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Published on 09/12/2016

Back to School, 2nd Edition

Revised for the new year!

By Carsten Haese, James Bennett, Callum Milne, and Nathan Long
This Article from: Callum Milne

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 Information in this article may be out of date due to subsequent Oracle and/or rules changes.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, and welcome to another edition of Cranial Insertion! Now that we're into the second full week of September, the vast majority of North American students have headed back to school for the year, and the fact that we here at Cranial Insertion educate people by shoving fuzzy bunnies into their heads doesn't make us an exception.

...What, did you think our homepage was joking? If we haven't done it to you yet, that's not uncommon—we have to handle such a delicate procedure in person and have a lot of readers to go through so our schedule's pretty packed, but don't worry! We'll get to you soon enough.

Though come to think of it, we may be "back to school" now, but I don't think we ever left to start with—we've kept publishing on our normal schedule straight through summer break. I think that means I'm due for some vacation pay, or at least a week or two someplace sunny with a nice beach. I think I have some questions I need to ask Carsten.

If you, too, have questions for Carsten, or for any of us here at Cranial Insertion, just send us a line via email at moko@cranialinsertion.com , or if it's something short and sweet you can send it to us on Twitter @CranialTweet. Your Magic rules questions will be answered, and they may appear in a future article.

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Q: If I cast a creature and equip Spy Kit to it, can I activate Twinning Glass and cheat Blightsteel Colossus onto the battlefield?

A: I'm afraid not. Twinning Glass cares about whether or not you've cast a spell with the same name as the card you're trying to use it to cast, so in order to use it to cast Blightsteel Colossus, you would need to have cast a spell named "Blightsteel Colossus" this turn, and you haven't done that.

You have cast a creature spell with another name that resolved and then later became named "Blightsteel Colossus" (among other things), but that spell was not named "Blightsteel Colossus" at the time you cast it, which is the part Twinning Glass cares about. No free Colossus for you.

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Q: How do Containment Priest and Grafdigger's Cage work if both are in play? If I try to make something Rise from the Grave, would it get exiled, or just stay in the graveyard?

A: It will just stay in the graveyard. Thanks to Grafdigger's Cage, putting the creature onto the battlefield from the graveyard is an impossible action, and if a spell or ability wants you to do something impossible, you ignore that instruction and only do as much as is possible.

So since the creature card you targeted is never actually going to enter the battlefield, Containment Priest doesn't have anything to replace, and won't cause the card to be exiled.

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Q: What happens if I cast Part the Waterveil after using Narset Transcendent to give my next spell rebound? Doesn't that create two exile triggers and I get to choose their order on the stack?

A: Nope; there's no triggers at all here, in fact. Part the Waterveil exiles itself as part of its own resolution, while Rebound works by replacing the card going to the graveyard after it's done resolving with exiling the card instead.

Sadly for you, this means that giving Part the Waterveil rebound won't do anything. Since Part the Waterveil exiles itself as it's resolving, it never ends up going to the graveyard the way most spells do, and since it never attempts to go to the graveyard, rebound has nothing to replace and doesn't do anything.

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Q: I heard that you could blink Leonin Arbiter in order to make you opponent pay to fetch. Is this correct?

A: It is. The key is that something that changes zones becomes a different object, and multiple Leonin Arbiters operate independently of each other; paying to ignore the effect from one of them doesn't allow you to ignore the effect from the other(s).

So if your opponent pays to ignore your existing Leonin Arbiter's effect, and then you Momentary Blink the Arbiter, all of a sudden you have a new Arbiter, one which your opponent hasn't paid for, sitting on the battlefield. And if your opponent wants to search their library, they're going to have to pay for this one too.

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Q: ...So is that also possible with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben?

A: No, it isn't. While the effects of multiple Thalia would be cumulative (if you could manage to keep more than one around at the same time, at least), there's no way you can blink a single Thalia to force your opponent to pay more than once.

First, you cannot cast spells (much less have them resolve) in the middle of your opponent casting a spell of their own—by the time you know they're casting something and have the ability to respond, they've already finished the casting process, including paying for the spell, so Thalia doesn't matter any more.

Second, the total cost of a spell is determined at a single point in time, partway through the casting process. Even if you somehow could cause Thalia to blink midway through your opponent casting a spell, you would still only ever have one Thalia on the board at once, so there'd still be no way to have multiple Thalia in effect at the time costs are determined.

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Q: Tallowisp fetches cards with "Enchant creature". How about Imprisoned in the Moon? It specifically says enchant creature, but then also lists other viable targets with commas to separate them. Does that mean you can find it?

A: No, you can't. "Enchant creature" is not the same ability as "Enchant creature, land, or planeswalker", so Tallowisp isn't able to find Imprisoned in the Moon. Yes, the exact words "enchant creature" appear as part of the Imprisoned's ability, but it's the full ability that's important, not just whether or not those particular words match up.

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Q: What happens if I cycle Decree of Justice and copy the activated ability with Rings of Brighthearth? I know I draw two cards, but do I get tokens twice too?

A: No, you don't. You may be drawing two cards, but you only cycled Decree of Justice once, so the Decree's triggered ability will only trigger once. Copying the Decree's cycling ability doesn't mean you cycled it a second time, just that you created a copy of the cycling ability.

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Q: A Sharding Sphinx with a divinity counter on it from That Which Was Taken attacks and my opponent casts Snakeform on it. Does Sharding Sphinx lose the indestructibility from the divinity counter?

A: It does indeed. When multiple effects are adding or removing abilities from your creature, you apply them in what's known as timestamp order, which basically means the order in which they started applying. For That Which Was Taken, the timestamp of the indestructibility-granting effect is the time That Which Was Taken entered the battlefield. And for Snakeform, it's the time Snakeform resolved and set up its effect.

So running through the effects in timestamp order, we see that That Which Was Taken's effect is applied first, causing the Sphinx to gain indestructible, but then Snakeform applies over top of that effect, removing all abilities from the Sphinx, including the indestructible granted by That Which Was Taken.

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Q: What happens if Mind Funeral starts milling me and hits Emrakul, the Aeons Torn before it gets four lands?

A: You finish resolving Mind Funeral, and only after it's entirely finished resolving (and also after people have a chance to respond to Emrakul's ability) will you shuffle your graveyard into your library.

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn's ability is a triggered ability, and even if that ability triggers midway through resolving a spell or ability, triggered abilities don't do their stuff immediately; they need to be put onto the stack and wait for responses before resolving themselves, and they always wait until the current resolution is completely over before being put onto the stack.

It's also important to note that Mind Funeral doesn't put cards into your graveyard as you reveal them—you just keep revealing cards from your library until you either reveal four lands and run out of cards, and only then will you actually put those revealed cards into your graveyard. So even if Emrakul was instead something with a replacement effect like Progenitus that replaced going to the graveyard with something else entirely, you'd still finish revealing cards before it would get shuffled back in.

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Q: My opponent controls Mesmeric Orb. Do I have to untap my permanents?

A: Yes, you do; you don't get a choice in the matter. You always untap all permanents you control during your untap step at the beginning of your turn, and can't choose not to do so just because it would happen to be more convenient for you.

The only time you won't untap something you control during your untap step is when something explicitly says you can't (or can choose not to), like Stoic Angel, Mage-Ring Responder, or Vedalken Shackles.

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Q: I have a Leyline of Anticipation in my opening hand as well as a Serra Avenger. I pass on my third turn with lands untapped, and my opponent's 4th turn starts. Can I cast the Avenger on my opponent's end step?

A: Yes. In fact, you could have cast it during any of their previous turns as well. [c]Serra Avenger[c]'s ability only forbids you from casting it on your first, second, or third turns—it says nothing about preventing you from casting it on your opponent's first, second, or third turns, so it doesn't do any such thing.

You're not normally able to cast Serra Avenger on your opponent's turns anyway thanks to the rules for when you can cast creature spells, but those went right out the window when you dropped Leyline of Anticipation on the table. The Leyline gives you permission, so cast away!

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Q: If my opponent has a Dromoka's Command on the stack with the fight mode chosen, can I use my own Dromoka's Command to prevent the damage those creatures would deal with each other?

A: Sadly not. While your opponent's Command might be what's causing the fight in the first place, the Command isn't actually dealing any damage itself. The creatures involved in the fight are what's dealing the damage, and Dromoka's Command doesn't allow you to prevent damage that's being dealt by creatures.

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Q: I play Transcendence and have 30 life, but I activate Zedruu the Greathearted's ability to pass it to my opponent (also above 20 life) before the Transcendence trigger resolves. My opponent loses before I do, right?

A: No, I'm afraid you're the only one who's going to lose here. Transcendence's you-lose trigger is what's known as a state trigger—it triggers upon the game state matching a certain condition. And once a state trigger has triggered—as Transcendence's has in this scenario—it can't trigger again until that first trigger has finished resolving or otherwise left the stack somehow.

Even though you've passed off Transcendence and it's looking at a different player now, it still knows that that initial trigger is currently on the stack, and will not trigger again until that trigger is gone. Which means you're going to lose. And even in a multiplayer game with more than just the two of you, since all your stuff goes with you, that means [c]Transcendence[c] also disappears, so it's not going to cause your opponent to lose either.

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Q: I send my opponent a Harmless Offering of a Demonic Pact in a multiplayer game. When Demonic Pact causes them to lose the game, what happens to the Pact, and what does it do on future upkeeps?

A: Your opponent has lost the game, so the control-change effect from Harmless Offering that was giving them control of your Demonic Pact ends. With no control-changing effects to say otherwise, this means your Pact returns to your control. Sadly, it probably won't do you much more good, because at the beginning of your upkeep, its ability will attempt to trigger, asking you to pick an option that hasn't been chosen before...but there aren't any legal choices, since all four modes have been chosen already. As such, the ability will be removed from the stack and nothing will happen. And that will continue happening on each of your upkeeps for as long as Demonic Pact sticks around.

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Q: If I cast a morphed Den Protector and my opponent Spell Quellers it, does it turn face-up under the Queller, or stay morphed?

A: Any time you're instructed to exile something, you always do so face-up unless the effect explicitly says otherwise. Spell Queller certainly doesn't, so the Den Protector is exiled face-up like any normal spell would be, and if the Queller leaves the battlefield and you get to cast the Protector again, you'll be casting it face-up, too.

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Q: I just found a card with Miracle, and it seems weird. How do I know for sure that the card was the first card drawn that turn? What stops someone from saying they just drew the card now when they've actually had it for a long time?

A: If your opponent wants a Miracle, they're going to have to prove it by revealing the card as they draw it, not after. If they put the card in with the rest of the cards in their hand before revealing it, well, sorry, but they finished drawing it and missed their chance for a miracle.

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Q: In a multiplayer game, one of my opponents cast Emrakul, the Promised End, and targeted me, but they died on the next player's turn, before it got to my turn. I know they can't control me any more, since they're dead, but do I still get the extra turn?

A: You do indeed. The part of Emrakul's ability that gives your opponent control of your turn may not be possible any more, but the part about giving you an extra turn certainly is, so you still get your extra turn.

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Q: If I'm the Archenemy and the Monarch, and multiple opponents attack me at the same time and hit me, which one of them becomes the monarch? Is it by turn order?

A: As the current monarch, it's up to you to determine the line of succession.

The monarchy changes hands via a triggered ability generated by the rules of the game, and that ability is controlled by the player who was monarch at the time the ability triggered—in this case, you. When your opponents' creatures deal combat damage to you, that ability will trigger once for each of those creatures. Since you control those triggers, you choose the order in which they're put onto the stack, and thus which of your opponents ends up being the monarch once all of those abilities are done resolving.

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Q: I've often heard that the card going to the graveyard is the last stage of resolution. But I've also heard that you shouldn't ever Lightning Bolt a Tarmogoyf when there's no instant in the yard as it will just grow the 'goyf and it will live. Don't those two contradict each other?

A: No, they don't. You do indeed put Lightning Bolt into the graveyard as the last part of resolving it, but that doesn't mean that Tarmogoyf should die, because dealing damage to a creature doesn't cause it to be put into the graveyard immediately. Instead, dealing damage to a creature simply causes that much damage to be marked on that creature. Then, after the spell finishes resolving (and thus after the Bolt is in the graveyard), the game's state-based actions come around and check to see if any creatures are around that have an amount of damage marked on them that's equal to or greater than their toughness, and destroys those creatures.

And since Lightning Bolt will be in the graveyard at the time the game checks for creatures with lethal amounts of damage marked on them, it will be counted for Tarmogoyf's ability, potentially boosting it enough to survive whatever damage is marked on it.

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Q: You mentioned "state-based actions". I keep hearing people talk about those—what are they?

A: State-based actions (SBAs to all the cool rules gurus out there) are part of the game rules; think of them as the game's janitorial squad. Any time anything happens in Magic, the state-based actions come around afterwards and perform all the necessary cleanup duties to make sure things are all as they should be. Creatures sitting on the battlefield with 0 toughness or lethal damage? State-based actions will clean that up. An Aura enchanting an illegal or nonexistent permanent? State-based actions will cart it off to the graveyard where it belongs. You control two Chandras at once? SBAs are on the job!

The main thing to remember about state-based actions is that while they aren't checked in the middle of resolving spells or abilities, after the resolution's done they'll always be checked before any player has a chance to do anything. Any time anything happens, there's no way for anyone to act before SBAs take effect.

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Q: If I resolve Blood Oath, am I required to name a card type that's legal for the format I'm playing, or could I name "Conspiracy" in a Legacy game?

A: If something asks you to choose a card type, you can choose any existing card type, even if no cards with that type exist in the format you're playing. It won't do you much good, but you can do it.

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That's it from me this week, but class will once again be in session next week, with Nathan in charge. There may or may not be a pop quiz—I make no promises.

Until next time, study hard, and if anyone knows a decent supplier of large numbers of fuzzy bunnies, drop us a line—we've been running through them faster than we anticipated. The cuter, the better.

- Callum Milne

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About the Author:
Callum Milne is a Level 2 judge from British Columbia, Canada. His home range is Vancouver Island, but he can be found in the wild throughout BC and also at GPs all along the west coast of North America.

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