Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 12:23:42 +0900 From: Ron Foster Reply-To: mtg-ml@balthasar.iso.comel.or.jp Errors-To: mtg-ml-request@balthasar.iso.comel.or.jp To: mtg-ml@balthasar.iso.comel.or.jp (MAGIC The Gathering Mailinglist Japan) General 1) If a land gets turned into not-a-land, tapping it for mana is no longer a mana source ability ... just an instant. However, very little does this - all the effects that say, as reminder text, "This (artifact) creature still counts as a land" have had that converted by Ruling to actual card text. Transmogrifying Licid's ability _can_ do this. 2) You assign damage before considering the effects of Continuous Replacement abilities ... like Furnace of Rath. So, for instance, if your 5/5 attacker with Trample is blocked by a 0/7 blocker, you have to assign 5 damage to the blocker. If Furnace is in play, you still have to assign all 5 to the blocker, which doubles to 10. [If it were a 3/3 blocker, you could assign 3, doubled to 6, to it and 2, doubled to 4, to defender. But you would not be able to assign only 2, doubled to 4, to it and 3, doubled to 6, to defender.] 3) Characteristics no longer "lock in" at announcement _or_ at start of resolution. You check them at the time in the effect that they are mentioned; if they're mentioned more than once, check them each time. [Also applies to non-characteristics such as controller, number of counters on it, etc. As per the Ruling on this, if the permanent's no longer in play, use the values from the last time it was in play.] 4) If a -lace, or other color-changing effect, changes a card's color... and the card later changes to a different form with a different base color ... the effect will still "override" the base color. So if you Chaoslace an Unstable Shapeshifter, it will now be red in whatever form it changes into [since its base color is changing, and the Chaoslace's effect is applied "on top of" the base color]. Ditto for Hacking a Doppelganger, Sleight of Minding a Volrath's Shapeshifter, etc. 5) If an ability is phrased "When(ever) , do _instead_", then it's a replacement ability, rather than a triggered one. The "instead" template overrides the "when(ever)" template for triggered abilities. 6) The recent Reversal about checking sources of abilities has effects that say " does this" check their source during resolution, to see what its characteristics are, if "this" cares about any of them. So Prodigal Sorcerer's ability checks its source again to see what color he is now. Effects that just say "Do this" don't care what their source looks like on resolution, and generally don't need to check their source at that time. [So Royal Assassin's ability doesn't care what color the Assassin is on resolution; the ability is the color of the Assassin on announcement, and nothing in it rechecks the Assassin later.] "The ability pseudo-spell has the text, color, and controller as it existed when the ability was announced. Nothing you do to the source will change that. However, if the ability says " does something" then when it resolves it causes that permanent to do the something." 7) Legends and legendary permanents will have creature type "legend" if they become a creature. They also retain legendary status regardless of what permanent type they become; a Sol'Kanar that gets Soul Sculptored is now a legendary enchantment, still with the same name, and will cause a new Sol'Kanar that enters play to get sacrificed, still. And, surprise: "The ruling is that "legend" and "legendary" both mean the same thing. (From the Mirage rulebook.) Karakas and the Sword may receive errata to only affect legendary creatures; for the time being, you can use them on any legend, even legendary land." So Karakas _can_ bounce itself, for the moment. If you use the Sword on a legend that's not a creature right now, it gets the bonus ... but it doesn't _do_ anything unless the legend becomes a creature. 8) Still no actual _definition_ for Echo ... but if an Echo permanent comes under your control during your upkeep, you can't end the upkeep without dealing with the Echo [and paying the casting cost or sacrificing it]. 9) If a loop exists that -will- be terminated sooner or later ... but it may take many repetitions [Lifeline/Uktabi Orangutans/AEther Flash with 500 other artifacts in play, for instance] ... you can't use the "unbounded loop" rule to try to end it early. It _will_ play out until it ends. The unbounded- loop rule is only for loops that _won't_ end by themselves, in other words. 10) [Exploration, Gaea's Touch, Storm Cauldron, Summer Bloom, Fastbond] ' "Play an extra land" effects: current ruling is that when you play a land, you can say whether you're using your normal land-play or your extra land-play. If you don't say, it defaults to your normal land-play. If you play the "extra" one first, and then the card giving you the extra play is destroyed, you can still play your normal one.' 11) If damage is being dealt by more than one source at the same time, or is being dealt _to_ more than one place at the same time ... and more than one Continuous Replacement effect is modifying the damage-dealing ... you choose a single APNAP order for the CREs, for each damage-dealing event. You don't get to choose separately for each source involved, or for each place the damage is going to, if the damage is all happening at the same time. [So you can't make your Earthquake, with Furnace of Rath and Sulfuric Vapors out, deal differing amounts of damage to different creatures or players, for instance.] 12) "Apparently there were a number of misprints on the Anthologies cards. We don't know yet how this happened. These do *not* count as the "latest version" -- play them by the Oracle text." [Also, simply being white-bordered doesn't make these cards Type-II legal. They're legal if they are reprinted in a Type-II-legal set, as usual.] 13) Any transition between two different zones causes a card to lose its "memory". The Rulings file has for a while said, incorrectly, that Limbo's an exception; this isn't true. What is true is that there are some interrupts that can affect a spell which produce an -effect- on the permanent the spell becomes; these essentially make a "lingering effect" for the permanent. The permanent itself loses its memory, but the -laces, Hack, and Sleight cause an effect on the spell which makes a permanent effect on the permanent it becomes. And things going -into- Limbo lose their memory also. Specific Cards 1) Soldevi Machinist's ability makes mana that can be spent only on activation costs of artifact abilities. It can't pay for any additional costs, such as Gloom's on a Purelaced Copy Artifact. 2) Transmogrifying Licid's ability is "self fulfilling"; as long as the Licid is on the permanent, it makes the permanent an artifact creature instead of whatever else it was. And since it's an Enchant Creature, that means its target stays legal. [And yes, they know this doesn't quite work that way for Animate Artifact, and are figuring out whether something Will Be Done.] Also, the Licid's ability _will_ remove land-ness and enchantment-ness from enchanted permanent. So if you activate your Mishra's Factory, move a TLicid onto the Assembly Worker, then you have a 3/3 artifact creature that is _not_ a land, with the three Worker/Factory abilities ... that taps for mana as an instant. At end of turn, the Worker turns back into a Factory ... which is an artifact creature that's 1/1. [0/0 for having undefined power and toughness, +1/+1 from the Licid's ability.] And which still isn't a land. 3) Sneak Attack. When you lose control of the creature before end of turn, it is not sacrificed at end of turn. You cannot sacrifice a creature you do not control. 4) Furnace of Rath and Urza's Armor modify the damage assignment directly. They do not "replace the resolution of the spell". Furnace's ability is a continuous replacement ability, so happens as the damage is assigned; Urza's Armor is +phrased as+ triggered, but it's been told to me that it, and Benevolent Unicorn, and the other "reduce-by-1/increase-by-1" damage-affecting things are actually CREs, even without the "instead", even before 6E rules appear. So these also happen as the damage is assigned, before protection-from can reduce it to zero. [That's remaining, for 5E rules, as beginning-of- damage-prevention.] 5) Ring of Ma'Ruf _can_ get any cards that another card has put into the "out of game" zone. This includes any of the cards that used to go into the "set aside" zone, back when that zone still existed. It can now get Ice Cauldron cards, Elkin Bottle cards, Mangara's Tome cards, Duplicity cards, etc. [If the card is face-down, you don't get to know what card it is until it's in your hand.] (Stephen's Rulings file had this down as "cannot" for a while, due to I think just a mis-typing.) 6) Oubliette and Tawnos' Coffin put cards into the phased-out zone, not, as Oracle had it, into the out-of-game zone. They follow the rules for coming back from phased-out, except that the card [for both] says they come back tapped, and except that they come back _with_ summoning sickness. Also, Oracle does _not_ have these two as "as long as" effects; it has them as [with the above change] "Phase out target creature. If leaves play / or becomes untapped, ...". So if the Coffin untaps, or either leaves play [without itself being phased out], after the ability is announced but before it resolves, target creature phases out and never phases back in again. [It's waiting for a trigger condition that never happens.] Rather than having the effect never start at all, as an "As long as" effect would do. 7) Show and Tell does let the opponent know what card active player chooses from their hand before opponent chooses their own card. Copper Gnomes, similarly, has the user of the ability reveal the artifact card they choose when they choose it [during resolution]. [We're still discussing whether/how far this extends to other things that make you choose a card or cards in hand.] If you say you have no applicable cards in your hand, opponent _may_ get the judge to check this, in a tournament. For Show and Tell: "If the card has modifiers for putting it into play, such as choosing a target for Clone, life payment for Minion of the Wastes, and shape for Primal Clay, those are done as part of the put-into-play action. So both players will know what's coming into play before those choices have to be made. If both players have such choices, then once again the active player announces first. Note that Clone cannot target the card your opponent is putting into play, since they're entering play simultaneously." [Similarly, a local enchantment you choose can't come into play on opponent's permanent - it has to land on something already in play.] 8) Roc Hatchling will not trigger the Hidden Spider. It has "Flying as long as Q", which is different enough from "Flying" to not trip the Spider's switch. 9) "Mangara's Tome: Oracle wording is Broken. Play it as if it said "If you lose control of Mangara's Tome, those cards can no longer be retrieved by Mangara's Tome." " The cards stay face-down. If Mangara's Tome phases out and in again, it still can't get them back, and nothing new happens to them the next time it phases out. 10) Outmaneuver's effect is not limited to only blocked attackers, or to only attackers that can damage their blockers. It makes all attackers damage defender directly, regardless of whether they are blocked, whether their blockers still exist, whether their blockers can receive combat damage, etc. [Late note: bethmo says this _is_ actually a replacement ability for dealing combat damage, not, as the Ruling on it implies, an instant played before dealing combat damage. It waits until combat damage-dealing step to be playable, so isn't "really" an Instant in that sense - it's a spell played in the series preceding damage-dealing.] [11) was deleted. Move along...] 12) There's been some discussion on the lists about Reflecting Pool and Fellwar Stone. [And, in a related discussion, Mana Flare and Winter's Night and the other "make one mana of the same type" effects.] The current status of those is: a) Reflecting Pools still don't Reflect each other - by Ruling. They need to look at a non-Pool land. [Similarly, if something made your Fellwar Stone into a land, it and opponent's Reflecting Pool couldn't pick up mana types from each other - only from _other_ mana-producing lands...] Without that Ruling, two Pools could Reflect each other and each make any type of mana ... but they don't want that to be what happens. b) If a land _can_ tap for a type of mana, but would for some reason produce 0 of that mana right now, Reflecting Pool/Fellwar Stone can still be tapped for 1 mana of that type, and Mana Flare etc. will still make 1 mana of that type if the land is tapped for 0 mana of that type. [Discussion on whether this historical ruling for Mana Flare is still desirable is continuing.] c) Continuous replacement effects are _not_ taken into account when seeing what type of mana the land _can_ make. With Contamination in play, your Fellwar Stone still sees the base ability of the lands, and makes those mana [not just B]... though Reflecting Pool is itself affected and makes only B from Contamination's effect on the _Pool_. Naked Singularity won't change what types of mana a Pool or Stone can be tapped for, either - neither one is an island, mountain, plains, forest, or swamp, so Naked Singularity's CRE doesn't apply when _they_ are tapped for mana. 13) Dance of Many can target a BFM in play, and will bring a token BFM into play. Volrath's Shapeshifter, however, cannot mimic a BFM, because both of the cards cannot be on top of your graveyard at the same time. A BFM in play can be copied by a copy card, as if it were one card. [14) has gone missing. If found, please notify WotC Customer Service.] 15) When Worship is in play, and something damages you _and_ your last creature(s) at the same time, killing the creatures ... you lose the life from that damage at the same time, in the same event, as the creatures are placed into the graveyard. [The Rulings file turns out to be subtly misleading on this. Oops.] So Worship _will_ reduce the damage done to you, even if the same source damages your last creature(s) to death at the same time. 16) Knowledge Vault doesn't say "face down" in Oracle, but it should - it will be getting Errata for the next edition of Oracle. Oops. 17):Tainted AEther/Gilded Drake. Tainted AEther says that the _controller_ of :the Drake must sacrifice. [Thus making its ability played and controlled by :the creature's controller...] "Tainted AEther doesn't give the player a choice, so the July ruling doesn't apply. The ability is played and controlled by the controller of Tainted AEther. When it resolves, it forces the (current) controller of the creature to sacrifice something." > If the controller changes before dealing with >Tainted AEther ... as can happen with Gilded Drake ... then a) the _new_ >controller must sacrifice, not the original Drake's controller (since stuff >is no longer read in on announcement and locked in then?)... "Right." >b) if we're already past the new controller's part of the series, they simply >don't get to play the ability at _all_. "No. The controller of Tainted AEther's ability doesn't change. If I control Tainted AEther and I play Gilded Drake, I control both abilities and can choose which to play first. I will probably play the Drake ability first, giving you control of the Drake; that way Tainted AEther will force you to sacrifice. If you control Tainted AEther and I play Gilded Drake during my turn, the Drake's ability is automatically played first, giving the same results. If you control Tainted AEther and I bring Gilded Drake into play during your turn (using some instant), then Tainted AEther's ability is played first and I have to sacrifice something. If I sacrifice the Drake, then I can't exchange and can't re-sacrifice the Drake, so the Drake's own ability ends up doing nothing." Thanks, Ron