Published on 09/01/2008
A Whole New Tidepool
By Eli Shiffrin, Tom Fowler, and Diane Colley
This Article from: Diane Colley
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 Information in this article may be out of date due to subsequent Oracle and/or rules changes.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.
Hello loyal readers! Urchin here, transmitting from her new tidepool at Reed College in Portland, Oregon! Whoo! Rather than party it up before classes start, I am here plugging away at another delightful episode of Cranial Insertion! Not having a life is awesome for productivity! As always, send your rules inquiries and/or philosophical crises to cranial.insertion@gmail.com . Moko does love the philosophical anguish of humans.
A: Quite well, actually. Momentary Blink will resolve, removing Mangara from the game and bringing him back as a new object. Mangara's ability (which is unchanged by the Blinking of its source, hurrah rule 402.6) will then resolve, removing the permanent you targeted from the game, but leaving the present Mangara object alone, since the game recognizes it as different from the pre-Blink Mangara.
Quote from 217.1c:
| An object that moves from one zone to another is treated as a new object. |
Summoning sickness probably isn't a good excuse to miss class, even with rules support...
Q: Just to clarify a general question, who gets priority after a spell resolves? The owner of the recently-resolved spell, or the active player?
A: Regardless of who owned the spell that just resolved, priority will go to the active player.
Quote from 408.1c:
| If all players pass in succession (that is, if all players pass without taking any actions in between passing), the top object on the stack resolves, then the active player receives priority. |
Q: Can spells like Dark Ritual and Brightstone Ritual be played during the process of playing another spell?
A: No. While you can play mana abilities during the process of playing another spell, you cannot play anything that uses the stack. That would be flirting with the dark ages of the interrupt, and that way lies madness.
Quote from Glossary:
| A mana ability is either activated or triggered. A mana ability doesn't go on the stack-it resolves immediately. A player may play an activated mana ability whenever he or she has priority and whenever a rule or effect asks for a mana payment. This is the only kind of ability that can be played in the middle of playing or resolving a spell or ability. |
Q: If I have a creature enchanted with Pattern of Rebirth and my opponent activates his Nevinyrral's Disk, will my Pattern of Rebirth trigger?
A: Yes. Since Pattern of Rebirth has a leaves-play trigger, it looks back in time to the last moment it was in play to determine whether it will trigger. So, even though it was destroyed at the same time as the creature it was enchanting, last known information sees that it was attached when it left play and lets it trigger.
Quote from 410.10d:
| Abilities that trigger specifically when an object leaves play, when an object is put into a hand or library from a public zone, or when a player loses control of an object will trigger based on their existence, and the appearance of objects, prior to the event rather than afterward. |
The (layer) cake is a lie.
A: No. What Banishing Knack giveth, Snakeform taketh away. Both are continuous effects that apply in layer 5, and therefore they will apply in timestamp order. The Snakeform wipes the knight's ability more recently than Banishing Knack grants it. If the Snakeform had been played first, the Banishing Knack would write the ability over the slate wiped clean by Snakeform.
Q: With Wort, the Raidmother in play, I cast Warp World and use conspire to put a copy of it on the stack. With the second Warp World to resolve count the permanents put into play with the first one, or will it use the number that were in play when both spells were put on the stack? What if the first Warp World reveals a Siege-Gang Commander or other token-generator?
A: Each Warp World will resolve completely on its own, so the second one to resolve will count what was put into play by the first. If you reveal a Siege-Gang Commander or another permanent with a comes-into-play ability that generates tokens, that trigger will get to resolve before the next Warp World and those tokens will count for the next reveal.
Q: If I cast Extirpate, and before it resolves my opponent concedes because he doesn't want me to see his deck, can I force him to allow me to resolve my Extirpate?
A: Your opponent may concede at any time for any reason. No, this does not use the stack, you cannot respond to it, and it can happen during the resolution of a spell. Conceding is not a game action and abides by tournament rules rather than game rules. Think of it as a meta-action.
Q: Do multiple instances of lifelink stack, or are they redundant?
A: Multiple instances of lifelink do indeed stack. Because lifelink is a keyword ability that represents a trigger, multiple instances will trigger separately. This is true for any keyword ability that represents a trigger, such as bushido. Keyword abilities that do not stack are things like flying and trample that don't do anything themselves or redundant static abilities like protection.
Quote from 502.68b:
| If a permanent has multiple instances of lifelink, each triggers separately. |
Q: I have Prismatic Omen and Treetop Village in play. My opponent plays Magus of the Moon. What is my Treetop Village?
A: Your Treetop Village is a Land – Mountain. While Prismatic Omen grants basic land types to all your lands, it does not give them the supertype basic. Therefore, your Treetop Village is not safe from the Magus's ability and will be reduced to nonbasic Mountaindom.
Q: A few turns ago, I stole my opponent's Ashenmoor Liege with Sower of Temptation but forgot to lose 4 life. Should I lose 4 life now?
A: In casual play, whatever the group decides to do is fine. Under tournament rules, however, it is too late to resolve the trigger. Additionally, your opponent has committed a Game Play Error – Missed Trigger, and would receive a caution at Regular Rules Enforcement Level (REL, in the Judge biz), and a warning and Competetive or Professional RELs. You as well would receive a caution or warning (once again depending on REL) for Game Play Error – Failure to Maintain Gamestate. The philosophy of the DCI is that it is the responsibility of both players to make sure that the game state is legal and that no illegal actions are taken. This assumes that missing the Ashenmoor Liege's trigger was unintentional by both players. If it was intentional, you'd have an entirely different problem, but that story shall be saved for another day.
For more information on the reasons judges hand out particular penalties (I mean, besides the fact that we are all horrible sadists at heart and enjoy tormenting our players), check out the DCI penalty guide located at the DCI Document Center.
If there is a God, He hates rules gurus.
A: Yes, yes it is. This card is confusing and terrible. Paying X for Ice Cauldron's first ability allows you to get that mana back when you play the second ability. It's like putting mana in a...cauldron. So you can have it later. With the card you put there. Because this makes tons of sense.
Ice Cauldron...
Q: Will Waves of Aggression untap Kithkin tokens from Militia's Pride?
A: No. While Militia's Pride's tokens are put into play attacking, they never technically attacked. The act of attacking is defined as being declared as an attacker in the declare attackers step. Therefore, Waves Aggression will not untap them. Even if it did, they'd still be summoning sick and unable to attack.
Quote from Glossary:
| A creature attacks when it's declared as an attacker during the combat phase. |
Yes, I am just arguing semantics. Never let anyone tell you that semantics are unimportant.
You survived another one of these atrocious articles! Hopefully you learned something, just like I'm going to learn things now that I'm in college. Moko loves your questions, so send more to cranial.insertion@gmail.com .
This is Urchin, signing off.
Diane Colley
DCI Level 3 Judge
Portland, OR
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