what-bethmo-said, mid-June'99 (part A)
    Date: 
          Wed, 16 Jun 1999 15:11:52 +0100
    From: 
          Paul Barclay <paul@SECOND-HAND.DEMON.CO.UK>



What Bethmo's Said, mid-April '99 through mid-June '99

[By Dave DeLaney, the rec.games.traging-cards.magic.rules NetRep]

[As usual, this is NOT a Rulings post - it's merely a compilation of official
answers bethmo has given to various questions over the last month or two,
which didn't make it into a Rulings post (yet).]

GENERAL

1) 6E does not, says bethmo, have "targetted permanents" in general.
Consequences of this include:
 Local enchantments don't "target what they sit on" under 6E - they are
 simply 'attached to' them. Thus, the protection-from-<quality> wording has to
 note that the creature "cannot be the target of <quality> spells or abilities
 and cannot be enchanted by <quality> enchantments", instead of "cannot be the
 target of <quality> spells, abilities, or enchantments".
 Black Vise, Lifetap, and other spells that used to be "targetted spells
 which made a permanent" are now going to either not choose a player/opponent
 at _all_, and affect -every- applicable player/opponent [Bill Rose tells us
 that this will not unduly impact the multiplayer game environment...] - or
 will get rewording to "As ~ comes into play, choose a player/opponent. / ...".
 A couple of the copy cards [Clone, Doppelganger, Copy Artifact] will still be
 "targetted creature spells"; that's about it, though. Copy cards are expected
 to be Weird anyways...

2a) If a "damage shield" is set up that says "Damage that would be dealt -here-
is dealt to this creature instead" ... and later, when it gets used, "this
creature" is either not in play any more, or isn't a creature ... the shield
fails to move the damage to the missing creature, but -does- get used up
in the attempt.
2b) "Redirection" damage shields of this sort do _not_ remove 'combat damage'
status from damage; combat damage that's edited by an en-Kor ability, for
instance, to go to some other creature is combat damage when it's dealt to the
other creature.
2c) "Redirection" shields of this sort, once the effect that creates them has
resolved and made the shield, are no longer "targetted" in any way; gaining
protection from the appropriate color _after_ the shield is in place won't
stop the damage being moved onto "that creature" in any way.

3) Attackers or blockers that had combat damage -assigned to- them when combat
damage went onto the stack ... and which are still in play, but no longer in
_combat_, when combat damage resolves ... are still dealt their assigned
damage normally. They don't "get it prevented because they're no longer in
combat" or anything. [Attackers or blockers which are no longer _creatures_,
or not in play, can't get damage dealt to them, of course.]

4) Rule 402.3 is _only_ talking about text stating the permanent it's written
on "is" or "counts as" a specific -type- of card [permanent type, land type,
creature type, etc.] or color; "This creature is unblockable" is an ability,
and can be removed by Humility, since "unblockable" isn't a color or type, for
instance. "Counts as a Dragon" would not be an ability, as would "is a red
card" or "is an enchant creature".

5) If a creature type has multiple words, the creature counts as each of those
words as a creature type: a Cleric Legend is type Cleric and type Legend, for
instance, while a People of the Woods, if that type stayed the same, would
now be type "People", type "of", type "the", and type "Woods" - four creature
types. Most of the multiword-type creatures are getting updated to be single-
word types; some are not. See Oracle 6E for details.

6) Abilities worded like "Whenever ~ blocks or becomes blocked by a creature,
destroy that creature at time T" will destroy that permanent even if it's no
longer a creature when the time comes. The ability triggers off blocking/being
blocked by the creature, and never again checks whether it still -is- a
creature, after that.

7a) Triggered abilities are never activated [and vice versa]. Triggered
abilities worded like "When/ever <foo>/At <time foo>, you may <pay Q>. If you
do, <do A>" trigger off of any <foo> ... and have the payment of Q made on
-resolution-. If you pay, then you do A then also; if you don't pay, no A
happens.
7b) The rule about "triggered abilities with "may" in them are modal" is
_only_ meant to apply to triggered abilities of the form "When/ever <foo>/At
<time foo>, you may <do A>." It's not meant to apply to any whose effect is
"you may do A. If you don't, do B", "you may do A to do B", "you may do A
unless B happens", etc., etc. For instance, you do not decide whether to
pay for Crystal Rod until its effect resolves - it's not modal.

8) If a local enchantment uses an activated or triggered ability which will
affect "enchanted <whatever>" ... the effect will affect the <whatever> the
enchantment is on when the ability -resolves-, not necessarily the one it
was on when the ability went onto the stack. (If the local enchantment has
left play, the effect affects whatever it was on -last-.)

9) The Legends rule, 420.5e, is meant to say that "all except the one that
has -had that name the longest in play- are put into their owner's graveyards";
in the event of a tie for longest-use-of-name, all the legends with the same
name go away. As worded in the rulebook, it would only count timestamps and
ignore name changes, which is not the intent.

10) Rule 419.6b -should- read as
"Regeneration is a destruction-replacement effect. The key word "instead"
doesn't appear on the card but is implicit in its definition. "Regenerate
<permanent>" means "The next time this turn <permanent> would be destroyed,
instead remove all damage from it, tap it, and (if it's in combat) remove it
from combat." " The shield only lasts until end of turn, and the -destruction-
of the permanent is replaced, not damage. Note that a permanent that's not
a creature -can- still use an existing regeneration shield that was made for it
earlier this turn when it -was- a creature.
  The Glossary should also list regeneration as a _destruction_-replacement
effect.

11) Phasing-in of phased-out cards, and phasing-out of permanents with phasing,
will still be occurring at the beginning of the +untap+ step. This will not
go onto the stack, and will still occur 'simultaneously' - the cards phasing in
and cards phasing out will pass each other in transit, and won't both be in
play at the same time. Until we get the Older Rules appendix, treat this very
much as the 5E rules worked - local enchantments phase out and back in with
the permanent they are attached to; permanents you control with phasing phase
out at the start of your untap phase, and permanents you -controlled- when
they phased out phase in at the same time. Cards phase in with "Haste until
the next time their controller's untap step starts".
 So essentially untap step will contain two things only: phasing out and in,
and the mass untap. [Or, if either of these gets replaced, the replacement.]

12) 410.2 is incomplete in specifying who controls a triggered ability. _If_
the triggered ability does not offer a choice to any player, then the
controller of its _source_ controls the ability. [Howling Mine, for instance.]
If the triggered ability offers one player a choice ["may"], then that player
controls the ability [Pandemonium]. And if the triggered ability offers more
than one player a choice [all opponents may <foo>, each player may <foo>,
each -other- player may <foo>...] then one copy of the ability is created for
-each- player that's offered a choice, and all the copies go onto the stack.
[Argothian Wurm is an example of this last.]

13) Abilities that make a "subability" - those abilities part of whose _effect_
is "do A to do B" - treat the subability as an ordinary ability [which happens
not to be triggered or activated, though]. It is put onto the stack after
the effect that created it is done resolving; the cost A is paid at that time,
and any choices that need to be made for it are made then - follow 409.* as
usual. For instance, you sacrifice Second Chance when the "sac ~ to take an
additional turn after this one" subability goes onto the stack, not earlier
-during- the resolution of the upkeep-triggered ability that creates this
subability.

14) Tokens and lands, rather than having 'no mana cost' as 203.1 states, have
a mana cost of 0. [There are a few things that ask what the _mana cost_ of
a permanent is - Pendrell Flux, for instance - rather than what its -converted-
mana cost might be.]

15) If a spell or ability has multiple costs to be paid on announcement,
these costs may be paid in the order of the announcer's choice. They aren't
simultaneous. "This is to avoid some bizarre, corner case rules guru
questions. It has relatively little impact on play." (One question it does
answer-- Llanowar Elves can't tap for mana to pay for Propaganda and tap to
attack at the same time). [The costs -are- all paid at the time-for-costs-to-
be-paid - you can't "pay early", and can't finish paying with some still
unpaid.]

16) Under 6E rules, if an effect puts a local enchantment into play, the
player who puts the enchantment into play chooses _where_ to put the
enchantment. For example, if you Flicker your opponent's Unholy Strength, you
choose where to put it when it returns to play. If you put a local enchantment
into play through opponent's Show and Tell, you choose what permanent it
will enchant. Etc. The enchantment must be attached legally - it cannot
be placed on a permanent that can't be enchanted by that enchantment.

17) "<foo> until end of turn", "Until end of turn, <foo>", and "<foo> this
turn" all mean the same thing under 6E rules. If this is an effect from a spell
or ability, it will apply to all applicable permanents that are there at the
time it resolves ... and will -not- get applied to permanents that become
applicable _later this turn_. Thus, Nausea - "Creatures get -1/-1 until end of
turn" - will only affect permanents that are creatures when the Nausea spell
resolves. _Continuous_ effects from a -static ability of a permanent- apply
at any given moment to whatever's applicable right then.
   To get an effect to do stuff to things later in the turn, it needs to be
phrased so that it affects the game, or permanents. Bubbling Muck says
"Whenever a _player_ taps a swamp for mana this turn..." - it's affecting
players, and changing what happens when they tap a swamp for mana. So this
will change what happens when a newly-laid swamp is tapped for mana later
this turn, also. If it were worded "Whenever a =swamp= is tapped for mana
this turn..." it would only affect swamps in play when it resolved.

18) "Do A unless you do B" means the same as "You may do B. If you don't, do
A." In either wording, there is no penalty for being -unable- to do A. (For
instance, Umbilicus reads: "At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that
player returns a permanent he or she controls to its owner's hand unless he or
she pays 2 life." So you can choose not to pay life, forcing the "return a
permanent" effect to occur, and it simply does nothing if you _have_ no
permanents to return.)

19) "Timestamp order" isn't well-defined in the 4/23 rulebook release.
Basically, it's "the order the permanents were put into play in". However,
since it's possible to get permanents into play simultaneously: if more than
one permanent enters play at the same time, active player chooses the timestamp
order they are "timestamped in", with one restriction: a local enchantment on
a permanent must get timestamped _later than_ the permanent it's attached to.
[They're "these appeared simultaneously" for other things, but timestamps need
to be unique for each permanent, like the little ID-tag numbers in the computer
game, since they're used to order continuous effect application.]

20) Negative numbers _are_ still treated as though they were zero, except
for the purpose of raising the number back above 0, just as in 5E rules -
this rule was supposed to be in the rulebook still but slipped out through
a crack somewhere.

        Paul Barclay.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------ -
- Churchill College, Cambridge, England CB30DS - (Tel: 0958-980-180) -
- Official MTG-L Network Representative for Wizards of the Coast Inc -


 Subject: 
          what-bethmo-said, mid-June'99 (part B)
    Date: 
          Wed, 16 Jun 1999 15:16:02 +0100
    From: 
          Paul Barclay <paul@SECOND-HAND.DEMON.CO.UK>



What Bethmo's Said, mid-April '99 through mid-June '99

[By Dave DeLaney, the rec.games.traging-cards.magic.rules NetRep]

[As usual, this is NOT a Rulings post - it's merely a compilation of official
answers bethmo has given to various questions over the last month or two,
which didn't make it into a Rulings post (yet).]

SPECIFIC CARDS

1) The older ruling for Echo Chamber about 'the token comes into play blank
and then changes to copy a creature' is being dropped - Echo Chamber will now
match other token generators, and have the token come into play _as_ a copy
of the creature. This will trigger any comes-into-play abilities that
creature may possess.

2) Recall can only bring back from your graveyard as many cards as you actually
discard. The effect makes you discard X cards if you have that many... but if
you have fewer, you discard all of them, and then get only that many back.

3) Eradicate/Splinter/Scour will all work fine on basic lands that -happen to
be- a creature/artifact/enchantment when chosen as a target and when the spell
resolves. Note that these do _not_ do anything to other cards -in play- of that
name - they only also affect cards of that same name in that player's hand,
library, and graveyard. If any of these target a token, they still search for
-cards- of the same name in those places.
  There seems to be no way to make a basic land _into_ a nonbasic land [no,
making it snowcovered or using Blanket of Night do not accomplish this], so
Sowing Salt cannot be used in this manner. Lands are not spells, so Quash
can't help you do this nasty trick either. No, no Errata are planned at this
time for any of these spells to prevent this combination from working.

4) If there are no cards in your library for Paroxysm's effect, you use the
"otherwise" clause - the card revealed didn't exist, so wasn't a land card.
In this situation, enchanted creature gets the +3/+3 until end of turn.

5) Opalescence. Two Opalescences have each one animate the other, yes. The big
question from everyone is "What happens with Humility?". Well:
 a) with one Op. and one H., all global enchantments _other than_ the Op.
 are animated as enchantment creatures, and Humility's ability's effect makes
 all of them and all other creatures 1/1 and removes (suppresses) their
 abilities. Yes, including Humility's ability itself; it will also be 1/1
 and blank as long as it's a creature. The game does not 'loop infinitely' or
 become an immediate draw.
 b) with more than one Op., there is enough dependency to use strict timestamp
 order [says the Rules Team, through bethmo]:
  i) If the timestamps are Op., then Op., then H. - all global enchantments are
  creatures also, and all are 1/1 and blank along with all creatures. [The Op.s
  animate each other and all enchantments "before" the H. blanks out all
  creatures.] Adding more of either one afterwards to this does not change the
  result.
  ii) If the timestamps are Op., then H., then Op. - all global enchantments
  _except_ the first Op. are creatures, and all of them are 1/1 and blank along
  with all creatures. The earliest-stamped Opalescence is not a creature, is
  just an enchantment, and still has its ability. [Op.1 animates all other
  enchantments, "then" H. blanks all creatures, "then" Op.2 has no ability and
  does nothing.] Adding more of either one afterwards to this does not change
  the result.
  iii) If the timestamps are H., then Op., then Op. - all global enchantments
  are creatures _with_ their normal abilities, and with power/toughness equal
  to their converted mana costs. All -other- [non-animated-enchantment]
  creatures are 1/1 and abilityless. [H. blanks out all creatures ... "then"
  Op.1 animates all global enchantments except itself, "then" Op.2 animates
  Op.1 .] Adding more Opalescences changes nothing, but adding another Humility
  reduces this to case i), with all enchantments and creatures being 1/1 blank
  creatures.

6) Multani's Presence _will_ trigger when a spell you cast is countered due
to having its targets all be illegal on resolution. (When it "fizzles"
completely, in the old 5E terminology.) That's as legitimate a method to
counter a spell or ability as any other, since the term 'fizzle' is being
replaced by "counter"...

7) Opalescence + Opal Acrolith. If Opal Acrolith uses its second ability while
Opalescence is out, it turns into a plain enchantment, "overwriting" the
effect. [Opalescence's ability does _not_ depend on it not already being
a creature - it has no reason to get moved to 'after it turns back into an
enchantment'. The Acrolith change changes it to be -currently- just an
enchantment, and the Op. effect isn't applied a _second_ time.] Whether or
not Opal Acrolith was a creature before the Opalescence appeared - the
abilities don't depend on each other in any way, so are applied in timestamp
order. (I earlier thought the answer was different, but realized Opalescence
-does- still affect enchantment -creatures- normally.)

8) If an event says "~ deals 2 damage to you and 2 damage to target creature",
gets edited by something that makes it deal the second 2 damage to you instead,
and is -then- edited by Urza's Armor, 3 damage total is dealt to you. The
Armor's replacement effect is only applied _once_ to the ability, and only
applies once per source that's damaging you.

9) Justice + Chaoslace on the Justice + Opalescence results in a loop, but
not an unbounded one; the next time red damage is dealt by a creature or spell,
Justice triggers ... and damages the controller of the creature or spell. But
since it's now a creature, and red, it triggers again. Repeat until that
player is dead [or until something removes Justice from play before then,
or Opalescence, or changes Justice's color or the color of source it's looking
for.]

10) Ertai's Meddling does _not_ cause the target spell's duration to
start the turn it was _originally_ going to resolve, in any way; it does not
fall under the rule 418.3d . [If you Ertai's Meddling a Giant Growth, for
instance, the fact that _if_ it hadn't been Meddled it would have lasted
until the end of _this_ turn doesn't mean it 'never wears off' once it
finally -does- resolve. The Giant Growth's duration runs until the end of
the turn it -does- resolve in.]

11) The intent for No Quarter is that it destroy the creature that had the
lesser power when the ability _triggered_. Thus, it needs to be worded
-something- like "Whenever a creature is blocked by a creature with lesser
power, destroy that blocking creature. / Whenever a creature blocks an
attacking creature with lesser power, destroy that attacking creature.".

12) Eladamri's Vineyard and Mana Drain add the mana at the beginning of
the -first- main phase in the appropriate turn. If there's more than
one combat phase in that turn, they still only add mana once, at the
beginning of the first main phase. [Eladamri's Vineyard does work -each-
turn - it's not a one-shot effect for each player, or anything like that.]

13) Mana Breach's triggered ability is controlled by Mana Breach's
controller [it doesn't give anyone a choice, see General 12) above], but
"that player" chooses -which- land to return when the triggered ability
resolves.

14) Storage Matrix does NOT override any "this does not untap during your
untap step" abilities, or any ability like Winter Orb which restricts _how
many_ of [a type of] your permanents can untap during untap step. [Such
abilities restrict the whole untap step, not _just_ the mass untap ... so
replacing the mass untap by something else doesn't let you get around the
restrictions.] Similarly, you may still choose to keep Seasinger or
Amber Prison, etc., tapped even if you choose that type of permanent for
Storage Matrix.

ORACLE
[These are all notes of the type "We know there's things wrong in Oracle -
we cannot officially Fix it because we're not the right people to do so, but
we can say "Play it like this until Oracle gets officially Fixed please".]

1) Paul Barclay and I are working on getting out a "stopgap", unOfficial,
list of wordings for cards from Unlimited up through Fallen Empires, to
be used as "Play these cards as though they were using these wordings until
Oracle 6E _can_ get written up Officially for these sets". It should be
appearing any day now - it's already June 12th, and Type I, Type I.5, and
Extended tournaments all _needed_ these wordings back on June 1st...

2) Kismet _is_ meant to affect cards which come into play in any manner, not
just those which come into play after being played/cast as a spell.

3) Celestial Dawn _is_ meant to have retained the Errata - Oracle 6E is in
error in adding "in all costs" again. It should affect all mana symbols
appearing on any card it affects.

4) Martyr's Cause is meant to be able to prevent damage to a creature -or
player-, still.

5) Outmaneuver should say "this turn" - the creatures do not gain the ability
permanently in any way.

6) All spells, abilities, and effects of these which refer to "interrupts"
should substitute the word "instants" instead. (Anything which refers to
"instants and interrupts" should simply be shortened to "instants").

7) All cards whose Oracle text says "<This card> blocks as though it
flying" or "<This card> blocks as though it had shadow" should instead
read "<This card> can block as though it had flying" or "<This card> can
block as though it had shadow," as appropriate. This is to clear up some
confusion that the previous wording generated. (This makes it clear, for
instance, that Wall of Diffusion can choose to block a non-Shadow attacker.)
   This means that the creature may choose to act -exactly as though- it had
the specified ability, for the purposes of determining what it can _and cannot_
block only. It chooses once per blocker-declaration step - a Giant Spider
that was Blaze of Gloried still has to choose which of Treetop Rangers or
Stone Spirit to block, since it can't block both at once even if it -can-
block more than one attacker.

8) Yawgmoth's Will should read "Until end of turn, you may play cards from
your graveyard as though they were in your hand. If a card would be put into
your graveyard this turn, remove it from the game _instead_." This prevents
infinite mana tricks with a Dark Ritual, for instance. The second sentence is
a replacement ability, _not_ an ability triggered off of the card going to the
graveyard.

9) Gilded Drake should read "Flying  When Gilded Drake comes into play,
exchange control of Gilded Drake for control of a creature an opponent
controls. If you can't, sacrifice Gilded Drake." This is to prevent the ability
from being countered if the target is illegal when the ability resolves.
[This is still tentative.] Note that this ability now does -not target- the
other creature.

10) Lifeline needs to be worded as "Whenever a creature is put into a graveyard
and another creature is in play, return that creature from that graveyard to
play under its owner's control at end of turn." [It needs to say "another"
creature, in other words.]

OTHER

1) >How will sideboarding be handled for Pro Tour Washington and the Pro Tour
>qualifiers that lead up to it, asks a .strategy poster? [Important mainly
>because they're apparently being played in _teams_? And they want to know
>what the rules applying to 'a sideboard used by more than one person' are?]

 Each member of the team builds his or her own deck.  The left over cards are
 then split into three separate sideboards.  Each player may only use their
 own sideboard - no sharing allowed.  The cards do not need to be split
 evenly if the team does not wish them to be.  Sideboarding then follows the
 normal rules for Limited tournaments. [Elaine Ferrao]

Dave

        Paul Barclay.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------ -
- Churchill College, Cambridge, England CB30DS - (Tel: 0958-980-180) -
- Official MTG-L Network Representative for Wizards of the Coast Inc -