Published on 12/19/2016
Winter is Coming
By Carsten Haese, James Bennett, Callum Milne, and Nathan Long
This Article from: Carsten Haese
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 Information in this article may be out of date due to subsequent Oracle and/or rules changes.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.
Yup, that looks about right.
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Now, grab a hot beverage of your choice, get comfortable, and please enjoy this week's selection of rules questions.
Q: Is Humility enough to make sure that my opponent's Progenitus or Blightsteel Colossus stays in the graveyard when I kill it?
A: Well, it's enough to ensure that the creature goes to the graveyard in the first place. Normally, Progenitus and Blightsteel Colossus have static abilities that replace their trip to the graveyard with getting shuffled into the library. While Humility is on the battlefield, they won't have those abilities at the time the game decides what to do when they're destroyed, so they go to the graveyard and have no reason to go anywhere else.
However, note that this only applies to a Progenitus or Blightsteel Colossus that is on the battlefield. If one gets discarded from the hand or milled from the library, it's not affected by Humility so the replacement effect kicks in and the card gets shuffled back.
Q: If a Lumberknot gets devour 5 thanks to me being on Jund, does it get five or six +1/+1 counters for each creature it devours?
A: It'll get five counters per creature because its triggered ability doesn't trigger for the creatures it devours. To understand why this is, let's recall that most triggered abilities trigger based on the game state after the event that triggered them, but some triggers look back in time to the game state before the event. "Dies" triggers belong to the category of triggers that look back in time. The event in question is that Lumberknot enters the battlefield while the chosen creatures die at the same time. Before this event, Lumberknot wasn't on the battlefield, so its ability wasn't around to trigger.
Q: If I control Soul Warden and I play Karlov of the Ghost Council, does Karlov get counters?
A: He sure does! Karlov entering the battlefield triggers Soul Warden's ability, which goes on the stack after Karlov has already arrived on the battlefield, and the ability resolves later still. As long as Karlov doesn't get hit by an instant removal spell in response to the life gain trigger, he'll be around to trigger when Soul Warden's ability resolves and you gain life.
Q: Does Veteran Motorist's ability trigger when you activate a crew ability or when the crew ability resolves?
A: It triggers when the ability is activated. A creature is said to crew a Vehicle when it gets tapped to pay the cost to activate a Vehicle's crew ability. Just like any other activated ability, the cost for the crew ability has to get paid when the ability is activated.
Q: If I Ensoul Artifact a Smuggler's Copter and then crew it, is it a 3/3 or 5/5?
A: It's a 5/5. Unlike most other animation effects, the crew effect does not set a power and toughness for the Vehicle, since the Vehicle has printed power and toughness values that get turned on as soon as the Vehicle becomes a creature. In layer 4, the Copter gets turned into a creature by Ensoul Artifact's effect and by the crewing effect (in that order, but the order doesn't matter since they do the same thing in layer 4). At that point in the layers, the Copter is a 3/3 creature, but that's not the end result. In layer 7b, Ensoul Artifact's power/toughness setting effect kicks in and makes the Copter into a 5/5, and that's the end result.
Q: On my second turn I played a Smuggler's Copter and on turn three I'm playing a Kujar Seedsculptor. Can I crew the Copter with Kujar Seedsculptor in response to its ETB ability so that I can target the Copter with the ETB ability?
A: That's a fantastic attempt at making the most of your resources, but unfortunately it doesn't work. You have to choose the target for Kujar Seedsculptor's ability at the moment you put it on the stack, which happens before you get priority to activate the Copter's crew ability. At the moment you put the ability on the stack, the only possible target is the Seedsculptor itself, so it'll selfishly put the counter on itself.
Q: If my opponent controls Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, can I cast Ancestral Vision for one mana without having to suspend it?
A: No, that doesn't work. Ancestral Vision's mana cost is empty, which represents an unpayable cost, and an unpayable cost stays unpayable even when you increase it. You'll have to give Ancestral Vision an alternative cost to get around the unpayable cost, which is precisely what the suspend ability does when the last time counter comes off, but there are lots of other ways to give a card an alternative cost.
Q: My opponent still controls Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, and I want to cast a Crystalline Crawler. If I spend five different colors on the increased cost, does Crystalline Crawler enter the battlefield with five counters on it?
A: Absolutely. The converge ability counts how many colors of mana you spent to cast Crystalline Crawler, which looks at how you paid the total cost including the increase from Grand Arbiter Augustin IV.
It's a trap!
A: No, Deadlock Trap does nothing to Gonti, Lord of Luxury. Deadlock Trap stops activated abilities, but nothing about Gonti's ability is an activated ability. Gonti has a triggered ability that triggers when it enters the battlefield. When the ability resolves, it creates a continuous effect that allows your opponent to cast the exiled card. Deadlock Trap doesn't turn off that continuous effect, so your opponent can still cast the card.
Q: How does Captured by the Consulate interact with Hunt the Weak?
A: It doesn't. Captured by the Consulate's activity only triggers for spells that have a single target. Hunt the Weak has two targets, so Captured by the Consulate leaves it alone.
Q: I control Eidolon of Blossoms and cast Primal Surge. If Primal Surge puts an enchantment onto the battlefield, do I draw a card before I repeat Primal Surge's process?
A: No. Eidolon of Blossoms' trigger has to wait for you to finish resolving Primal Surge completely before it can go on the stack. This means that you have to keep track of how many enchantments enter the battlefield during the resolution of Primal Surge, and then that many card draw triggers go on the stack after Primal Surge has finished.
Q: What does Aetherflux Reservoir count as casting spells? Is it just instants and sorceries, or other things, too?
A: It's other things, too. In fact, when you play anything that's not a land the usual way, you're actually casting a spell. For example, when you play a creature card from your hand, you put it on the stack as a creature spell and pay its mana cost. Your opponent can respond to it, and if he doesn't counter it, it resolves and enters the battlefield as a creature permanent. The same is true for artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers.
For example, if you control Aetherflux Reservoir and you dump two Ornithopters, two Memnites, and two Darksteel Relics from your hand, you're casting six spells in sequence. This will trigger Aetherflux Reservoir's ability six times. With the first trigger you gain 1 life, with the second trigger you gain 2 life, and so on, for a total of 21 life gained.
Q: I control Metallurgic Summonings and cast Epiphany at the Drownyard for X=5. How big is the Construct token I get?
A: It'll be a 6/6 token. When you determine the converted mana cost of a spell, any X in its mana cost counts as the value that was chosen for it. The Epiphany you cast has a converted mana cost of X+1, which is 6 in this case.
Q: I still control Metallurgic Summonings and now I cast Part the Waterveil with awaken. Do I get a 6/6 or a 9/9 token?
A: It's only a 6/6. The converted mana cost is derived from the mana cost in the top right corner of the card you cast, regardless of how much you actually spent to cast it. Part the Waterveil's mana cost is
, so its converted mana cost is 6. Are you cold?
I can warm you up...
I can warm you up...
A: No, that won't work. As a spell, Faith Unbroken targets Bran's Dire Wolves. After Faith Unbroken enters the battlefield, its enter-the-battlefield ability that targets Daenerys's Dragon, but Turn Aside can't counter abilities.
Q: Can I cast Gaea's Blessing to shuffle itself and two other cards into my library?
A: No, that's not possible. While an instant or sorcery will usually go to the graveyard when it resolves, you're several steps before that point when you choose the targets for Gaea's Blessing. At that point, Gaea's Blessing is on the stack, so it's not in the graveyard yet. (Also, even if Gaea's Blessing were in the correct zone, a spell can never target itself anyway thanks to a fun and obscure rule that exists so that judges don't break their brains trying to figure out what happens when a spell counters itself.)
Q: If I tap an Aetherworks Marvel to use its ability and my opponent responds with Anguished Unmaking, what happens?
A: Aetherworks Marvel gets exiled, your opponent loses 3 life, and then Aetherworks Marvel's ability still resolves. When you activated the ability, the ability went on the stack as a separate object that is independent from its source. Exiling Aetherworks Marvel does not counter the ability or otherwise remove it from the stack, so the ability still resolves.
Q: If I exile a card from my opponent's library with Gonti, Lord of Luxury and cast it, and my opponent counters it, where does the card go? Does it go to the graveyard or back into the exile zone?
A: It goes wherever a card normally goes when it's countered, which is the graveyard. Casting a card from Gonti's ability is slightly unusual in that the card is cast from an unusual zone, but once it's on the stack, it's a spell like any other.
Q: Does Altar of the Brood work with Panharmonicon?
A: Sure! It's a triggered ability of a permanent you control that can be triggered by an artifact or creature entering the battlefield. When an artifact or creature enters the battlefield under your control, Altar of the Brood will trigger twice, while other types of permanents will trigger it once.
Q: Does Pithing Needle work with Panharmonicon?
A: Nope. Panharmonicon only works for triggered abilities, which always begin with the words "when," "whenever," or "at." Pithing Needle has a static ability that generates a replacement effect that changes how it enters the battlefield. As such, Panharmonicon is utterly unconcerned with it.
Q: Can I cast Astral Cornucopia for
so that it enters the battlefield with zero charge counters?A: Sure, that's perfectly legal. When you cast a spell with X in its mana cost, you choose a value for X, calculate the corresponding total cost, and pay that cost. Nothing is preventing you from choosing X to be 0, which leads to a total cost of
. Of course, Astral Cornucopia will just sit on the battlefield and look pretty until you can find some other way of getting charge counters onto it, but I'm sure you can find a way to do that. And that's all the time we have for now. Thanks for reading, and we'll be back next week when James celebrates Boxing Day by unboxing more rules questions for you. Until then, I hope you stay warm and enjoy the holidays.
- Carsten Haese
About the Author:
Carsten Haese is a former Level 2 judge based in Toledo, OH. He is retired from active judging, but he still writes for Cranial Insertion and helps organize an annual charity Magic tournament that benefits the National MS Society.
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