Published on 07/19/2021
You See An Inn
By Carsten Haese, Nathan Long, and Justin Hovdenes
This Article from: Nathan Long
Cranial Translation
Deutsch
Español
Français
Italiano
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 Information in this article may be out of date due to subsequent Oracle and/or rules changes.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.
Welcome traveler! Don't worry,
we have a room for you tonight!
we have a room for you tonight!
But you, my fine reader, must have lots of questions about your latest adventure. We'll do our best to cover them below, but feel free to contact us if you have questions we didn't cover her. If you have a shorter question, send it to us via Twitter at @CranialTweet, but longer questions can be sent to us via e-mail at moko@cranialinsertion.com .
Q: So how exactly do I venture into the dungeon?
A: What, you'd thought we visit the Forgotten Realms and not explore a few dungeons while we're here?
Dungeons are a new card type, but you don't include them in your deck. They begin the game outside the game. When you venture into the dungeon for the first time, you choose one of the three dungeons currently available - Dungeon of the Mad Mage, Lost Mine of Phandelver, or Tomb of Annihilation - put that dungeon into the command zone, and go into the first room (the room at the top of the card). That will trigger the room ability stated on the card. Once you're in a dungeon, you stay in that dungeon until that dungeon is complete - you can't explore multiple dungeons at the same time. You also have equal access to all three dungeons when you venture into the dungeon - they're not going to take up space in your sideboard, for instance, and you're never going to need more than one dungeon card.
Each dungeon has their own unique path you can follow, and each room has its own benefits (or perils, if you decided to go into the Tomb of Annihilation). Each time you venture into the dungeon, you'll proceed to the next floor. Some floors may give you different options of which room to go into next, so the choice is yours, but since adventurers aren't cowards, they're not going to retreat (or go up a floor) in a dungeon they're already in. Once you get to the bottom of the dungeon, the dungeon is complete and is removed from the game. The next time you venture into a dungeon, you'll start a fresh dungeon - you could explore a new one, or you can go right back into the same dungeon you just completed.
Q: I'm currently adventuring in the Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and I go into Runestone Caverns. How long do I have to play the exiled cards?
A: You're playing them immediately or not at all. Runestone Caverns isn't giving you a time frame to play the the cards in, like "until end of turn", which means that you're playing those cards while the Cavern's ability is resolving or not at all. So if you want to wander into the Caverns, make sure you have mana available to cast anything you may be exiling, because you're only going to get one shot at playing those cards.
Q: I just wandered into the Tomb of Annihilation. Can I choose to go into Oubliette even if I don't have an artifact to sacrifice?
A: Sure, that's allowed. If you go into Oubliette, but don't control an artifact, you'll just do as much as possible. You'll still have to discard a card and sacrifice a land and a creature, but you won't be punished if you don't have an artifact to sacrifice.
Q: How do these new class cards, like Warlock Class, work?
A: They're a new enchantment subtype. While the physical card make them look like a saga, they actually behave more like level up cards.
So let's look at Warlock Class. When a class enters the battlefield, it will start on level 1, which means you have the level 1 ability active. This could be a static ability, or it could be a triggered ability. In this case, you have the triggered ability of the first level of Warlock Class.
During one of your main phases when the stack is empty, you can pay the cost to level up to level 2. When you do that, you move on to level 2, and in this case, a triggered ability will go on the stack. Moving up to level 2 doesn't remove any abilities from the class, so you still have the benefit of the trigger from level 1.
Now that you're level 2, you can now move on to level 3 (you can't skip levels - you can't just go from level 1 directly to level 3, you have to go to level 2 first, then to level 3). Once you've at level 3, you're maxed out and you're getting the full benefit of your class (in the case of Warlock Class, that means you have the triggers from levels 1 and 3 active).
Q: I control an Eccentric Apprentice and I've completed a dungeon. With the Apprentice's second triggered ability, I target my opponent's Yuan-Ti Fang-Blade. Does my opponent's Fang-Blade lose deathtouch?
A: Nope, it still has deathtouch. The Apprentice's ability says that it's a 1/1 Bird with flying, but it doesn't say anything about losing its abilities. So while your opponent's Fang-Blade is now a 1/1 Bird with flying, it still has deathtouch from its own ability, which might make it an even more dangerous blocker.
Q: If I tap my Swamp and sacrifice my Mimic for mana, then use that mana to cast Hired Hexblade, do I draw a card?
A: You do! While Mimic may not be what you traditionally think of as a "treasure", it does have the treasure subtype, so the mana from its activated ability is mana from a treasure source. Spending that mana to cast the Hexblade means that the Hexblade's enter the battlefield ability will trigger and you'll get to draw a card.
Q: If I cast Split the Party targeting my opponent, who chooses which creatures will be bounced?
A: You do. The Party doesn't say that the targeted player chooses the creature to be returned to their hand, so it will be you (the player who cast Split the Party) choosing which creatures will be bounced by the spell.
You always meet the strangest combination
of folks in your local watering hole.
of folks in your local watering hole.
Q: I control a Hulking Bugbear, a Leather Armor, and a Greataxe. I equip the Armor to my Bugbear, then cast Bruenor Battlehammer. Can I now equip my Bugbear with the Greataxe for free?
A: You can't. Bruenor doesn't need to be on the battlefield when you activate the first equip ability of the turn to know about it. Since you attached the Armor earlier in the turn, even though Bruenor wasn't on the battlefield yet, it knows that was your first equip activation of the turn, so you won't be able to attach the Greataxe for free that turn - you should have cast Bruenor first, then activated the ability of Greataxe for free before trying to attach the Armor.
Q: I control a Moon-Blessed Cleric that's enchanted by my opponent's Minimus Containment. Can I free my Cleric from Containment by targeting it with True Polymorph and making it a copy of a different creature?
A: Nope, you can't Polymorph yourself out of this trap, all thanks to layers. Copy effects, like True Polymorph, are applied in layer 1. But the effect from the Containment is applied in later layers than layer 1 (specifically, layers 4 and 6). While you're free to make the Cleric into a copy of another creature, that copy effect will still be overwritten by the effect from the Containment, and you'll still have a treasure instead of a normal creature.
Q: If I have an Inferno of the Star Mounts in play, do I have to activate its ability 14 times in order to deal 20 damage to a target, or can I use other spells and abilities to increase its power first?
A: You can take shortcuts by using other spells or abilities first. However, the Inferno's ability requires its activated ability to make its power 20 in order to get the other trigger. That means you can use other spells or abilities to get its power to 19, then activate the Inferno's ability to bring it to 20 and get the reflexive trigger, but raising it power to 20 or more, then activating its ability will not give you the trigger (since it only triggers if its power is exactly 20 after getting +1/+0 from its activated ability).
Q: I control The Book of Exalted Deeds. Can I animate my Faceless Haven, then activate the Book's ability targeting the Haven and still benefit from the ability given to the Haven by the Book once the turn ends?
A: You sure can! Once the Book's ability resolves, the targeted Angel will gain the static ability "You can't lose the game and your opponents can't win the game". Faceless Haven is all creature types, including Angel, so it's a legal target for the Book's ability if it's a creature. And nothing on the Book cares if the targeted Angel stops being a creature later on, so the Haven will keep the ability even after it stops being a creature. So now you'll have a hard to remove land that will stop you from losing the game (so just hope that your opponent isn't packing land removal, like Field of Ruin).
Q: Could I remove the counter from the Haven with Thornmantle Striker's ability to stop its ability from working?
A: No. While you're free to remove the counter from the Haven, the counter wasn't actually giving the Haven the ability. It's just a tracker so players can easily tell which creature is benefiting from the ability. Removing the counter from the Haven won't get rid of the ability that was given to it by the Book.
Q: So what happens if both me and my opponent have a Faceless Haven with the ability from The Book of Exalted Deeds? Who wins?
A: More than likely, it's going to be a draw. Players are free to agree to draw the game at any point. They don't have to agree to draw, but they do need to be advancing the game state and continuing to play at a reasonable pace. Eventually though, players are going to run out of cards in their library, and they're not going to be able to advance the game state anymore. At this point, if it was a tournament and they still haven't agreed to draw, the player or players who don't want to draw are going to start running into slow play issues, and those penalties are going to end the game. So if you ever reach this point and you know you can't deal with the opponent's Haven, it might be in your best interest to draw the game and move on to the next game.
Q: I control two untapped lands, a Ranger's Hawk, and a Llanowar Elves. Is it possible for me to activate the Hawk's ability?
A: Nope, you're going to end up a little bit short. The cost of activating the Hawk's ability is tapping the Hawk, paying three mana, and tapping an untapped creature you control. If you tap the Elves for mana, then it's not an untapped creature and can't be tapped as part of tapping an untapped creature you control. If you leave your Elves untapped so you can tap them, you only have access to two mana, not three, so you still can't pay the cost to activate the ability. You either need access to one more mana or another untapped creature to be able to activate the Hawk's ability here.
Q: I cast Mind Flayer. In response to its enter the battlefield trigger, I cast Momentary Blink on Mind Flayer. Does this let me steal two creatures?
A: Nope, you can still only steal one creature this way. If Mind Flayer leaves the battlefield before its enter the battlefield trigger resolves, the trigger does nothing since the condition of "for as long as you control Mind Flayer" ended before it could begin. Blinking Mind Flayer may protect it from a future removal spell, but it won't let you steal two creatures at the same time.
A perfectly normal adventurer, I'm sure.
Q: I control a Grand Master of Flowers with six loyalty counters on it. My opponent attacks it with a Colossal Dreadmaw. Before blockers are declared, I use the proliferate ability of Karn's Bastion to bring the Grand Master up to seven loyalty. What happens now?
A: Now that the Grand Master is up to seven loyalty counters, the Grand Master stops being a planeswalker and is a 7/7 creature with flying and indestructible. He's no longer a planeswalker, so he stops being attacked. However, the Dreadmaw is still an attacking creature (it just won't deal any damage in combat if it goes unblocked). But if the Grand Master is untapped, it could then block the attacking Dreadmaw. The Dreadmaw would then end up dealing damage to the Grand Master - but since the Grand Master is a creature, not a planeswalker, it's not going to lose any loyalty counters (and the Grand Mastery will deal 7 damage to the attacking Dreadmaw, ending with the death of the Dreadmaw).
Q: I control Volo, Guide to Monsters. If I cast a face down creature spell, do I get a copy of it?
A: You will, but it may not be all that you were hoping for. A face down creature has no creature types, so it can't share a type with anything else (even another face down creature), so Volo will trigger when you cast your face down creature. However, when you copy the face down creature, you'll get face up 2/2 with no name, creature types, color, etc. The copy is face up, not face down (since face up/face down isn't copible), so it can't be turned face up once it's on the battlefield, so you effectively have a generic 2/2 creature in play.
Q: I see there's a lot of cards that involve die rolling. Can I use a spindown, or am I required to use a d20?
A: At your kitchen table, feel free to use whatever agreed-upon method. However, if you're in a sanctioned tournament, you must use a d20, not a spindown. While we could spend half of this week's article going through all of the points on both sides, d20s just have a better random arrangement of numbers than a spindown (which puts all of the larger numbers on one side), so if you want to use a die-rolling card in your next tournament, make sure you have a d20 on hand.
Q: I'm in a game of planeschase. If I roll the planar die, will that cause Vrondiss, Rage of Ancients to trigger?
A: Yep, Vrondiss's last abiliy will trigger. Vrondiss cares if you roll a die during a game of Magic. Most of time, you're probably thinking of rolling a D20 (since those cards are all over the place in Adventures of the Forgotten Realms), but rolling the planar die also counts as rolling a die. So if you choose to roll the planar die on your turn, regardless of the outcome, Vrondiss will trigger and you can have him damage himself (and get a Dragon token).
Q: So how does rolling the planar die work with a card like Pixie Guide?
A: It doesn't work at all. The Guide's replacement effect won't apply to rolling the planar die. There's no numbers on a planar die, so there's no concept of "higher" or "lower" on a planar die. Since you can't roll lower than something on a planar die, Pixie Guide's replacement effect will not apply if you're rolling the planar die, only a numerical die.
Well, this week's session is over. Join us again next week for the next session in our campaign!
No comments yet.
