Date: Sun, 18 Oct 98 22:16:45 UT From: "Beth Moursund" Subject: FOR RELEASE: Urza rulings without the darn non-ASCII punctuation 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.