Published on 10/28/2024
Halloween Costume Ideas
By Carsten Haese, Nathan Long, and Justin Hovdenes
This Article from: Carsten Haese
Cranial Translation
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Be somebody new
Do a total transformation
Animal or mineral, too
Or even vegetation
Do a total transformation
Animal or mineral, too
Or even vegetation
Meanwhile, here at the Cranial Insertion offices we're handing out candy in the form of answers to your rules questions from our inbox. As always, if you have questions for us, you can email them to us at moko@cranialinsertion.com or tweet short questions to @CranialTweet. One of our writers will reply with an answer, and your question might even appear in a future article!
Q: Can Nesting Grounds move rad counters off of me?
A: I'm afraid not. Nesting Grounds can only move a counter from a permanent you control to another permanent. You are a player, not a permanent, so Nesting Grounds can't touch the rad counters that are on you.
Q: Let's say I control a Central Elevator // Promising Stairs whose left side is unlocked. If I use Copy Enchantment to copy it, does the copy's left side become unlocked, too?
A: No. The Copy Enchantment enters the battlefield with both rooms locked. Which halves are unlocked are designations of a permanent, and designations are not part of a permanent's copiable values. You can pay the usual costs to unlock the halves of the copy, but it'll start out with both halves locked.
Q: If I control Propaganda, does my opponent have to pay
to attack a planeswalker I control?A: No. Propaganda's attack cost only applies to creatures attacking you specifically. When a creature is declared as an attacker, its controller chooses what it attacks, and the game can easily tell the difference between a creature attacking you and a creature attacking a planeswalker you control. To tax creatures for attacking a planeswalker you control, the effect would have to say so explicitly, like Baird, Steward of Argive does.
Q: If I use Archway of Innovation to give my commander improvise, can I use improvise to pay the commander tax?
A: Absolutely. Improvise can help you pay for generic mana in the spell's total cost by tapping artifacts instead of paying mana. The total cost includes the commander's base cost (usually its mana cost) plus any cost increases and additional costs such as the commander tax.
Q: I control Harbinger of the Seas and my opponent plays Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth. My opponent claims that nonbasic lands are now both Islands and Forests, but I think that they're only Islands because Yavimaya itself is nonbasic. Who is right, and does the answer change if Yavimaya entered first?
A: You are right. Since Yavimaya is a nonbasic land, Harbinger of the Seas turns it into an Island, which removes Yavimaya's ability to turn any lands into Forests. The order in which Harbinger and Yavimaya entered doesn't matter. This is because Yavimaya's effect is dependent on Harbinger's effect, since both effects apply in the same layer and applying Harbinger's effect changes the existence of Yavimaya effect. Therefore, Harbinger's effect gets applied first regardless of the order in which the two permanents entered.
Q: I control a Toski, Bearer of Secrets that has Shifting Shadow attached to it. What happens in my upkeep with Shifting Shadow's ability if the revealed card is Phenax, God of Deception and I don't have enough devotion for it to be a creature?
A: Shifting Shadow's ability resolves and you do as much as possible. You start out by attempting to destroy Toski, which fails on account of Toski having indestructible. Then you reveal cards until you reveal a creature card, which is Phenax, so you put it onto the battlefield and then you try to attach Shifting Shadow to it. Attaching Shifting Shadow to it fails on account of Phenax not being a creature, so Shifting Shadow stays attached to Toski.
Q: When is the first opportunity for me to act during my opponent's turn? Do I have to wait for my opponent to do something to respond to, or can I act before my opponent does anything?
A: You can act during your opponents turn whenever you get priority. The turn begins with the untap step in which nobody gets priority, and in the upkeep step your opponent gets priority first. However, if they don't want to take an action in the upkeep step, they have to pass priority to you in order to get the game to move on to the draw step. If you pass priority without taking an action, the game moves on to the draw step, but you can take this opportunity to cast an instant or activate an ability before your opponent draws for the turn.
Best Halloween costume ever!
A: Not exactly forever, but possibly for quite a while. True Polymorph's effect doesn't have a duration, so it affects your brother's commander for as long as it remains on the battlefield. He can't simply choose to move it to another zone just because he wants to; he'll have to find some effect to move it off of the battlefield, such as a sacrifice outlet, a destruction spell, or some effect that can bounce, blink, or exile an artifact.
Q: At what point in time does Triskaidekaphobia's trigger check if a player has 13 life? When it triggers, when it resolves, or both?
A: The ability only checks life totals when it resolves. It triggers and goes on the stack at the beginning or your upkeep unconditionally regardless of whether any player has exactly 13 life. Some triggers have an "intervening if" clause that is sandwiched between the trigger condition and the ability, but Triskaidekaphobia is not one of those. In fact, it doesn't even have an if clause at all. It simply specifies criteria for which players get affected by its resolution. Anyway, this means that you can respond to the trigger to get your opponent's life total to exactly 13 just in time for them to lose the game to it.
Q: When They Came from the Pipes enters, do I draw in between the manifest dreads, or only after both manifest dreads?
A: The latter. While you resolve the enters ability and manifest dread twice, the "Whenever a face-down creature you control enters" ability triggers twice, but those abilities won't even go on the stack, let alone resolve, until after the enters ability has finished resolving. Then, the draw abilities go on the stack, and eventually they'll resolve and you draw two cards.
Q: If Undying Malice brings back a Fetid Gargantua, do I get to draw two cards due to the +1/+1 counter?
A: Absolutely. Entering the battlefield with counters on it counts as having those counters put on, so Fetid Gargantua's ability triggers and you get to draw two cards (and lose 2 life).
Q: If I use Sneak Attack to put a Clever Impersonator onto the battlefield and use it to copy my opponent's God-Pharaoh's Statue, do I still have to sacrifice it at the end of the turn?
A: I'm afraid so. When Sneak Attack's delayed trigger goes off at the beginning of the next end step and tells you to sacrifice "the creature", it is referring to the specific permanent that was put onto the battlefield with Sneak Attack's resolution, regardless of whether it's actually a creature at that time.
Q: My opponent attacks me with a 5/5 and I block it with a 1/1 Goblin token, and then I use Goblin Chirurgeon to regenerate the token. Does the 5/5 hit me?
A: Not unless it has trample. First off, regenerating your 1/1 does nothing visible at the time you activate the Chirurgeon's ability. It simply creates a regeneration shield on the 1/1, which is a replacement effect that applies the next time the 1/1 would be destroyed, which will happen in the combat damage step. The 1/1 deals 1 damage to the 5/5, mildly annoying it, and the 5/5 deals 5 damage to the 1/1, severely injuring it. State-based actions see a 1/1 that has 5 damage marked on it and want to destroy it, but that's when the regeneration shield kicks in an replaces the destruction with something else: The token gets tapped and removed from combat, and the damage marked on it is erased. The 5 damage from the 5/5 was dealt to your token, and there's no reason for it to be dealt to you.
I can be a sexy Doctor
A: No. Abilities of permanent cards generally only function on the battlefield. There are some exceptions to this, which are listed under rule 113.6, but none of those exceptions apply here, so The Twelfth Doctor only gives a spell demonstrate if he's already on the battlefield. While you're casting him, he's on the stack, so he doesn't give himself demonstrate.
Q: Can my opponent use Return the Favor to copy the "sacrifice a Snail" ability of my commander Wick, the Whorled Mind? How exactly does that work?
A: Well, they can't just copy it out of the blue, such as when Wick is just sitting in the command zone. However, Return the Favor can, among other things, target an activated ability on the stack. This means that if you just activated the ability, the ability on the stack is a valid target for Return the Favor, so your opponent can respond with Return the Favor and copy that ability. Their copy goes onto the stack above your original ability and will resolve first. Your opponent won't have to pay the activation cost for the copy, but the copy refers to the power of the Snail that you sacrificed to activate the original. The copy is controlled by your opponent, so it makes your Wick deal damage to your opponent's opponents — including yourself — and then your opponent draws some number of cards. If you survive the damage, your original ability resolves, dealing damage to your opponents and letting you draw some number of cards.
Q: If I cast Leaf-Crowned Elder with Descendants' Path's upkeep trigger, do I get the Elder's upkeep trigger, too?
A: No. Leaf-Crowned Elder's ability triggers at the beginning of the upkeep, and it wasn't on the battlefield when your upkeep began, so it missed its chance to trigger for this turn.
Q: In a commander game, my opponent's Grasp of Fate has exiled several permanents. If my opponent loses the game, what happens to the cards their Grasp of Fate exiled?
A: They'll return to the battlefield. At the time Grasp of Fate's enters ability resolved and exiled the permanents, it also set up the one-shot effect to return those permanents once it leaves the battlefield. When your opponent loses the game, their Grasp of Fate leaves the game, which means it leaves the battlefield and the exiled permanents get returned to the battlefield immediately. This is not done by a triggered ability, so it happens even though your opponent is no longer in the game at that time.
Q: If my opponent casts Wrath of God, can I respond with Ghostly Flicker on two creatures to save them from being destroyed?
A: No. Wrath of God doesn't lock in which creatures it will destroy. It simply destroys all creatures that have the misfortune of being on the battlefield at the time it resolves. Ghostly Flicker exiles the two creatures and immediately returns them to the battlefield as new creatures, so they are on the battlefield when Wrath of God resolves.
And that's all the time we have for today. Thanks for reading, please come back next week for more Magic rules Q&A, and Happy Halloween!
- 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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