Published on 08/20/2012
We Will Be Heroes
or, Yes, Hero of Bladehold Gets Exalted
By Eli Shiffrin, Carsten Haese, and James Bennett
This Article from: Eli Shiffrin
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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 Information in this article may be out of date due to subsequent Oracle and/or rules changes.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.
We will wear armor, though.
Meanwhile, the questions continue - M13 seemed nice and easy, but there's plenty going on beneath the surface filling up our inbox every day.
Got your own questions? Toss them over to moko@cranialinsertion.com or send us a tweet to @CranialTweet!
Now, as to this week's eponymous question:
Q: Can Hero of Bladehold ever profit from exalted?
A: Yes, it sure can. Things that trigger "whenever a creature attacks," and such various permutations such as "whenever a creature attacks alone," trigger based on the declaration of attackers.
That's it. Nothing else. The number of creatures currently attacking doesn't matter; creatures that are later put onto the battlefield attacking won't matter. They won't stop the trigger from triggering, and they won't stop it from resolving.
Q: I cast Restoration Angel and want to bounce my Blade Splicer that's paired with Wolfir Silverheart. Can I pair the Silverheart with the Angel now?
A: Nope. At the time that your Angel enters, the Silverheart is paired. Due to its intervening if clause, it won't trigger at all, even if you make the if condition true later on. You can tell intervening if clauses because they'll be "Trigger condition, if condition, action" as opposed to "Trigger condition, action if condition."
Q: My opponent's at 8 and casts Sorin's Vengeance, so I Redirect it back to him. Does he die?
A: He won't. Players can survive at 0 or less life only in some very, very tiny windows: the time while a spell or ability is resolving is such a window. State-based actions aren't checked here, so nothing sees the player as losing the game for having 0 life, and he'll be back up at 8 by the time state-based actions are checked.
Q: My opponent casts Virulent Wound on my Inkmoth Nexus, so I Mutagenic Growth it in response. Does it die at the end of turn?
A: It'll survive. It stops being a creature and loses the +2/+2 at the same time, and then it's a land with a -1/-1 counter on it. As long as you don't do something silly like animate it again, it'll sit there sulking and producing mana for you.
Q: My three Strangleroot Geists all die at once, and my opponent has Mimic Vat. He says he can stop them all from coming back. Is he right?
A: If it's your turn, he sure can. If it's his turn, your undying triggers will resolve first, and you'll get them back safe and sound before any of his Vat triggers can resolve at all.
But on your turn, he can resolve one Vat trigger and exile the Geist, then resolve the next and put the first one into your graveyard, and then repeat for the third one. Since they changed zones, they're brand new objects now, and the undying triggers can't find them.
The more things flicker,
the more they raise questions.
the more they raise questions.
A: You sure can! Similar to the Geists above, Gideon is a brand new planeswalker after he leaves and comes back, with no memory of his previous existence. This brand new Gideon hasn't had a loyalty ability activated this turn, so you can activate one now.
Q: Can Mental Misstep counter a miracled Bonfire of the Damned?
A: Only if X is 0. The value of X is the same everywhere on the card, and the converted mana cost is only based on the mana cost. The mana cost is
, so the CMC is X+X+1. It matters absolutely not at all that you're paying an alternate cost.Q: My opponent has Bridge from Below in his graveyard and Leyline of the Void on the battlefield. If my token creature dies, will it blow up the Bridge?
A: It sure will - a creature you control just died. This is pretty dang weird. The Leyline only exiles cards, and a token is never a card; most players try to just move everything to exile, and tokens do cease to exist after going to the yard, but they do go there and trigger Bridge from Below!
Q: If I choose to dredge Golgari Grave-Troll but my opponent has Leyline of the Void, do I actually get my Troll back? Dredge says that I may mill, and if I do, I get it back, but I didn't actually mill.
A: What you actually do doesn't matter. You made the choice to mill yourself to pick up the Troll, so that's what you'll do. If some of that sequence of actions is replaced, well, you already committed to doing it.
Q: Does Omniscience pay for my buyback and kicker and such?
A: Omniscience only covers the mana cost. For additional costs, you'll have to cover them on your own.
Q: Is controlling only two Demonic Taskmasters awesome or horrible?
A: It's pretty horrible. Both trigger, and when one trigger resolves, you sacrifice the other. When the other's trigger resolves, you sacrifice the one left. Cards referring to themselves by name mean "this object," not "anything with the same name," and removing the source won't remove the trigger.
Q: Does Arcane Melee add 2 to the X I choose for Bonfire of the Damned?
A: Kind of, sort of. You don't pay X and use that value to determine damage; you choose a value for X and pay that much (plus a red mana, and assuming you're casting it as a miracle). If you choose X to be 6, then you pay
-
for a total of 
for 6 damage.Q: Will two -1/-1 counters on Baron Sengir get rid of one of his +2/+2 counters so it can't be proliferated?
A: No, because the Baron is just that awesome.
Oh, wait, the rules don't work by how awesome legendary creatures are. Hrmph.
No, because only +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters annihilate each other. No other counters, even if they effectively neutralize each other, are removed this way.
Being a hero means that
you get a life, right?
you get a life, right?
A: When multiple players are going to draw cards at the same time, first the player whose turn it is does all of his draws, and then you go around the table in turn order. When you get to your turn to draw, everyone else will discard instead. Anyone who drew before you can (or will have to!) discard those cards; anyone who hasn't drawn yet will discard only what was in hand before, or one or no cards if that player had fewer than two cards in hand.
Q: Can I Cloudshift a token creature since it'll come back before state-based actions nuke it?
A: State-based actions won't nuke it as soon as it's gone, but rule 110.5g taunts it mercilessly. That's the rule that says that a token that's left the battlefield can't go anywhere else, no matter what. So the token is stranded in exile, and then it ceases to exist when state-based actions are checked later on.
Q: If I give my Bloodfire Colossus infect and sac it, will all that damage be infect damage?
A: It'll cause a big, massive, plague-level infection. Infect uses the last known information of the source of damage, and just before the Colossus left, it had infect.
Q: I've got my opponent Mindslavered, and I want to make him crash Geist of Saint Traft into my critters. Can I choose for him to forget the lapsing make-an-Angel trigger?
A: Putting a trigger on the stack isn't a choice. It has to happen. Lapsing triggers deal with what happens when the rules are violated and we have to fix a broken situation. Choosing to break the rules, though, is Fraud, plain and simple. It gets you removed from tournaments and possibly suspended.
Q: My friend says that cheating at an FNM, like filching extra cards or stacking your deck, isn't a penalty since it's only FNM. Is there really no penalty for that?
A: Cheating is cheating at FNM as well as at PTQs and GPs. It's possibly more despicable at FNM since there isn't even a big prize on the line! Who cheats over a couple packs?
The things described as Cheating or Unsporting Conduct with a DQ penalty in the Competitive/Professional-REL Infraction Procedure Guide are listed in the Regular REL Judging at Regular document as "Serious Problems" that must result in a Disqualification. Don't do them there, either.
Q: Can I cast Akroma, Angel of Fury face down from the command zone? Does it always cost
? A: You can cast it face down, since you're casting it normally, just from a weird zone. But the commander tax still applies to casting it with an alternate cost, so you'll have to pay more and more to cast it again, but only the same amount to turn it face up later. I'm sure your opponents will be surprised.
Q: Can two players in a Commander game use the same commander?
A: Sure, there's nothing in the rules about that. If you're participating in a league or a group game, you might want to ask if everyone's okay with that, though. While the rules don't forbid it, Commander is a casual format and the rules hold only tentative sway over it.
Q: I saw a player clearly say "Phantasmal Image, copying Delver of Secrets" - he had both a Delver and Insectile Aberration out. His opponent attacked with his own Aberration, he blocked with the Phantasmal Delver, and both players happily put their creatures into the yard. Is that a problem?
A: If both players agree on what happened, and the outcome is legal, we don't tend to care as judges. Magic isn't a gotcha game of wordplay; it's about choices and actions. So if both players believe the Image actually copied a transformed Delver, play it that way, and don't see a need to call a judge complaining about it, it's fine.
Q: What does it mean for a card to be "on the reserved list"? Is that like being banned?
A: The reserved list has nothing at all to do with gameplay or deckbuilding. It's a list of cards that Wizards of the Coast has promised never to reprint. It's undergone some changes - for a while, promo cards could be printed for the cards on the list - but it's been around for a long time.
It's time for us heroes and thieves to ride off into the sunset for this week, but we'll be back next week when Carsten brings us more questions, and possibly another rules-tip-title - that Bonfire/Misstep question sure is making rounds lately.
Until next time,
- Eli Shiffrin
About the Author:
Eli Shiffrin is currently in Lowell, Massachusetts and discovering how dense the east coast MTG community is. Legend has it that the Comprehensive Rules are inscribed on the folds of his brain.
...oh wait, i\'ve heard \'blink\' too!
Last edited on 2012-08-20 07:57:51 by reidan