This is another in the series of "Things bethmo's said" posts - answers that she has given to various questions, which didn't make it into the Rulings posts because they weren't reversals of previous Rulings and weren't totally new areas of the rules - these are pretty much "answers to questions that hadn't been asked specifically before, or clarifications or repetitions of previous answers". [Covers 6/14/99 to about 11/1/99] Note that some of this has actually made it into the revision of the 6E rulebook released in mid-November; these are answers Bethmo gave from before then, so some overlap with the new rulebook may occur. Also, some of the questions resulted in rewordings of cards in 6E Oracle in the version released at the beginning of November; I've tried to note where this is the case, below. GENERAL 1) Local enchantment spells target the permanent they will end up enchanting or attached to; you can't play (cast) such a spell on a creature that can't be the target of spells. If you get a local enchantment into play -without- casting it as a spell, it can be placed on any permanent it can legally -enchant-, whether or not -spells- can target that permanent. Thus, Show and Tell can drop a Treachery on a Multani, but can't drop a Spreading Algae on a Plains. 2) When you choose a "source" of damage, say for a Circle's ability or a Reverse Damage, you may choose any of a) an appropriate permanent in play, b) an appropriate spell on the stack, c) an appropriate card or token referred to in some way by a spell or ability on the stack. Thus, you can't choose the Hammer of Bogarden in A's graveyard as a red source of damage ... unless a spell or ability on the stack mentions it (if it were being Regrowthed, for instance, you could choose it as long as the Regrowth is on the stack; if its own ability was putting it back in owner's hand during upkeep, you could choose it while that ability was on the stack, but not after the ability resolved and the Hammer was in that player's hand). Update: the revision of the rulebook notes that if you choose a spell which will create a permanent as your 'source', the shield can prevent the next damage from that permanent or that spell, whichever comes first. 3) If the words "when", "whenever", or "at" appear in mid-text (instead of at the beginning of a sentence), this denotes a -delayed- triggered ability, that will be created when this text's effect resolves. For example, "Do this. Do that at end of turn." does 'this' when the effect resolves and also creates a delayed triggered ability "At end of turn, do that" at that time. If an effect contains "do this to do that", this creates a new 'subability' which gets placed back onto the stack. This 'subability' is placed back on the stack -during- the resolution of the effect that creates it; this can make a slightly odd situation for a moment, where the ability resolving is no longer the top ability on the stack. This means, among other things, that "subabilities" are always going to have anything that triggers from announcing them get put on -top of- the "subability" on the stack, as is normal for abilities... (They have reworded the Licid-type 'you may pay Q to end this effect' template to differentiate this from, say, Second Chance's "sacrifice Second Chance to do such and such'; the Licids now say "As long as ~ enchants that creature, you may pay Q to end this effect.) 4) The player who -puts into play- a permanent is its initial controller; this is a Reversal appearing in the revision of the rulebook. Not necessarily "the controller of the spell or ability that produces it". Note that "return foo to play" works the same as "put foo into play" for this purpose. The player who puts a local enchantment into play, if it's not being cast as a spell, chooses what to (legally) attach it to - if you Flicker opponent's local enchantment, you're putting it back into play, so you choose where it goes. The player who will be controlling the permanent makes choices involved with "as this comes into play", "this comes into play with", and "before this comes into play" wordings; if you Flicker opponent's Conspiracy, he chooses the new creature type. If you put a Phyrexian Dreadnought into play under someone else's control, that player has to sac creatures for it, not you. 5) "Legend and legendary have the same meaning in 6E -- the only difference is where on the type line they go. (I.e. "Creature - Goblin Legend" and "Legendary Creature - Goblin" would have identical meaning.) Removing the type "legend" from a creature makes it no longer a legend/legendary." Note that only changing the -subtype- (creature type, land type, enchantment type) of a card can remove the legendariness - changing its permanent type can't. 6) "Replacement effects do not check whether the new action can successfully be carried out before making the replacement. A card that replaces losing 1 life with removing 1 card from your library will do so regardless of whether your library is empty -- if it's empty, the removal will simply fail to do anything." (Note that the en-Kor, and damage-redirection effects in general have been reworded to say "deal this damage there instead of here as long as all the creatures involved are still creatures" - if damage was going to be dealt to creature A, and would be moved to creature B instead, then if A is no longer a creature when the damage would land, the damage won't "appear on B anyway" ... and if B is no longer a creature at that time, the damage "stays dealt to A". Similar wordings hold for replacement effects that "redirect" damage from a creature to a player or vice versa.) (Note also that if a creature has a regeneration shield up, and is affected by "this can't be regenerated" and gets destroyed, it -does- get destroyed; "~this~ can't be regenerated" means, essentially, "any regeneration shields in place for ~this~ have no effect at all and don't replace a destruction", not "the destruction will be replaced but the replacement will have no actual effect and ~this~ will stay in play because it wasn't destroyed".) 7) "Triggers that read "Whenever a player plays a or spell, " trigger only once per spell played, even if that spell is multicolored. Similarly, a trigger that read "Whenever a land or creature comes into play, " would trigger only once for a permanent that was both land and creature. In order to trigger twice, the card would have to have two "whenever" clauses." 8) The "last known value" rule has been expanded to cover cards moving out of zones other than "in play". Thus, if a Veiled Sentry triggers off of a spell which gets countered before the Sentry ability resolves, you will still use the converted mana cost of that spell - the "last known value it had while on the stack". Also see the Guerrilla Tactics/Nafs Asp example below under SPECIFIC CARDS. 9) If you are searching a zone for a certain -type- of card, you are allowed to Not Find copies that are actually there, if you wish. (For instance, if a Karma is out, and the only land cards left in your library are Bayous, you are allowed to come back without retrieving any when you cast Land Grant or use Land Tax.) If you are just searching for "a card" or some number of cards, without any type or name or 'look for a copy of this card' specified, you have to bring that many cards back if they are there - Demonic Tutor, Intuition, Vampiric Tutor, etc., are -not- optional. If you are -revealing- cards, for instance for Abundance or Hermit Druid, you aren't allowed to "slip past" an appropriate card. The rule only covers effects that actually tell you to 'search' a zone, not ones that count up how many of a type of card are somewhere, or which reveal cards until you get to a certain type of card. If your opponent can see your hand, for some reason (Telepathy), or can see a card in your library (Field of Dreams), you're still allowed to Not Find appropriate-type cards, as long as you're actually "searching" for them. 10) A spell can't choose itself as one of its own targets. An ability can't choose its own pseudospell on the stack ("itself") as one of its own targets. Attempts to retarget a spell or ability to itself will fail to work because that's not a legal target - you can't Misdirection a Counterspell to target itself. (You can make it target the Misdirection just fine, if you want.) 11) If a spell or ability tells a player to discard, and doesn't say the discard is random, that player chooses which card(s) to discard. (The revision of the rulebook has been updated to reflect this.) 12) The rule that numbers less than zero are treated as zero except for effects which add to or subtract from them is being added to the rulebook, as is an "or less" in the "toughness 0 creatures are placed into owner's graveyard" state-based effect. (Update: Actually, they only noted the "numbers" part for power, toughness, mana cost, amount of damage, or amount of life -lost- ... consider this extended to all actual integer numbers mentioned, though; for instance, a life -total- can be less than zero, and is treated as zero except for raising or lowering it.) 13) If a copy -card- copies a token, the copy is still a card; "tokenness" isn't a copiable characteristic. Similarly, an Echo Chamber token or Dance of Many token copying a creature card is still a token, not a card. 14) If something is replacing 'draw a card' with 'foo', then 'draw 3 cards' becomes 'foo, then foo, then foo'. Etc. (Since you have to draw the cards in an order off the top of the library...) 15) >There are lots of cards which work as continuous effects while a >creature is attacking. For example: Mightstone, Weakstone, Aurochs, Purraj >of Urborg, Spirit of the Night. Do they have this bonus when we check >attack legality? "No. The creature isn't actually attacking until you've verified that the attack declaration is legal." [Note that creatures that 'can't attack alone', 'can't attack unless two other creatures are attacking', 'can't attack if a creature of toughness 4 or greater is attacking', 'can't attack if any other creatures are attacking', etc., check this -before- the attack becomes final - you verify whether this sort of restriction is applied using what is -attempting to- attack. Thus, an Okk -can't- attack along with a 2/3 enchanted by Tahngarth's Rage; the 2/3 will still be only 0/2 at the time Okk checks for 'a creature of greater power', and will not yet be 5/3. Similarly, for Ensnaring Bridge, an attacker enchanted by Tahngarth's Rage still has the -2/-1 when Ensnaring Bridge checks its power.] 16) Changing the -creature type- of a token creature in play does not affect its name, and vice versa. When the token first comes into play, its name, given by its parent card, becomes its creature type; the parent card may also give it additional creature types. They are unrelated after this. (A token that -copies- something else copies it exactly; the name and creature type(s), if any, are copied from the original card, and the copy does not get an additional creature type equal to its name - it's an exact copy, instead.) 17) A land's land type is always the same as its name. Thus, when a Mishra's Factory's name changes to Assembly Worker, its land type changes also. There's no such thing as an 'artifact type' - the last time there was something like that was during Unlimited when Mono/Poly/Continuous Artifacts were around. (Creature type and enchantment type [for local enchantments] both exist.) '"Artifact Creature - Golem" means that the creature type is golem. It is not defining an "artifact type" of golem.' 18) (Rewritten because of the rulebook revision...) Whenever you go to add triggered abilities to the stack, all "waiting" triggered abilities are added to the stack as one event. More specifically, each time a player is going to get priority, -first- the state-based effects that are applicable right then are done, then any "waiting" triggered abilities are added to the stack. Then you repeat this until no state-based effects were applied _and_ no triggered abilities were added ... then the player actually gets priority. (Thus, if putting a triggered ability on the stack somehow makes a state-based effect apply, or generates another triggered ability, they'll be dealt with/added to the stack -before- the player that's "waiting" actually gets priority.) You "stop and repeat until done" before giving the player priority. So each time a player gets priority, there's a pause first while a) state-based effects are checked for and b) any waiting triggered abilities are added to the stack... and a) and b) are repeated until Nothing Happens... then the player gets priority. 19) 102.2 - losing when you draw from an empty library - has been changed to work as a state-based effect, rather than as a replacement effect. Thus, if a player Prosperitys for enough cards to make everyone lose, both players will lose, at the same time, when state-based effects are checked for, not during the resolution of Prosperity itself. (And the game will be a draw, independent of whose turn it is.) SPECIFIC CARDS 1) "Volrath's Shapeshifter coming into play with a creature card on top of your graveyard: it will have all the comes-into-play triggered abilities of that creature at the time you check for comes-into-play triggers, so those will trigger. Any "comes into play with" or "as ___ comes into play" or "before ___ comes into play" will not take effect, since those happen as part of putting the card into play, before any copying takes place." 2) If for some reason you end up drawing fewer than X cards with Aladdin's Lamp, you -do- choose one from among only the cards you did manage to draw, if any. (It's been noted to me that this answer depends on an older wording of the Lamp's effect; currently it says to 'look at X cards and choose one', so you'd always choose one, then possibly replace the one draw... The answer was given when the older wording was in effect, if that helps answer any questions from that time.) 3) Pandemonium checks the creature's power when the P. triggered ability resolves; if the creature is no longer a creature by this time, the ability uses the value "zero". So Soul Sculptoring a creature in response to P.'s ability causes it to deal 0 damage. 4) Exalted Dragon's land sacrifice is an additional cost to attack, paid for at the same time as other attack costs (308.2). (It now has reminder text in Oracle to emphasize this.) 5) "Thorn Elemental's ability, like Trample, gives whoever is assigning the damage additional options as to how the damage may be assigned." The same holds for Lone Wolf. Thus, if a different player is assigning the combat damage from one of these cards, because there's a blocker with Banding, two blockers with the same Bands with Other, or Defensive Formation involved, that player decides whether Thorn Elemental/Lone Wolf will assign damage straight to defending player or not, instead of attacker doing so. 6) Relentless Assault works as if it read "Active player gets" rather than "you get"; if you manage to cast one when it's not your turn, or if you Fork opponent's, it will affect active player, and can't give you a Combat phase or a main phase when it's not your turn. (Oracle will be updated to reflect this.) "The additional combat phase comes after the last post-combat main phase currently scheduled. If you somehow manage[d] to resolve a Relentless Assault in the end phase ([not] currently possible), it w[ould] have no effect." And, an update note: the rulebook now notes that only the _first_ main phase in a turn is a "precombat" main phase; any other ones are "postcombat". 7) Blanket of Night has been changed to affect all lands, mana-producing or not. (Which removes a nasty little dependency question and gets rid of a troublesome Loop involving it, Humility, and Kormus Bell...) This will also REVERSE an old answer about it versus Phantasmal Terrain; if BoN affects all lands, an effect applied after it that changes land type will -not- cause the affected land to "still be a swamp also". Thus, Phantasmal Terraining a Blanketed land will cause it to stop being a swamp-also. 8) The "if" in Rayne's ability, at least, is _not_ checked on announcement of the ability. You check on resolution whether Rayne is enchanted, and can choose at that time to draw zero, one, or two cards accordingly. (You can't draw one card, then choose whether to draw a second, though.) [The rulebook now notes that only "if"s directly after the triggered condition are checked on announcement; "if"s in other places are ordinary checks to make on resolution of the ability.] 9) >I discard a Guerilla Tactics. Do I choose the Tactics card in the > graveyard, or the card as it was in your hand? "Guerilla Tactics is dealing the damage when it is in the graveyard (since the trigger is on the discard)." >What if a Celestial Dawn is disenchanted in response to the > Guerilla Tactics trigger? "The color of the cards in the graveyard will change, so a different CoP would need to be used." >What if the card leaves the graveyard before the prevention shield > is created? "[The new] "last known value" appl[ies] here." [The Tactics is a source of the last color it was in the graveyard.] >Naf's Asp damaged me last turn. It's going to damage me again this > turn. The card could be anywhere by now - what do I choose as the > "source" [guess - the Asp as it currently is, or as it was when it > was last in play] "[The Asp as it currently is] is correct." [Note that this REVERSES an old ruling about this card; I believe bethmo means by this answer "The Asp as it is -when the delayed ability is announced-, updated for as long as it's still in that zone". See below.] >What if the Asp was Laced and Transmogrified. What do I choose as a > source? "The Asp. Current version, or most recent version if it's no longer in play." >Guerilla Tactics: When it triggers, and Planar Void and Celestial >Dawn are in play, do I prevent the damage from (a) the White Tactics in >my hand, (b) the White Tactics in my graveyard or (c) the Red Tactics >out of the game? "The white Tactics that used to be in your graveyard. Tougher question is if instead of Planar Void you have Yawgmoth's Will active, so it never actually goes to the graveyard. Then it would be dealing the damage from the removed-from-game zone. However, Celestial Dawn still applies to the removed-from-game zone as well, so it would still be white." 10) >Humility doesn't affect "Comes into play with", "Before ~ comes into >play" and "As ~ comes into play" abilities, correct? "Correct." [Continuous effects are applied to things that just came into play after dealing with any of these types of effects, but before checking to see what abilities -trigger- off the things coming into play.] >Test question: Humility is in play. I play a Spike Weaver. I >Disenchant the Humility. Does the Weaver live or die? "It lives". [It comes into play with +1/+1 counters, and then Humility's effect is applied.] 11) >Mana abilities: Channel gives you a mana ability, but this isn't a mana >ability of a permanent, so it's played using the Stack, correct? No; the new version of the rulebook has -deleted- the "of a permanent" from the definition of a mana ability. So now the ability granted by Channel, and the ability of Elvish Spirit Guide, are "full-blown" mana abilities, and do not use the stack. Also see 15) below... and 1) further below. 12) Copy cards: Clone, Vesuvan Doppelganger, and Copy Artifact no longer use the "target foo card or foo token" wording, and have returned to 'target foo' only. This changes how they work somewhat. For instance, Clone can copy a Licid, but can't copy a Licid that's currently being a local enchantment. We are waiting for word on what happens when, for example, you Clone a land card that's currently being a land creature; my -opinion- is that the Clone would become a copy of the card, minus -all- effects affecting it other than "this is a copy of something else" effects. So a Clone of a Treetop Village creature would give you a Treetop Village -land-, unanimated; a Vesuvan Doppelganger of a Clone would give you a copy of what the Clone was being, with the restriction that the color isn't copied, and the added ability to copy something else during your upkeep; etc. Again, this is simply my opinion - the actual answer may turn out to be Way Different. [The rulebook revision refers to "Appendix B" in a few places, the Older Rules Appendix; unfortunately, that appendix isn't yet available. That's where the 6E rules for copy cards will appear... which is why we have to say "we're waiting for word" instead of "this is how it works".] 13) Forgotten Lore has been reworded to have the retargetting done as part of its resolution; it will target the initial target up until it starts to resolve, and can get countered if that target is missing on resolution. It will briefly target each new target while it is resolving, and will finally have its effect on the last-chosen target. 14) >A Mishra's Factory is in play. It uses its ability to turn itself into >an Assembly Worker; _in response_, a Tidal Warrior's ability is used on >it. What have we got when this is all over? My answer was >"It'll be a 2/2 land artifact creature, named Assembly Worker, with the >ability "Tap: Add U to your mana pool", until end of turn". >(My reasoning was that first the "becomes a >basic island" resolved, turning it into just-an-Island and in the process >suppressing its other abilities, then the Worker ability makes it a) a >land artifact creature, b) 2/2, and c) gives it the name "Assembly Worker" >... but doesn't say it's changing the ability(s) the land _currently has_ >in any way.) "That's correct." 15) Lion's Eye Diamond's ability is still a mana ability; it doesn't get put onto the stack, can't be Rusted or Interdicted or responded to, etc. It has a restriction on when it can be -played- - only when you could play an instant, meaning "not at a time a cost or effect asks you to pay mana". 16) If a Phyrexian Dreadnought is Unearthed or Resurrected or otherwise put from a graveyard into play, then a) if the player who will control it makes the sacrifices, it goes directly into play; b) if the player who will control it does -not- sacrifice, the PD gets put into that graveyard -instead of- going into play ... so gets put -on top of- that graveyard, possibly moving it from its former position in that graveyard. (Possibly useful in a fairly twisted Nether Shadow deck...) 17) Raging River should still be an Enchant World; only one can be in play at a time (particularly when the decisions it calls for are being made). 18) >Replenish: If I Replenish in an Opalescence and a Rancor, I can't put >the Rancor on (a) a Pandemonium that's in play (b) an Opalescence that's >in play (c) the Opalescence that's coming into play, if there's an >Opalescence in play. "Correct." [More generally: if a local enchantment's coming into play, it has to choose something legal to enchant, or it stays where it is. It can't choose something that will only -be- legal once the enchantment -is- in play; it can't choose something that will be made legal by another card coming into play -at the same time as- the local enchantment. The Rancor in question has to pick something that's a creature -before- any of the Replenished enchantments appear - it can't go onto an artifact an Animate Artifact will get placed on, for instance.] OTHER 1) Starter cards that have the same name as a Magic card are DCI-legal in a tournament in which that Magic card is legal, just as with Portal cards. (And just as with Portal cards, the Starter card is played as if it had the Magic card's wording.) Starter cards that don't share their name with a Magic card aren't DCI-legal. And a followup post, covering what bethmo's said =between= the time I started putting together the "What Bethmo Said" post and the actual posting of it (part of that wait was due to waiting for the rulebook's revision to appear). GENERAL 1) Effects that change the =land type= of a land change its name also, in the process. Blanket of Night is the odd card out here, because it's adding an -additional- type, which nothing else in the game does... it's specially Ruled, see below, to not add the name "Swamp" to the lands. 2) When asked to "name a card", you can name any card that appears in Oracle, essentially. (And yes, they know the five Harper-Collins cards accidentally disappeared from the Oracle webpage - they're working on getting them back; until that reappears, you can also name "Arena", "Sewers of Estark", "Mana Crypt", "Giant Badger", or "Windseeker Centaur"...) 1996 World Champion, Proposal, and Splendid Genesis, as well as all the Microprose computer-game cards, are _not_ nameable. 3) If a card uses an ability with a restriction on how many times it can be used a turn ... then changes to have another ability, which does the same thing but is worded differently ... it can use the new ability independently of the old one. Example: if an Unstable Shapeshifter is an Azimaet Drake, and uses its ability once, and changes into a Drake Hatchling, it can now use the new ability once also ... because one ability says "Azimaet Drake gets..." and the other says "Drake Hatchling gets...". 4) For the moment - if you somehow manage to do something that would put an Instant or Sorcery card into play, it stays in the zone it was previously in, instead. (Only possible with one weird combination of cards, or Spatula of the Ages from Unglued, at the moment.) It looks like there will be a Rule made about this, but for right now simply play it as though the card doesn't get to come into play. 5) If an effect says any of "Do A. Do B.", "Do A, then do B", or "Do A and do B"... B is done -after- A is, though both are still done during the resolution of the effect. Anything that needs to have stuff done at the same time will be worded either "Do A and B at the same time" or "Do A and B simultaneously" or the like. (In particular, things can -trigger- in between doing A and doing B; for instance, when Animate Dead pulls a creature card into play, first the card comes into play, -then- Animate Dead becomes an enchantment local to it. So Animate Dead-ing a Rabid Wombat _will_ trigger your Endangered Armodon, where it wouldn't have if the two happened at the same time...) "We don't want to go back to having "then" be a keyword that changes the functionality of a card -- and having any one of these three ways of phrasing things mean something different than the others is a real problem when it comes to translating the cards to other languages." State-based effects, of course, are not checked for until after the -entire- effect is done resolving; the only thing that can "happen" between A and B, above, is a triggered ability -triggering-. (It can't get -put on the stack- at all until the effect's done resolving...) And, to confuse the issue, an effect that says "Do A, B, and C", or any larger list separated by commas that way, has them all done at once, as if there were an invisible "simultaneously" tacked on. Jokulhaups, or the Disk, for instance, destroy everything affected at once, not one type after another. 6) The Alliances land cards that replace "When ~ comes into play" with "Instead sacrifice a . If you do, put ~ into play; if you don't, put ~ into its owner's graveyard" are -not- replacing "playing a land" - they're replacing -part of- playing the land. In particular, playing one of these lands and making the sacrifice does -not mean- that "you didn't play a land because that action got replaced, so you may still play a land this turn" - you -did- play this land, and just the part of that that was "put it into play" got replaced. (Subtle and nitpicky technical point, but best to not let it fester in players' minds...) SPECIFIC 1) "A Forest in play with Blanket of Night is named "Forest" and has the land types "Forest" and "Swamp". (Compare this with a Bayou, which has the name "Bayou" and the land types "Bayou", "Forest", and "Swamp". Most questions that can be asked about the Blanket of Night case can also be asked about multi-lands, and vice versa; the answers should be the same, except that the Forest is still a basic land and the Bayou is not.) If you Eradicate that Forest, you will remove Forests, not Swamps or Forest-Swamps." 2) If your hand's already revealed, you can still reveal it to pay Land Grant's alternate cost. (Just as for the Scents and Seers from Legacy.) 3) In DCI tournaments, Squall's mana cost is 2G, even if you use the Starter version which got printed with a mana cost of 1G... THINGS WE'RE WAITING TO HEAR ABOUT: 1) The change to Undiscovered Paradise that makes it bounce "instead of untapping" - we've pointed out this changes how it works, with Winter Orb in particular, and are waiting to hear what they're gonna do if anything. Dave DeLaney rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules NetRep for Wizards of the Coast, Inc.