's type, the new type replaces all previous and current types. Reminder text stating a card still counts as a particular type, such as Stalking Stones's ("This creature still counts as a land."), is now considered rules text. This means that an animated Stalking Stones is both an artifact creature and a land. For example, when a "sleeping" enchantment becomes a creature, it counts as only a creature, not a creature and an enchantment. If Transmogrifying Licid's effect is applied to a creature that also counts as a land, such as an animated forest, the forest counts as an artifact creature, but no longer counts as a land. 4) Any time a spell or ability checks anything about a permanent during resolution, it uses that permanent's current values. If the permanent has left play, the spell or ability uses the last values it had before leaving play. This rule applies both to the source and targets of a spell or ability as well as to any other permanents it may check. 5) The way we refer to damage in the Magic game has changed. Damage is now "dealt" at the beginning of damage resolution and "successfully dealt" at the end of damage prevention. On older cards, "assign," "deal," and "damage" were all used to mean the same thing in different contexts. The simpler language doesn't change the function of any older cards; a future edition of The Duelist magazine will include updated wordings for them. 6) When a card's text starts with, "At the time you play," the text following that phrase is an additional cost of playing the card. The additional cost must be paid when the card's casting cost is first paid. For example, Raze reads, "At the time you play Raze, sacrifice a land." To play Raze, you must pay one red mana and sacrifice a land. General Rulings 1) The rules changes to trample make it stronger in some situations and weaker in others. Here are some examples: * A creature with trample can now deal damage to the defending player even if blocked by a creature with protection from its color. * If an attacker with trample is blocked by multiple creatures whose combined toughness exceeds the attacker's power, the attacking player can no longer deal any damage to the defending player. * If an attacker with trample is blocked by a creature with banding, the defending player decides how to distribute the damage. Also note that "lethal damage" means "damage equal to its toughness"--it has nothing to do with any abilities that may reduce damage or prevent the creature from being destroyed. Finally, remember that attacking players may assign trample damage between blocking creatures however they wish. It's legal to assign all the damage to one blocking creature and none to the defending player or the other blocking creatures, even if this exceeds the first creature's toughness. 2) Effects that modify the amount of damage dealt, such as Urza's Armor and Furnace of Rath, are replacement abilities--they replace the amount of damage that would normally be dealt with some other amount. If two or more such abilities are in effect, apply their modifications in the following order: effects the active player controls, in the order that player chooses, then effects the nonactive player controls, in the order that player chooses (sometimes called "APNAP," which stands for "active player, nonactive player"). If a spell or ability enables you to divide damage among several creatures and/or players, divide the damage first, then apply effects that modify the amount of damage dealt. For example, if Furnace of Rath is in play when a trampling creature deals combat damage, you first divide the damage according to the trample rules, then the Furnace's effect doubles the amount dealt to each creature or player. 3) Echo is an upkeep cost. While Humility is in play, the cost is removed. If you gain and lose control of a creature with echo multiple times in one turn, you still pay its casting cost only once during your next upkeep. If a creature with echo phases out, you must pay the echo cost again during the upkeep after it phases back in (because phased-out creatures aren't controlled by anyone). Errata 1) Curfew should read, "Each player who controls a creature chooses one of them and returns it to owner's hand." 2) Exhume should read, "Each player with a creature card in his or her graveyard chooses one of them and puts that creature into play." 3) Karn, Silver Golem's second ability should read, "[ . . . ] power and toughness each equal to its total casting cost until end of turn." 4) Lifeline should read, "Whenever a creature is put into a graveyard and another creature is in play, put that creature back into play under its owner's control at end of turn." In other words, its effect works for all players. 5) Mishra's Helix should read, "{X}, {T}: Tap X target lands." 6) Remembrance should read, "[ . . . ] you may search your library for a copy of that card." 7) Serra Avatar's second ability should read, "Whenever Serra Avatar is put into a graveyard from anywhere, instead shuffle Serra Avatar into owner's library." The "from anywhere" part means this ability works when the Avatar is put into a graveyard from any zone--someone's hand or library, limbo, and so on. 8) Wall of Junk should include, "Wall of Junk counts as a Wall. (Walls cannot attack.)" Specific Card Rulings 1) While Arcane Laboratory is in play, you can't play a buyback spell twice in one turn. It doesn't matter whether it's the same spell card or not. 2) Exhaustion affects the target opponent's next turn and all permanents he or she controls at that time, regardless of whether they were in play when Exhaustion resolved. 3) Ill-Gotten Gains enables you to choose from all the cards in your graveyard, including those you just discarded. 4) If a card was a creature when it was put into its owner's graveyard, it can be returned by Lifeline's effect, regardless of whether the card is a creature card. For example, if a "sleeping" enchantment has become a creature and is then destroyed while another creature is in play, Lifeline will put the enchantment back into play, but that enchantment will be "asleep" again. 5) If several creatures and Lifeline are all in play, and all the creatures go to their owners' graveyards at the same time (because of Wrath of God, for instance), Lifeline's effect will put all of them back into play at end of turn. 6) Lifeline and Ball Lightning interact in a very messy way. Here's how. (All the situations below assume that Ball Lightning's controller also controls another creature.) First, let's say you control Lifeline and play Ball Lightning, and the Ball Lightning survives to the end of the turn. At the end of the turn, first the Ball Lightning is buried, then Lifeline puts it back into play. Ball Lightning buries itself again, and the process repeats. Under the rules for resolving endless loops, both players pick a number, and the process repeats that many times and then stops (even if this leaves the game in an "impossible" position). In this scenario, therefore, the Ball Lightning ends up in play. Next, let's say you control Lifeline and Ball Lightning, but the Ball Lightning is destroyed during combat. This time, at the end of the turn, Lifeline's effect puts Ball Lightning back into play first (rather than the Lightning burying itself first). Ball Lightning then buries itself. The process begins to repeat when Lifeline's effect puts the Ball Lightning back into play. Again, the loop is repeated some number of times, but because the Ball Lightning burying itself is the last step in this repeating process, it ends up in its owner's graveyard. Finally, let's say one player controls Lifeline and the other controls Ball Lightning. No loop occurs, because once the active player resolves his or her end-of-turn effects, that player can't play more of them after the other player starts resolving theirs. If the active player controls Ball Lightning, it will end up in play. Why? The active player plays and resolves his or her end-of-turn effects first, so Ball Lightning is buried. Then, when the nonactive player resolves his or her end-of-turn effects, Lifeline's effect puts the Ball Lightning back into play. The active player never gets a chance to resolve more end-of-turn effects, so the Ball Lightning doesn't get a chance to bury itself again. If the nonactive player controls Ball Lightning while the active player controls Lifeline, then Lifeline's effect resolves first, then the Lightning buries itself, so the Ball Lightning ends up in its owner's graveyard. 7) Outmaneuver causes blocked creatures to deal their combat damage to the defending player regardless of whether creatures are still blocking them when combat damage is dealt. 8) Serra Avatar is shuffled back into its owner's library when it goes to its owner's graveyard, no matter where it came from. It doesn't matter whether it's put into a graveyard from a library, from play, from a player's hand, and so on. (If it loses its second ability because of an effect such as Humble's, it won't be reshuffled.) Lifeline, on the other hand, works only when a creature goes to a graveyard from play--that's why its rules text reads "creature" and not "card". 9) Veiled Crocodile will "awaken" if your hand becomes empty even momentarily, such as while playing or resolving a spell. You don't play the triggered ability that turns the Crocodile into a creature, however, until the end of the current event. 10) Worship doesn't prevent damage--it just changes what happens at the time damage would normally be subtracted from your life total. Abilities that trigger on damage (Abyssal Specter's, Somnophore's, and so on) are unaffected, because they will have already triggered. This ruling also applies to Ali from Cairo and Sustaining Spirit. ### Paul Barclay. - ------------------------------------------------------------------- - - Churchill College, Cambridge, England CB30DS -- (Tel: 0958-980-180) - - Official MTG-L Network Representative for Wizards of the Coast, Inc - Here's the next installment of Things Bethmo Has Said in answer to various questions which didn't make it into the Rulings posts. Sorry this has been delayed so long - it was waiting for the October Rulings, which finally appeared... Specific 1) The X on Drain Life is an extra cost; you may still pay it while paying the casting cost, 1B, via Dream Halls' ability. This is different from spells with an X in their _casting_ cost. 2) Stangg or Stangg Twin tokens made in Volrath's Laboratory will have no effect at all on Stangg cards or Stangg Twin tokens made by a Stangg. {Each Stangg keeps track only of the Twin it made itself, and vice versa.} 3) Assembly Workers no longer have the creature type "Assembly Worker"; they just have that as their name. The Factory ability looks for a permanent named "Assembly Worker". [The comment "So there are currently _no_ lands that have a creature type when animated." fell victim to another note - see the Legendary things note below.] 4) Unstable Shapeshifter copies the creature that just came into play as its base characteristics are when the "copy" triggered ability -resolves- ... not as the creature first came into play. This usually makes no difference whatsoever ... and remember that copy cards copy the _base_ characteristics, so effects like Humility's or Crusade's don't affect what gets copied. But there are some odd situations where it could make a difference. [Bethmo - did you get an answer back about what happens if the creature vanishes before US can actually copy it?] 5) If you have an Assembly Worker, an Orcish Conscripts, and an Exalted Dragon, you may declare the group of three as attackers -and- pay the Dragon's attack cost with the Assembly Worker. Similarly, if your Monstrous Hound attacks together with your Leviathan, the Hound checks the number of lands just before the Leviathan's attack cost is paid, not the number of lands afterwards. 6) Fork no longer copies the effects of an interrupt on the spell; it won't copy Sleight/Hack/Lace/Ersatz Gnomes changes. [I may have said this before, but the answer came up again this round.] 7) Volrath's Shapeshifter will copy "*" or "X" power or toughness as 0 ... but _will_ copy abilities that continuously set a value for either stat. So a VS being a Maro will track the number of cards in your hand to set its power and toughness the same way Maro does, for instance; its ability will override the "0/0" stats it sees from the Maro on top of your graveyard. 8) Tahngarth's Rage vs. Ensnaring Bridge: The Bridge checks before the creature is attacking, and the Rage gives the bonus only while/once the creature _is_ attacking ... so the Bridge checks before the Rage bonus appears on the creature. 9) It's fine to make "Elder Dragon Legend" tokens in Volrath's Lab. Yes, there's a part of that creature type that's another Magic word ... but these tokens will _not_ follow the "Legend" rules any more than "White Knight" tokens would have to be white. So yes, you can make them, and no, you can't dream up any rules-trickery to play using them so don't try. 10) Lich note: Lich does _not_ keep your life total at zero; if you take damage while Liched, your life total goes down from zero. [It keeps you alive when at or below 0 life just fine.] So if you Mirror Universe while Liched ... your life total "tries to" change from whatever number it's at, 0 _or_ negative, to opponent's total ... which means you will draw at least your opponent's life total in cards, but may draw _much_ more than that if you've taken a lot of damage while Liched. [And of course this may possibly kill you by drawing out. Oh, the agony...] 11) All the sacrifices for Cataclysm take place at the same time, though active player _chooses_ what to save before opponent does. 12) If a Word of Command is Forked ... where are you all running off to? If, I say, this happens, then the Forked Word when it resolves has to choose a spell in that player's hand which could start the next batch. At this time, in this odd situation, that will be a batch of _interrupts_... so the Fork can only choose an interrupt [which must target the Word of Command itself, as that's what's currently being interrupted]. [I believe it can also choose a land to play if it's currently the target player's main phase and they could otherwise play a land. Even though there's no natural way to play a land in the interrupt window. But Forked Words of Command are unnatural enough to cause a spacetime inversion that turns that rulebook page inside out...] 13) The actual artist on Censorship is Matt Wilson ... but "there's no artist listed there" or "I can't tell you that" is also a legal answer for Squirrel Farm. 14) Enough Memory Crystals can reduce the generic portion of a buyback cost all the way to 0, even if the cost is an odd number to start with. [It won't be left with "one last <1> that can't get reduced".] 15) The rules team wants B.F.M to work as if it were worded "You must put both B.F.M. cards into play at the same time to put ~ into play.", instead of "You must play both B.F.M. cards to put ~ into play.". Things that put both cards into play at once will get it into play - Living Death, for instance. Or phasing it in. Or Portcullis leaving play. [Eureka won't, because it puts cards into play one after another.] 16) If you're using Unglued cards as tournament-legal even though they aren't DCI-legal, you are allowed four left-half BFM cards and four right-half BFM cards, not a total of four half-cards. 17) If a Giant Fan or Hungry Hungry Heifer removes a Gemstone Mine's last counter, that triggers its sacrifice-me ability. 18) "No Rest for the Wicked: card reads, "Sacrifice No Rest for the Wicked: Return to your hand all creature cards put into your graveyard from play this turn. Read this as "Return _from your graveyard_ to your hand ..." for ease of understanding." 19) 'Phyrexian Colossus: numbering reads, "306/350." Should be "305/350."' 20) Yes, you may replace Sylvan Library's card draws both with Abundance reveal-cards-until-and-put-into-hands, and if done right this can leave you with no cards in your hand drawn this turn to choose when SL tells you to choose. And yes, if you do this correctly you don't have to put any cards back and don't have to pay any life. 21) Karn,_Silver Golem [and Dromosaur and Goblin Cadets] trigger when they block or _become_ blocked. So if Karn gets blocked by a creature, then gets targetted by Choking Vines or Dazzling Beauty, he is already blocked ... and won't become blocked _again_, so won't get the bonus twice. [Most cards that get a bonus when blocked specify "by a creature" somehow, and these won't trigger at all for either of those spells.] 22) Temporal Aperture loses track of which card is the "top card" whenever your library is shuffled, the order of cards including the top card is rearranged, or cards are taken from the top of your library [including draws]. Even if there's only one card in your library. So "shuffling" one card does cause the effect to end. 23) Umbilicus: if you choose not to pay, you choose the permanent to return at that same time, on announcement of the upkeep cost. If that permanent isn't in play when the cost resolves, Nothing Happens. If you _have_ no permanents when you announce the cost [possible only if it's not your Umbilicus] then you may still choose not to pay, and then simply cannot choose a permanent to return at all. 24) Yawgmoth's Will's remove-from-game effect is a replacement effect, and will interact normally with buyback's replacement effect: you can choose the order of the two, so your buyback cards _can_ get put back in your hand if you pay the buyback. 25) More Abundance: if you're drawing several cards at once, and replace more than one of them with Abundance's ability, you deal with the reveal-until/put- in-hand/put-on-bottom-of-library effects one at a time, one after another. So the cards revealed for each Abundance use get put on the bottom of the library separately, and do not "mix" among themselves. [Technically this also applies to Aladdin's Lamp uses, if those are combined with Abundance or with themselves.] Also, if drawing several cards at once, you choose land-or-nonland for each separately ... and choose for -all- of the replacements you make before drawing _any_ of the cards. So you can't decide to go for a land, find the Swamp you needed, _then_ decide for the next of the three to go for nonland, for instance. 26) If you use Mask of the Mimic, and target a creature that has been changed from its original card [copy cards, shapeshifters, animated Phantasmal Terrained lands, Fowl Played creatures, etc.], you get to search for a copy of the original card, not for the creature it's currently being. So for a Volrath's Shapeshifter you'd look for another VS, not for whatever it currently is, and ditto for Clone; for an animated Forest that was Evil Presenced, you'd look for a Forest, not a Swamp; etc. 27) Corrosion will destroy artifacts controlled by any player, as long as they have enough rust counters on them. It only _places_ rust counters on target opponent's artifacts, but it will zap your Moxen or Shield Sphere in the process... 28) If Animate Dead is on a creature, and the creature ceases to be a creature, then in this order: the Animate Dead will be buried because it's no longer on a legal target, the AD's ability will trigger, and the permanent it was on will be buried, even though it's not a creature any more. [Example: if you Animate Dead a Licid, then turn the Licid into an enchantment, the Animate Dead will fall off ... and this will bury the Licid enchantment.] Ditto for Dance of the Dead and Necromancy. Not ditto for Diabolic Servitude, as that never bothers to change into a creature enchantment on the creature in question in the first place. 29) Lifeline doesn't care who controls the "another creature" - it just looks to see if more than one creature is in play whenever one dies. General 1) If you have to choose some subset of permanents to untap during the untap phase's mass untap, rather than untapping everything, you can only choose things to untap that -are- tapped. [Smoke/Winter Orb/Damping Field/Static Orb/etc.] So, for instance, you can't choose an untapped land as one of your two permanents to untap for Static Orb; you have to look at your tapped permanents and choose two of them. [This is also why the storage lands can't gain counters while untapped - you can't choose not to untap them unless they _are_ tapped at the time.] 2) Copy cards do copy "counts as" text along with other text; a Clone of a Wall of Spears will count as a Wall also. 3) If a spell gets its color changed several times, and makes a permanent, the permanent will start off being the -latest- color the spell had. Also, permanents made by spells come into play as the last color the spell had, not necessarily the same as the original color of the spell, and will trigger "comes into play" abilities based on that last color. [The permanent comes into play with an effect affecting it that's changing its color from its base color; the effect doesn't wait to apply until the permanent is actually in play.] 4) " "Destroy all " generates a single event destroying all the foo that exist at the time, not a bunch of one-foo events. Replacement effects can change part of this mass destruction. If a new foo is somehow created during this replacement, it won't be destroyed. (This follows the same meta-rule someone asked about not long ago with the Llurgoyf: the things that are going to be destroyed are recorded when the event is created, and no changes other than actual replacement effects will change what's scheduled for destruction.)"5) "This creature must block that creature" effects, like Crashing Boars', cannot -also- force -other- creatures to block at the same time to make the chosen creature a legal blocker. Defender can choose to have this happen, of course ... but if the chosen creature can't block by itself, it can't be _forced_ to block on its own. [Detailed posts about Crashing Boars, a Lure, a Goblin War Drums, and some Orcish Conscripts on defender's side can be found through dejanews - I'm not repeating that twisted mess of explanation here... um, I mean to say "We have found a marvelous demonstration of these qualities but unfortunately this newsgroup is too small to contain it". Yeah, that's it.] 6) As the Mirage rulebook [!!] turns out to state, "legends" are any creatures of creature type Legend, _and_ also any artifacts, lands, or enchantments that are stated to be Legendary in the line under their picture. If a legend is a creature, it's got creature type Legend. So Karn,_Silver Golem, is a Legend, and can be bounced by Karakas or held down by Arena of the Ancients. These two cards, however, are going to get "fixed" to affect _creature_ legends only - you still can't bounce Karakas with its own ability. [Exception: they want to treat "Legendary" and "Legend" stuff exactly alike... so if Karakas becomes a _creature_, it can now bounce itself, for instance.] For another example, you may use Sword of the Chosen on Karn,_Silver Golem... 7) 'Yes, "is blocked by " or "becomes blocked by " will re-trigger if the blockers are changed and the new blocker still satisfies . "Is blocked" or "becomes blocked" with no "by" qualification won't retrigger.' [Grew out of a question on Karn; applies to switching blockers with Sorrow's Path, General Jarkeld, and the like.] Other 1) Urza's Saga does not have a full rulebook. It has an insert in the starter decks that explains the new abilities Cycling and Echo, explains how the "sleeper" and 'growing' enchantments work, and gives a couple of rules updates [for Trample, and for the default duration of effects of spells or abilities]. You _will_ need a 5E [or 6E] rulebook to play. 2) The Unglued Rulings file, and the Unglued QAS ["Questions Asked Seldom"], are now both available on various web pages, including, I believe, WotC's. 3) Urza's Saga cards that have the same name as previously-released cards will be legal to use wherever the older ones were, the moment Urza's Saga is released. So you may use Urza's Saga basic lands in your tournament deck that day, if you want, rather than having to wait a month for US itself to become tourney-legal. Bethmo's fairly sure that none of the reprinted cards have any functional changes, the way Tempest's Power Sink changed the wording, so that part of the question is probably moot. [But she's checking on it.] The Trample change, and the other rules changes, are official with the Rulings Post release done along with this post.