Published on 12/07/2020
Banned, But Not Forgotten.
By Carsten Haese, Nathan Long, 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 Information in this article may be out of date due to subsequent Oracle and/or rules changes.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.
What did I do wrong?
Today we will be honoring the fallen ones, those removed from tournament play. Some for making games last too long, others for enabling combos, and almost all for just being brrrrokkkan!
If you have any questions about broken magic cards (or I suppose even fair ones), don't hesitate to send us a tweet @CranialTweet, or for the more in-depth questions an email to moko@cranialinsertion.com .
Q: It's currently my main phase, I currently have more than 10 cards in my graveyard and my opponent controls Deathrite Shaman. I cast Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and my opponent Counterspells it. Can I escape Uro, before my opponent can exile Uro from my graveyard with Deathrite?
A: Yes, you can. As its your turn, you get first priority after each spell resolves. Escaping a spell, is casting it, so as part of casting Uro, you move him from the graveyard to the stack. This only really works because its during your main phase, since you can only escape Uro any time you could normally cast him as a creature.
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath: Banned in Standard
Deathrite Shaman: Banned in Modern & Legacy
Q: If I Quicken Escape to the Wilds during my opponent's turn, can I play a land during their turn?
A: You can not. There is a rule in Magic that says you can never play a land during an opponents turn. This rule is 305.3. (A player can't play a land, for any reason, if it isn't their turn. Ignore any part of an effect that instructs a player to do so.)
An important note: Putting a land onto the battlefield (such as Growth Spiral) is different than playing a land.
Escape to the Wilds: Banned in Standard
Q: I have at least 10 cards in my graveyard, one being Bonecrusher Giant. After casting Underworld Breach, can I escape the Stomp part of Bonecrusher?
A: Yes, you can. You just have to pay all the normal costs associated with Stomp plus exile 3 cards.
Underworld Breach: Banned in Pioneer & Legacy
Q: I control a Leyline of Abundance, two 1/1 Elf tokens, and Heritage Druid. If I tap all 3 elves to make
, do I get an extra or extra because of Leyline of Abundance?A: This is going to make you very sad. You get no extra mana. Leyline of Abundance only works with abilities that involve the tap symbol and only with those abilities that originate on a creature. As an example tapping Llanowar Elves with its own ability works with Abundance, but taping Llanowar Elf for Springleaf Drum doesn't because the Drum is not a creature.
Leyline of Abundance: Banned in Pioneer
Q: I attack my opponent with Smuggler's Copter crewed by a 1/1 saproling, a self animated Mutavault, and a 4/4 Beast token. Before blocks, my opponent casts Mirrorweave targeting the Mutavault. When that resolves, what do my creatures look like, and how much damage do I deal if they all go unblocked?
A: So this is a fun layers question.
So lets start with the easy one, the Mutavault is uneffected since Mirrorweave doesn't change it, so it looks the same and deals its normal 2 damage.
The beast token, turns into an unanimated mutavault, that is not attacking, not a creature, and will deal no damage this turn.
The Copter however does something very strange. It becomes a mutavault thats being animated by the crew ability. The crew ability looks at the bottom right of the card to define the power & toughness and finds no info there, so it substitutes nothing with 0/0 and gets put into the graveyard (and obviously deals no damage this turn).
Smuggler's Copter: Banned in Pioneer
Q: My opponent controls Narset, Parter of Veils and I cast Faithless Looting. Do I still have to discard two cards even though I only drew one?
A: It's actually slightly worse than you think. Since Faithless Looting is a sorcery, you should have already drawn one card this turn during your draw step. When you resolve Faithless Looting, you will draw no cards from it, than have to discard two cards. If you only have one card or no cards, you must discard as many as you can.
Faithless Looting: Banned in Modern
Narset, Parter of Veils: Restricted in Vintage
Q: Why does Thespian's Stage work with Dark Depths but Vesuva does not?
A: Both cards copy lands, but do so in different ways. Vesuva enters the battlefield as a copy of a land, and Stage already on the battlefield than becomes a copy of a land.
The big difference is, Vesuva gets to be effected by abilities that effect how the copied land enters the battlefield and triggers its enters the battlefield triggers. For some lands this is great, such as being able to choose a creature type for Cavern of Souls or having counters to use with Gemstone Mine.
Stage however, isn't a copy of the land until after its been on the battlefield a while, so it misses out on those things. For some lands this is great, such as having no counters as a copy of Dark Depths or not having to bounce a land back to your hand with Dimir Aqueduct.
Dark Depths: Banned in Modern
Q: My opponent is trying to attack me with two token copies of Tarmogoyf made by the same Splinter Twin enchanting his real Tarmogoyf. He says he can make one at the end of my turn and make one on his turn. It says the tokens go away at end of turn, so I don't get it. Is he right?
A: He is correct, if he does it correctly. Splinter Twin's tokens get exiled at the beginning of the next end step. If during your turn, he activates the splinter twin creature during your beginning of end step phase, its too late for the trigger to remove the token during your turn, so it will wait to exile it during the next player's beginning of end step (this will be his turn in a two player game). Then on his turn he untaps the creature with splinter twin and activates it again and can now attack with two tokens. Then at the beginning of his end step, both tokens get exiled.
Splinter Twin: Banned in Modern
Q: My opponent controls Trinisphere and I want to cast the Treasure Cruise in my hand for
and delving 7 cards. If I try to do this, will I still need to pay 
more because of Trinisphere?A: You can do so and don't have to pay a Trinisphere penalty! Delving is paying a cost as far as Trinisphere is concerned. So when you pay one blue mana and delve 7, Trinisphere sees you paying 8 mana so your golden. This is also true of the abilities Convoke & Improvise.
Treasure Cruise: Banned in Modern, Legacy, and Pauper
Treasure Cruise: Restricted in Vintage
Trinisphere: Restricted in Vintage
Q: I control a Blood Moon and my opponent controls a Great Furnace, can I still Shatter the furnace?
A: You can still destroy it for being an artifact. When Blood Moon turns a nonbasic land into a mountain, the land keeps any Super types it had such as Legendary and Snow and it also keeps Normal types like Artifact or Creature. It does lose Sub types like Locus or Island.
Great Furnace: Banned in Modern
Cloudpost: Banned in Modern & Pauper
Mystic Sanctuary: Banned in Pauper
Tolarian Academy: Banned in Legacy & Commander
Tolarian Academy: Restricted in Vintage
Q: I control two 1/1 green elf tokens put onto the battlefield this turn and have 5 cards in my graveyard. Can I cast Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis from my hand this turn?
A: Yes, you can. You can pay Convoke costs with creatures affected by "summoning sickness".
Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis: Banned in Modern
Q: Its currently my opponents turn and I'm at 3 life. I control a Mana Crypt and Sage of Lat-Nam that is currently affected by "summoning sickness". Is there a way on my upcoming turn to use Sage to get rid of the Crypt so I don't have to take a chance of killing myself?
A: Sadly, no. By the time you get priority in your turn to activate the sage, the Crypts trigger will already be on the stack during your upkeep. Even if you sacrifice the crypt before it's trigger resolves, the trigger will still fully resolve and has a chance of bolting you.
Mana Crypt: Banned in Legacy
Mana Crypt: Restricted in Vintage
Q: I have just cast Time Walk and before it resolves my opponent casts Nexus of Fate in response. Supposing both resolve as is. Whose turn is next?
A: The most recent extra turn wins. Your opponent, likely made a mistake here by responding, instead of waiting for your Walk to resolve. Assuming no more extra turns are played, you will get the next turn because Time Walk resolved most recently, than the opponent will get the following turn because of Nexus, after this the turns will return to the normal order, meaning your opponent gets the turn after that.
Nexus of Fate: Banned in Pioneer
Time Walk: Banned in Legacy & Commander
Time Walk: Restricted in Vintage
Q: I control Platinum Angel and then cast Channel. Do I have access to infinite mana?
A: You do not. You can only get as much colorless mana as you currently have life. Channel requires you pay one life for each one mana you get, and once your at Zero life you can no longer pay life as you have none.
Channel: Banned in Legacy & Commander
Q: Can my Strip Mine destroy itself?
A: No, but sort of. The Strip Mine can target itself with its ability. Since targets are chosen before costs are paid, this works within the rules. Once the ability is fully put on the stack, the land is long gone, so when it goes to resolve the ability is removed from the stack for lack of target. In more precise language, the Strip Mine sacrificed itself, not destroyed itself.
Strip Mine: Banned in Legacy
Strip Mine: Restricted in Vintage
I'm kinda of a product of an age long past.
Q: If I use Flash to put Walking Ballista on the battlefield, does it come in with one +1/+1 counter and do I have the ability to pay extra mana to make it bigger yet?
A: You get a 0/0 with no counters and you can't increase its size. Flash does have you pay an amount of mana equal to its mana cost minus up to 2 less, but your not actually casting the creature.
Walking Ballista: Banned in Pioneer
Flash: Banned in Legacy & Commander
Flash: Restricted in Vintage
Q: So yeah, how does Shahrazad work?
A: Each player sets aside the current game and takes their current library to be their deck in the subgame. The subgame will be started like any normal game of that format, except its likely players library will be below the normal card minimum. Commanders in command zones move to the subgame command zone. Archenemy decks (but not any current schemes) move into the subgame. Planechase decks move from the main game to the subgame (but not the current revealed plane). Vanguards move from main game to subgame. Each player whose library in the subgame that has less than 7 cards losses the subgame immediatly, you may take normal mulligans in the subgame if your library starts with 7 or more cards. Counters on players (such as poison or energy) are tracked separately between main game and subgame. When a subgame ends, all cards each player owns in the subgame (including cards in the subgames exile zone) that isn't in the command zone, gets shuffled into what becomes that players main game library. Commanders in the subgame command zone move to the command zone of the main game. Vanguards move to the main game. All archenemy cards (reavealed or in the deck) in the subgame get shuffled together and become the main games archenemy deck. The planechase cards work the same way as archenemy cards. Then each player that didn't win, losses half their life in the main game.
Shahrazad: Banned in Legacy, Vintage, & Commander
Q: In a two headed giant game, if I control 3 creatures, my teammate controls 5 creatures, one opponent controls no creatures, and the last opponent controls 2 creatures, if some one cast Biorhythm what happens?
A: Two-head giant has a special rule that takes precedence whenever all player's life totals are set at the same time. Each team chooses one player on their side then the teams life total becomes equal to the life of just the chosen player. In this case, your side can choose you for 3 life or your partner for 5 life. While your opponents can choose 0 or 2 respectively.
Biorhythm: Banned in Commander
Q: Why is Trade Secrets banned in commander?
A: I would say mostly because of Commander pods at a Magic Fest and other big events. Two unscrupulous players who are friends could join a pod of two random other players and have a plan to both play said card and always target each other with it so they can each draw as many cards as they need to defeat the other two players. After which they could either play it out for the win, or just draw the match splitting the prize and move onto the next pod. This is something that happened at larger events until it was banned.
Trade Secrets: Banned in Commander
Q: My opponent casts The Great Aurora and because of the Great Aurora I'm now putting 4x Islands and one Mystic Sanctuary onto the battlefield. Does the Sanctuary enter tapped?
A: It does enter the battlefield tapped. The Sanctuary will only count Islands already on the battlefield, not those entering at the same time as it.
Mystic Sanctuary: Banned in Pauper
We have memorialized those we have lost. They live on in our hearts and in our memories of games long since past.
See you all next week.
- Justin Hovdenes AKA Hovey
Level 2 Magic Judge
Rapid City, SD
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