Published on 08/03/2020
They say its your birthday!
By Carsten Haese, Nathan Long, Charlotte Sable, and Justin Hovdenes
This Article from: Justin Hovdenes
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 Information in this article may be out of date due to subsequent Oracle and/or rules changes.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.
They say its your birthday!
Hello hello! Welcome to Cranial Insertion. Today is my birthday and what better gift could I unwrap than some questions from all of you?
If you would like a question answered (which may even appear in a future article) you can send us short questions via Twitter at @CranialTweet, and you can send us long questions at moko@cranialinsertion.com .
Q: I control Torbran, Thane of Red Fell and NO dragons. I cast Sarkhan's Rage targeting my opponent. How much damage do we each take?
A: You take only 2 damage and your opponent takes 7 . Torbran only increases damage dealt to your opponents and permanents they control. Since you aren't your opponent, you are safe from Torbran.
Q: I control Darksteel Relic and my opponent controls a Gravity Sphere. I cast Aeronaut Tinkerer. Does the Auronaut have flying?
A: Yes, it does. If you cast something that inherently has flying, such as Snapping Drake, it would NOT have flying. But because Aeronaut tries to give itself flying in the same layer the Sphere tries to take it away, we apply these two abilities in time stamp order. Since Sphere has been on the battlefield longer, it first removes flying (even though it doesn't have flying yet), then Aeronaut gives itself flying.
Q: I currently have 4 cards in my hand and I attack my opponent with Greven, Predator Captain. I choose to sacrifice my Psychosis Crawler to Greven's attack trigger. Does the Psychosis Crawler cause my opponent to lose life even though it dies to Greven's attack trigger?
A: No. Greven's trigger requires you sacrifice a creature first, before you draw any cards. The crawler will be in the graveyard and will miss seeing the card draws.
Q: I control Path of Mettle, Berserkers' Onslaught, and two 1/1 Squirrel tokens. If I attack with both squirrels, will Path of Mettle transform?
A: Yes. The squirrels will have double strike while attacking, which will transform the Path of Mettle.
Q: I control Ensnaring Bridge and the only card in my hand is Arrow Volley Trap. My opponent has one hundred 1/1 squirrel tokens. Can I cast the Trap during my opponent's main phase choosing zero targets, to prevent my death by hundreds of tiny teeth?
A: Yes, you can. Zero is a number and Arrow Volley Trap can be cast with zero targets, just remember no squirrels will be harmed by doing so.
Q: I cast Abrupt Decay at my opponent's Eternal Witness. My opponent responded by casting Sublime Epiphany choosing to return Eternal Witness back to their hand and copy the same Eternal Witness. My opponent claims, not only did they save their Witness and successfully copy it, but that they also can use the copy of Witnesses to return Sublime Epiphany from their graveyard to their hand. Is this all true?
A: Yes, it is. If Submlime's targets are legal once it begins to resolve, it will complete all modes as best as it can. In the case of making the copy of something it just bounced, it will use last known information. When your opponent makes a copy of Witness, the trigger it creates won't be put on the stack until after Sublime has fully resolved, and by that time Sublime will be in the graveyard and will be a legal target for the Eternal Witness trigger.
Well it's my Birthday too, yeah.
Q: I have Garruk's Gorehorn with a Dreamtail Heron mutated underneath of it. On my opponent next turn they cast a Conclave Tribunal targeting the Gorehorn. On my next turn I Naturalize the Tribunal. What happens with my Gorehorn and Heron?
A: Something strange. As soon as the Gorehorn went to exile, it separated into two creatures. Then when the Tribunal gets destroyed, both the Gorehorn and Heron will enter the battlefield as two different creatures. There is no option of mutating the Heron to the Gorehorn.
Q: Last turn I cast both an Ambush Party and a Chromatic Armor (attaching it to the Party and choosing the color green). This turn cast a Solemnity and have 6 available mana. How many times can I change color that is chosen for Chromatic Armor this turn?
A: 6. The Chromatic Armor has one Sleight counter on it before the Solemnity comes down. Each time you activate the Chromatic Armor it will try to add another Sleight counter, but will fail to do so. This will still allow you to change the chosen color, but each activation will still cost 1 mana.
Q: I control Lifeline and 4x Bear Cubs. On my opponent's turn, they cast Wrath of God. As soon as I can after the Wrath resolves, I cast Hired Blade. Do I get my cubs back at the end of this turn?
A: Yes you do. You may have heard of this thing called an intervening if clause, and yes Lifeline has one. A intervening if clause, check to see if its condition is met when it should trigger and when that trigger attempts to resolve. If the condition is not met when it should trigger it won't happen at all, and if the condition is no longer true when it attempts to resolve, it will fail to resolve. That being said, it seems like this shouldn't work, but as this is a death trigger, it looks back and sees that more than one creature was on the battlefield when each bear died (ie, each other), so the condition was met then, and since you flashed a creature in before the trigger resolved, the condition was met then too, so all the cubs come back at the end of the turn.
Q: On my last turn I cast my commander Chromium, the Mutable. In that same turn I copied it twice, once with Spark Double and once with Sakashima the Impostor. On this turn I attack one opponent with all 3. Did this opponent take 7, 14, 15, or 22 commander damage?
A: So the opponent takes only 7 commander damage (they do still take 22 normal damage). "Commanderness" is not a copiable value.
Q: My opponent controls a Ghostly Prison. I want to attack with my Kaalia of the Vast and place a Serra Angel from my hand into play attacking from Kaalia's attack trigger. How much many will it cost me to do this?
A: Only two mana. You only have to pay for Kaalia to attack, the Serra Angel she cheats onto the battlefield gets around Ghostly Prison since it entered attacking. However, next turn if you want to attack with both, it will cost 4 mana.
Q: My opponent attacks me with Cudgel Troll and before damage I try to destroy it with Royal Assassin. My opponent regenerates the troll. Do I still take combat damage from the troll this turn?
A: Nope. When a creature regenerates from being destroyed (or taking lethal damage), it becomes tapped, has all damage marked on it removed, and gets removed from combat. Since it was removed from combat, you take no damage from the troll this turn.
Q: I exile my opponent's God-Eternal Oketra with my Duplicant. The opponent chooses to put Oketra 3rd from the top of their library using its built in ability. How big is my Duplicant?
A: It's just a 2/4. It was 3/6 for a very short period of time though.
We're gonna have a good time
Q: I know most tokens have a converted mana cost of zero. But do tokens that copy creatures, such as those made by Followed Footsteps also have a converted mana cost of zero?
A: You are correct that most tokens have a CMC of Zero. If a token is a copy of a something that has a mana cost, it copies that value. So I Followed Footstep enchanting a Serra Angel will make tokens with a mana cost of
(i.e. cmc of 5).Q: Last turn my opponent attacked me with Tolarian Kraken. On my turn I attempt to steal it using Enthralling Hold, but before it can resolve the opponent casts Opt, and pays the
to the Kraken's trigger to target itself and untaps. Do I still steal the Kraken?A: Yes. Enthralling Hold only required the target be tapped as you cast the spell, its fine if the target untaps before it resolves.
Q: My opponent controls a Serra Angel and a Teferi, Master of Time. On my turn, I Act of Treason my opponent's Angel, and attack his Teferi with it. The opponent responds by phasing out the Angel. When does the Serra Angel come back? Who controls it when it does?
A: The control effect will still end at the end of this turn. But things phase back in based on who controlled them when they phased out. Since the Angel phased out under your control, it will phase back at the beginning of your next untap step. The control effect has ended, so it will phase back in under your opponent's control.
Q: My opponent controls a Bear Cub. I cast Epiphany Storm enchanting the Bear Cub. During my opponent's turn, can I use the Epiphany Storm to tap the Bear, discard a card, draw a card, and prevent it from attacking this turn?
A: Nope. Because Epiphany Storm gives the ability to the Bear, the Bears controller is the only one who can activate the ability to discard and draw a card.
Q: I control Greater Good. I then cast Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. Before Uro dies to its enter the battlefield trigger, can I sacrifice it to Greater Good?
A: Yes, yes you can. You can even stack Uro's two triggers in such a way that you can either "draw a card put a land into play" before or after you "draw 6 and discard 3".
Q: In a two player game, I goad my opponent's creature, what happens?
A: If the only two players in a game are you and your opponent and you goad one of their creatures, that creature must attack and must attack you or a planeswalker you control.
Q: Someone told me if I control Kalamax, the Stormsire and cast Twincast, I can make infinite copies. Is this true, and if so how does it work?
A: Yes its true. If Kalamax is tapped, and you haven't cast any instants yet this turn, you can cast any sorcery and before it resolves you cast Twincast targeting the sorcery, this is where something strange happens.
Before the real Twincast can resolve, Kalamax makes a copy of the original Twincast. With this copy, you can change the target from the sorcery to the original Twincast. You then let the copy resolve. This makes another copy of Twincast, which you can again change its target to the original Twincast. You then let this new copy resolve. This makes another copy of Twincast.
I hope you see where this is going. You can now make any number of copies of Twincast this same way. You do technically have to choose a number, so lets make it 10,000 copies. On the last copy you will need to leave the target as the sorcery, which will mean you get 3 copies of the original sorcery (one for the actual copy, one for the real Twincast, and one for the last copy of Twincast) and a ridiculously large Kalamax for making over 10,000 copies this turn.
Well, gonna call that it for this week. Time to go find out if there is some cake waiting around for me. Until next week have a good time.
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