Published on 08/19/2024
Back to School, 7th Edition
Now With Basically The Same Foreword
By Carsten Haese, Nathan Long, and Justin Hovdenes
This Article from: Carsten Haese
Cranial Translation
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Time to hit the books!
Unlike at my child's college, here at the school of Cranial Insertion your education is still free, you don't have to buy expensive textbooks, and all our tests are open-book. If you have questions you'd like us to answer, please email them to moko@cranialinsertion.com or send short questions on X to @CranialTweet. One of our authors will send you an answer, and your question might appear in a future article to educate other readers like yourself.
Let's begin today's lesson!
Q: If I copy Jackdaw Savior with Phantasmal Image and sacrifice the Image, can it return itself to the battlefield since its mana value was 3 on the battlefield and it's 2 in the graveyard?
A: No. While it's true that Phantasmal Image's mana value in the graveyard is less than the mena value it had on the battlefield, you seem to be overlooking a crucial word in the targeting restriction for Jackdaw Savior's ability. That word is "another", which means that the ability can't target the card whose death triggered the ability.
Q: In a recent Commander game, player A cast Master Warcraft during my turn and instructed me to attack player B with all my creatures. I think that they can only tell me with which creatures to attack, but I still choose which player they attack. Who is right?
A: You are absolutely right. Master Warcraft only does what it says it does, and the relevant ability states that its controller chooses which creatures attack this turn. If it wanted to allow its controller to choose whom those creatures attack, it would have to say so.
Q: Let's say I left my commander in the graveyard so I could exile it to Corpse Explosion's additional cost. If I then choose to move my commander to the command zone from exile, will Corpse Explosion still deal damage equal to my commander's power?
A: Yup! Corpse Explosion looks at the information of the card that was used to pay the additional cost as it existed in the graveyard. Whether the card is still in exile at the time Corpse Explosion resolves is entirely irrelevant.
Q: I control Shaun & Rebecca, Agents and Nyxbloom Ancient. If I tap Shaun & Rebecca for mana, how many cards do I mill?
A: You'll mill six cards. The reflexive trigger in Shaun & Rebecca's ability triggers each time you add
during the resolution of the ability. Thanks to Nyxbloom Ancient, you add , which triggers the reflexive trigger three times, so you mill six cards in total. In case this matters to triggered abilities that look for cards going to the graveyard, this happens in three batches of two cards since there are three separate "mill two cards" triggers happening. Q: I control Generous Plunderer and Parallel Lives and choose to create a Treasure token with Generous Plunderer's upkeep trigger. How many tapped Treasures does my opponent get?
A: Your opponent gets two tapped Treasures for exactly the same reason as in the previous question. The reflexive trigger here triggers each time you create a Treasure token during the resolution of Generous Plunderer's upkeep ability. Since you created two Treasure tokens thanks to Parallel Lives, there are two separate triggers for giving a tapped Treasure to a target opponent. Since they are two triggers, they could even target different opponents if you're in a multiplayer game and give them one Treasure each.
Q: I control Virtue of Loyalty and my opponent controls Solemnity. Do my creatures still get untapped at the beginning of my end step even though they won't get +1/+1 counters?
A: Absolutely. "Those creatures" functions as a shorthand for the group of permanents that was established in the first sentence, namely "each creature you control." It doesn't matter whether any of those creatures actually received a +1/+1 counter.
Q: I control Shifting Woodland and there's a One with the Multiverse in my graveyard. If I activate Shifting Woodlands' Delirium ability twice to copy One with the Multiverse, can I cast two spells for free?
A: You can if you do it correctly and if at least one of those spells is an instant or has flash. You need to put two Delirium activations on the stack, let one resolve, and cast one spell for free using the ability that Shifting Woodlands gets from One with the Multiverse, while the other activation is still on the stack. After that spell and the other activation resolve, you can cast another spell for free. This is because the second resolution of the ability gives Shifting Woodlands a new instance of the "Once during each of your turns" casting permission that you haven't used yet.
At Cranial Insertion,
Knowledge is always free!
Knowledge is always free!
A: No, it triggers each time you cast a spell, so an opponent draws a card and a creature gets a +1/+1 counter for each spell you cast. The second resolution of the ability is special because you also get to draw two cards, but the ability keeps triggering for each spell you cast beyond the second spell.
Q: If I control Cauldron Familiar and Ygra, Eater of All, can I repeatedly sacrifice and return Cauldron Familiar to drain my opponent to death?
A: Not quite. You can't sacrifice Cauldron Familiar to its own "return from the graveyard" ability, since the ability only functions in the graveyard. However, you can do it if you have one Cauldron Familiar on the battlefield and one in the graveyard. In that case, you can sacrifice the one on the battlefield to return the other one from the graveyard, which gets them to switch places and you can repeat that as often as you like. Each time through the loop you'll drain your opponent for 1 life and, as a bonus, Ygra gets comically big in the process.
Q: If I use Chainer, Nightmare Adept's ability to cast Triarch Praetorian from the graveyard, does that trigger its Dynastic Codes ability?
A: No. That ability only triggers when Triarch Praetorian moves directly from the graveyard to the battlefield. This could happen for example with its unearth ability, but any effect that returns a creature card from the graveyard to the battlefield will do. With Chainer however, you're casting the card from the graveyard, which means it moves from the graveyard to the stack, and when it resolves it moves from the stack to the battlefield.
Q: Does Up the Beanstalk trigger when I flash back Ruthless Negotiation?
A: No. The mana value of a card is always derived from the mana cost that's printed on the card, not from how much you have spent, might spend, or will spend to cast it. Ruthless Negotiation's mana cost is
, so its mana value is 1 even if you cast it for 
. Q: My opponent controls a level 3 Innkeeper's Talent and casts Vraska, Betrayal's Sting for five mana and 2 life. They claim that Vraska enters with ten loyalty counters so that they can activate the -9 ability right away. Is that true?
A: Yes, that's true. As Vraska enters the battlefield, there are two applicable replacement effects that want to modify how Vraska enters the battlefield. The compleated ability wants to reduce the number of loyalty counters by two, and Innkeeper's Talent's ability wants to double the number of loyalty counters on Vraska. As Vraska's would-be controller, your opponent chooses the order in which those two replacement effects apply. It's perfectly legal to choose the doubling effect first and the compleated effect second, resulting in Vraska entering the battlefield with ten loyalty counters. Also note that because of Innkeeper's Talent, the resolution of Vraska's -9 ability will kill you unless you happen to be on exactly nine poison counters at that time.
Q: If I control Chains of Mephistopheles and cast Dark Deal, what happens?
A: A lot of milling will happen, probably. Dark Deal instructs each player to discard their hand and draw as many cards as they discarded minus one. If you had five cards in your hand, Dark Deal instructs you to draw four cards, but Chains of Mephistopheles applies to each one of those draws. Since your hand is empty on account of having discarded your hand to Dark Deal, you can't discard a card to Chains' replacement effect, so each card draw gets replaced by milling a card instead. In the end, each player discards their hand and then mills that many cards minus one.
Moko is here to help,
but don't try to talk to him before lunch.
but don't try to talk to him before lunch.
A: Trample changes the rules for damage assignment, and it doesn't care about any replacement effects that might alter how the damage ends up getting dealt. You need to assign "lethal damage" to the blocker before you can assign any trample damage to your opponent. Lethal damage is simply the blocker's toughness minus any damage that's already marked on it and any damage being assigned to it at the same time by other attackers. (The latter deduction is almost never relevant, but I feel compelled to mention it for the sake of completeness.) In this case, "lethal damage" is 3, so you assign 3 damage to the blocker and 1 damage to your opponent. When the damage is dealt, 3 gets doubled to 6 and the blocker is super dead, and the 1 damage to your opponent gets doubled to 2 damage.
Q: If I use Narset, Enlightened Master to cast Call the Coppercoats, can I target multiple opponents for free?
A: No. "Without paying their mana cost" doesn't mean "without paying any mana whatsoever." Narset's ability only waives the mana cost of the card, which is
for Call the Coppercoats. The additional strive cost still must be paid if you choose more than one target. Q: I control Kudo, King Among Bears and a Door of Destinies set to Bear. If I cast something that's not normally a Bear, for example Ornithopter, does the Door get a charge counter?
A: No. Kudo's ability only affects creatures on the battlefield. It does not affect creature cards in other zones or creature spells on the stack, so your Ornithopter is not a Bear spell and won't trigger the Door's ability.
Q: I used Gonti, Lord of Luxury to cast my opponent's Heaven Sent. When Heaven Sent's final chapter goes off, who gets to cast it from exile?
A: You controlled Heaven Sent, so you control its ability and you get permission to cast it from exile during the current turn. However, note that you'll have to pay the actual cost to cast it, so you might have difficulty coming up with the necessary mana if you're playing Commander and Gonti is your commander. If you don't (or can't) cast Heaven Sent, it'll remain in exile indefinitely.
Q: I control Scute Swarm and five lands. When I play my sixth land, does Scute Swarm make a 1/1 Insect or a copy of itself?
A: It'll make a copy of itself. Scute Swarm's landfall ability checks as it resolves how many lands you control at that time. You control six lands now, so Scute Swarm makes a copy of itself instead of a plain 1/1 Insect token.
And that's it for today's lesson. Thanks for reading, and please come back next week for more Magic rules questions and answers.
- 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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