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Published on 08/06/2012

Summer Games

By Eli Shiffrin, Carsten Haese, and James Bennett
This Article from: Carsten Haese

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 Information in this article may be out of date due to subsequent Oracle and/or rules changes.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.

Greetings! It's August, and the Summer Olympics in London are in full force. Sadly, my favorite summer game — as well as fall, winter and spring game — Magic is still not an Olympic discipline. Maybe in 2016... Until then, there's lots of competitive Magic being played at Grand Prix events and on other tournament circuits, so at least there's plenty of competition to be watched on the Internet.

Whether you're playing in a tournament or just at the kitchen table, knowing the rules helps, and that's where we come in. If you have questions you'd like us to answer, please send them via email to moko@cranialinsertion.com or tweet them at @CranialTweet. One of our writers will get back to you as quickly as possible, and your question might even appear in a future issue.

Now, let's take a running jump and dive into this week's selection of questions!

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Q: With Leyline of Anticipation, can I cast Serra Avenger during my opponent's second turn?

A: Absolutely. Serra Avenger's casting restriction is only checked on your own turns. There's nothing stopping you from casting it during your opponent's second turn, so go ahead and assemble that Avenger!

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Q: I cast a Prototype Portal and imprint my Myr Superion. I don't have to use mana from creatures to produce Myr Superion tokens with the Portal, do I?

A: That's correct. The mana restriction on Myr Superion only applies to casting Myr Superion. You're not casting anything when you pay mana to activate Prototype Portal's ability, so the game has no reason to restrict you to mana from particular sources.

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Q: I'm confused about the interaction between Bonfire of the Damned and Divine Deflection. If my opponent casts Bonfire for 5 and I have two creatures, do I need to cast Divine Deflection for 5 or for 15 to save me and my creatures from the damage?

A: Divine Deflection prevents a total of X damage overall, not X damage per recipient. Bonfire deals 15 damage total, so if you want to prevent all that damage, you'd need to choose X=15.

However, you don't necessarily have to prevent all the damage to save your creatures and yourself from dying. Since all the damage is dealt at the same time, you can pick and choose which points of damage to prevent, so you can prevent more damage on the recipients that would die more easily and let the damage through to the recipients that can take it. For example, if you have a 5/5 and a 4/4, and your life total is 10, you can get away with choosing X=3 and just preventing 3 total damage: 1 on the 5/5 and 2 on the 4/4. The 5/5 will live with 4 damage marked on it, the 4/4 will live with 3 damage marked on it, and you will live with a life total of 5.

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Q: My opponent controls Vigor and Inferno Titan. I cast a kicked Comet Storm for 6 to deal 6 to Vigor and 6 to Inferno Titan. Does the Inferno Titan live?

A: The Titan lives. All of Comet Storm's damage is dealt simultaneously in one event. Before that event happens, replacement and prevention effects are applied to it. Since Vigor is still alive at this moment, it changes the 6 damage to the Titan into counters to be put on the Titan. Then the event happens, 6 damage is marked on Vigor, and six counters are put on Inferno Titan. Finally, state-based actions are checked and Vigor gets destroyed due to having lethal damage marked on it.

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Q: I'm rolling with a Zedruu Commander deck and my opponent has a bunch of non-token creatures and his commander out. Can I cast Infinite reflection on his commander and then give him the enchantment using Zedruu's ability while its on the stack so that all of his creatures legend rule themselves and his commander?

A: No, that plan doesn't work. While the enchantment is on the stack, it's a spell, not a permanent, so you can't target it with Zedruu's ability.

The alternative plan of letting the enchantment resolve first won't work, either, since the enter-the-battlefield ability is controlled by the player who controlled the Aura when it entered the battlefield. Even if you give it away in response to the enter-the-battlefield ability, that doesn't change the fact that it entered the battlefield under your control.

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Q: Since there is a single exile zone that both players use, can my opponent cast my Misthollow Griffin from exile?

A: Nope. While it's true that there is a single shared exile zone, the Griffin only allows "you" to cast it from there. When a card says "you," it means its controller, or its owner if it doesn't have a controller. Your exiled Griffin has no controller, but you still own it, so only you get to cast it from exile.

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Q: If I pay to activate Scion of the Ur-Dragon twice, and I resolve the top of the stack to make him into a Moltensteel Dragon, will the ability lower on the stack still change my Moltensteel Ur-Dragon into Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund?

A: Sure, the second (or rather, first) activation still resolves. The ability on the stack is independent from its source, so it doesn't matter that the Scion is no longer a Scion and doesn't have that ability anymore.

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Q: If you are in the middle of a Shahrazad subgame, can you Burning Wish for the Shahrazad you cast in the main game?

A: Yes, that works. Cards that are in the main game are outside the subgame, so you can wish for them. Since it already began to resolve, the Shahrazad that you wish for will still continue to resolve after the subgame has concluded, even though it's no longer on the stack at that time.

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Q: Can I tap an animated Celestial Colonnade to help pay for Propaganda to allow it to attack?

A: Oddly enough, yes, that's possible. The creature only needs to be untapped as you choose the attackers. Normally they'd become tapped before you get into paying costs, but thanks to vigilance, your Colonnade won't be tapped and you can tap it for mana when Propaganda asks you for payment!

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Q: If I activate Vampire Hexmage's ability to remove all counters from my Chronozoa, will the "sacrifice me" ability trigger?

A: Yup! Vanishing involves two triggered abilities. One triggers at the beginning of your upkeep, and tells you to remove a time counter from Chronozoa. The other triggers when the last time counter is removed, and tells you to sacrifice Chronozoa. That ability doesn't require that the counter came off as a result of the first trigger; it'll go off any time the last counter is removed, regardless of how or why the counter was removed.

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Q: I control a Chronozoa with two counters and I have three upkeeps thanks to Paradox Haze. As my turn rolls around, the Chronozoa splits in two during the second upkeep so that I controlled the two new ones since the beginning of the third upkeep. Can I attack with the new Chronozoa that turn?

A: Nope. Contrary to a popular misconception, the summoning sickness rule doesn't care at all about controlling the creature since the beginning of the upkeep. It checks whether you controlled the creature since the very beginning of the turn, which is usually the beginning of your untap step. Since you didn't control the Chronozoa then, they can't attack.

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Q: Does Precursor Golem interact with Switcheroo the way I hope it does?

A: Not unless you're hoping the answer is "not even a little bit." Precursor Golem's ability only triggers on spells that target a single Golem, which means it targets a single target and that target is a Golem. Since Switcheroo targets two targets, casting it won't trigger Precursor Golem's ability.

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Q: I control Bloodchief Ascension and my opponent cast a Dragon Fodder and Twincasts it. They both resolve and trigger my enchantment twice. Does it trigger a third time for the copy of Dragon Fodder?

A: Nope. Bloodchief Ascension only triggers when an actual physical card goes to an opponent's graveyard. The copied Dragon Fodder spell doesn't have a card representing it, so it doesn't have the physical substance needed to set off the trigger.

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Q: If a Fireball targets two creatures for 4 damage each and one of them leaves the battlefield in response, the remaining target gets all 8 damage instead of just 4. However, if I activate Living Inferno's ability to hit two creatures for 4 damage each and one goes away, the remaining creature only gets 4 damage. Is that right? If so, what's the difference?

A: Yes, that's correct. The difference lies in who or what does the dividing. In Living Inferno's case, you divide the damage, which means that you announce the division when the ability is activated, and the division is locked in at that point. In Fireball's case, the damage is divided evenly by the spell itself. There is no need for this division to be locked in on announcement, so the damage is only divided on resolution among the remaining legal targets.

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Q: If Merieke Ri Berit's ability is being copied by Dark Impostor, does it copy beyond the "Gain control of target creature" part? In other words, since it untaps normally, does the Impostor copy the part about destroying the creature if untapped?

A: Yes, the Impostor copies the entire activated ability, including the part that creates the delayed destruction trigger. You can tell the boundary between two separate non-keyword abilities by looking for a line break, and the only line break on Merieke is between the "doesn't untap" ability and the activated ability.

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Q: When Vampire Nocturnus enters the battlefield, can it be Lightning Bolted before the effect triggers?

A: Nope. Vampire Nocturnus has a static ability that's always on while its condition is met, and the top card of the library is revealed immediately as soon as Vampire Nocturnus enters the battlefield. There is no trigger involved, the ability does not use the stack, and nobody can respond to it.

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Q: So, here's a sticky situation that happened in our play group: Player A controls Stony Silence. Player B taps two lands and announces that he's equipping his Umezawa's Jitte on his Knight of the Reliquary, and player A points out that this is illegal because of Stony Silence. The game rules tell us that the illegal action should be rewound, but does that include untapping the lands?

A: Based on that description, yes. There is a concept in the Magic Tournament Rules, called Out of Order Sequencing, which basically says that we should not be overly concerned with the actual order in which a block of actions happens as long as the end result is clearly understood. Based on that philosophy I would rule that the lands were tapped as part of the equip activation regardless of the actual order in which the physical manipulation of cards happened in relation to the announcement of the equip ability. There would have to be a significant pause between the tapping and the equip announcement for me to rule otherwise.

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Q: Is it possible to play with artistically modified cards in sanctioned competitive events?

A: Altered art cards are permitted at the discretion of the Head Judge of the tournament. There are some guidelines in the tournament rules, but ultimately the Head Judge of the tournament has the authority to allow or disallow any specific altered card.

Since this is a judgment call made by the individual Head Judge, you shouldn't assume that being allowed in one tournament guarantees an altered card being allowed in another tournament. I have personally seen a Head Judge disallow altered cards in the middle of the tournament. The player had simply assumed that the cards were okay to use because they were never a problem before. Now the player had only 10 minutes to find four acceptable copies of Inkmoth Nexus to replace his altered ones. He failed and had to replace the altered Inkmoth Nexuses with basic lands, which made his deck significantly worse. If you don't want that happening to you, you should always check with the Head Judge before the tournament starts and be prepared to replace the altered cards with unaltered copies if necessary.

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Q: I've heard from a few people that some events allow for some use of "Proxy" Power Nine cards in decks; yet I haven't found any such information on the Wizards website. Is this just a rumor or are there some allowances for proxy Black Lotus cards?

A: As far as sanctioned events are concerned, that's a false rumor. Player-created proxies are strictly forbidden at sanctioned tournaments, and the use of counterfeit cards is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The Head Judge of a tournament can create a proxy if a card has been accidentally damaged during the tournament, but that proxy looks nothing like the real card and it can only be used for the remainder of that tournament.

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Q: What does a judge-issued proxy look like and how do I use it?

A: To issue a proxy, the Head Judge would usually take a basic land, preferably of a kind that isn't used by the player's deck, and use a marker to write the name, mana cost, and power/toughness of the card to be proxied on it. You then use it very much like a checklist card: While the card is hidden, for example in your library or in your hand, use the proxy. When the card enters a public zone, use the real card.

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I think there's some Volleyball on TV now, so I have to go. Please come back next week when James presents the next batch of Magic rules goodness. Until then, may you strive to run faster, jump higher, and be stronger!

- Carsten Haese

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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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