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Published on 06/09/2014

La Cospirazione ha inizio

or, 커져가는 혼란

By Eli Shiffrin, Carsten Haese, James Bennett, and Callum Milne
This Article from: Eli Shiffrin

Cranial Translation
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Note: This article is over two years old. Information in this article may be out of date due to subsequent Oracle and/or rules changes. Proceed with caution.

I had considered a mini puzzle that you'd have to solve to read the article. Or randomizing the answers among the questions so you'd have to match them to make sense. What if we had each question and answer among languages switched around all over?

Then I remembered that our primary goal is education on game rules, not mental gymnastics, and settled for the wacky titles. You're welcome.

So, welcome to the brave new world of Conspiracy! If you have more questions after reading the article, that proves you're human. You can send them over to moko@cranialinsertion.com or send short questions to @CranialTweet - remember, if you need an in-depth answer or details, that is where email is best.

And now, let the scheming begin.

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Q: Can I use three Advantageous Proclamations to reduce my deck size to 22 cards plus the three conspiracies?

A: If you manage to pick up three in one draft, then your minimum deck size will be 25. Remember that conspiracies are not part of your deck - they start out in the command zone.

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Q: So if I draft seven Advantageous Proclamations and take full advantage of the raw, awesome power this grants me, do I lose right away?

A: Pretty much. You'll lose during the first turn's upkeep, before any player has received priority. Perhaps one day there'll be a way to survive that, but for now there is no way to get around it.

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Q: If I control Grudge Keeper and Brago's Representative and vote for both carnage and homage, does everyone lose 2 life or no one?

A: Grudge Keeper stores up his contempt for players who vote for a choice you did not vote for, rather than players who didn't vote for a choice you voted for. A player who votes for carnage voted alongside you, since you also voted carnage, and a player who voted homage has also done that. No one will lose any life, and no grudges will be kept.

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Q: If a creature with dethrone attacks a player who then shoots himself in the face with Shock to no longer have the highest life total, does it still get a counter?

A: It does. Since dethrone has the "with the highest life total" clause in its trigger condition, it is checked at the moment of triggering and only then. It won't be checked any time later and will resolve and do its thing even if it's no longer true.

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Q: Does Scourge of Dethrone get an extra combat if the player Shocks himself down after it triggers?

A: Nope! Compare to dethrone's reminder text, which is coincidentally (OR IS IT?) also its rules text. The Scourge's second trigger does not contain the life total check in its trigger condition, but set apart between the condition and the effect. This is called an "intervening if clause," and these are checked both at the moment of triggering like dethrone is, but also upon resolution. The condition is now on the failboat since the player's life total changed, and the trigger won't give you anything.

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Q: If I attack with two Scourge of the Thrones, do I get two extra combats?

A: You do. Extra steps, phases, and turns are added by cramming them in at the designated point. The normal flow of the turn's phases is [Combat|Main]. After resolving one trigger, you split that pipe in the middle, perhaps with a very fine scalpel, and turn it into [Combat|Combat2|Main]. The second trigger resolves, splitting the pipe even thinner to the point that you can barely see through it, and you get [Combat|Combat3|Combat2|Main]. The order of the combat phases won't matter here, but they will for other cards; what matters here is that they all happen.

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Q: Can Grenzo's Rebuttal or Council's Judgment destroy an untapped Pristine Angel?

A: Both will get rid of the Angel just fine. Protection stops targeting and damage, but it does not stop destruction, exiling, choosing, or voting. Council's Judgment and Grenzo's Rebuttal both avoid the word "target," so they don't target, and creatures with protection from any number of things will fall victim to Grenzo, the Council, or the residents of Vault 11.

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Q: If a creature with a counter on it dies while I control Marchesa, the Black Rose, but then Marchesa dies before my end step, do I get my creature back?

A: Once the delayed trigger is created, it'll still resolve and do its thing no matter what happens to its source. Marchesa's delayed trigger will still bring the creature back if she dies - she can even bring herself back if she has a counter on her when she dies!

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Q: What does Paliano, the High City do in a Commander game?

A: It'll tap for one mana of the chosen colors. What colors are those? Well, none, since you didn't draft it relative to this game! It'll produce a whole lot of nothing when you tap it for mana, making it rather entirely pointless in Commander, Legacy, and Vintage.

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Q: I drafted two Power Plays and an opponent drafted one. Do I go first?

A: While that makes perfect sense, it's not what the card says it does. More than one is redundant, and the two of you will have to randomly pick one of you to go first. However, as with every casual format, your group is entirely welcome to decide that flavor trumps specifics and have the player who plays the most power plays play first.

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Q: Can I name Construct for Secrets of Paradise?

A: Sadly, Constructs are forbidden the secrets of paradise. When you're instructed to name a card, you have to name an actual card, and there is no Magic card named Construct - see how hovering over that link there gives you a sad card back? Even when a printed token that is in the shape and vague similarity of a card is used to represent a token, it's still not a card and not a card's name.

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Q: What does Worldknit actually mean?

A: The wording translates to a very simple thing: As long as you play with your entire card pool! Take every single card that you drafted (and didn't remove from the draft), add basic lands, put the conspiracies aside to start in the command zone, and shuffle up. Boom, all of your lands tap for any color.

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Q: If Brago, King Eternal hits a player at the same time that my other creature takes lethal damage, can I flicker that creature to save it?

A: Nope. Targets are chosen after state-based actions are performed, and the targets don't even bounce around until the trigger resolves much later. Creatures with lethal damage will be dead as a state-based action and already starting to molder before Brago can even choose what to take on a magic carpet ride.

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Q: I drafted a Cogwork Grinder and removed three cards, but another player drafted one and removed four cards. How many counters does it get if I take the other player's with Extract from Darkness?

A: "You" always refers to the controller of an object rather than its owner, if it has a controller or is moving to a zone where it has a controller. Even though it flies entirely in the face of flavor, you're the one who will control the Grinder, so it'll get the three counters you have noted for any Grinder - and if someone who didn't draft one were to take it, it'd get no counters at all. This could be another place where your playgroup might want to allow flavor to trump game rules.

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Q: I killed the player Cogwork Tracker was attacking. Now what does it do?

A: It still has to attack each turn if able - that ability is separate from the one that more specifically requires it to attack a certain player. It's no longer able to attack that player, so that ability's "if able" fails and it's ignored, and the other ability instructing it to attack at all applies and it must do so. It just now has the freedom of choice to attack another player, or perhaps even a planeswalker!

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Q: Grenzo, Dungeon Warden turns over a Goblin, but my opponent has Rest in Peace. Do I get my Goblin from exile?

A: You do! The ability doesn't specify that it checks in or returns from a graveyard, so it will check in the first zone the card moves to, if it moves to a public zone, and then move it to the battlefield from that zone. Your little Goblin will make a journey from your library to exile to the battlefield to your opponent's face in record time.

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Q: Can I wait to see whether the table votes for grace or condemnation before deciding whether to exile an opponent's graveyard?

A: Once the triggered ability (or in other cases, the spell) begins to resolve, no player make take voluntary actions until it's done and players receive priority again. Both the Magic Comprehensive Rules and Robert's Rules of Order require that the voting be completed and its consequences be handled before adding new items to the table. Stack. Whatever.

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Q: If I take a creature with Extract from Darkness or Act of Treason, attack so it gets a +1/+1 counter, and then it dies, will Marchesa, the Black Rose give it back to me or to my opponent?

A: In either case, you're going to get the creature back, and then control it indefinitely. Unlike most "and then return it later" effects that give things to their owner, Marchesa is just that much better at scheming and gives the creature back to you specifically. You'll keep the creature until its owner dies (and then it goes with the owner) or until you die (and then it gets exiled).

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Q: Does Muzzio's Preparations make my persist creatures invincible?

A: Preeeetty much. If they die, they come back with a -1/-1 counter and a +1/+1 counter, and then those cause each other to cease to exist as a state-based action before anyone can kill it again. The next time it dies, it doesn't have a -1/-1 counter on it, so persist triggers, and the creature comes back with a -1/-1 and +1/+1 counter...

This may have something to do with the lack of creatures with persist in Conspiracy packs.

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Q: What do we do when Lore Seeker causes us to have different size card pools?

A: There is only one thing to do: Have different-sized card pools. Oh well! Unlike most drafts where that happens because someone did something horrible (I bet that someone wasn't zone drafting!), it's a thing that can happen naturally in Conspiracy drafts and is okay.

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Q: Can we draft Conspiracy for Friday Night Magic?

A: No such luck. Even if you play one-on-one after drafting, the alterations to the drafting itself violate the tournament rules in so many ways that Conspiracy may only be drafted as an unrated format.

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Q: My friend tried to activate Whispergear Sneak just before another friend picked up a pack, what do we do?

A: There is no system of priority during the draft, so you have two real options here:

1) Remember that this is a fun, goofy draft, and just let him look at the pack.

2) Randomly determine which action happens first, which may make the other action impossible.

The first option is, generally speaking, less likely to cause bad feelings.

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And now it's time to leave you in suspense. Join us next week as the Conspiracy cards start to hit Legacy and Commander, and possibly even Vintage. Perhaps we'll even have Vintage Masters questions coming in, and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to look at M15's triumphant return of

Until next time, may your back-stabbings not involve literal knives!

- Eli Shiffrin

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About the Author:
Eli Shiffrin is currently in Lowell, Massachusetts and discovering how dense the east coast MTG community is. Legend has it that the Comprehensive Rules are inscribed on the folds of his brain.

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