Published on 01/21/2013
At the End of the Day
By Eli Shiffrin, Carsten Haese, and James Bennett
This Article from: James Bennett
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 Information in this article may be out of date due to subsequent Oracle and/or rules changes.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.
Do you hear the people sing?
And remember that if you've got rules questions, you can send them to us by using the handy "Email Us" button, by sending an email to moko@cranialinsertion.com , or by tweeting at @CranialTweet, all of which will get you answers and possibly even get your question featured in a future article.
Q: If my opponent casts Ravenous Rats, and I choose to discard Loxodon Smiter, does it go to my graveyard, or can I put it onto the battlefield?
A: It'll be smiting time! Loxodon Smiter cares about only one thing: who controls the spell or ability that causes the discard. It doesn't care who actually chooses the card that will be discarded. And since your opponent controls Ravenous Rats and its trigger, the Smiter will go to the battlefield instead of your graveyard.
Q: My opponent's playing a white/black Smallpox deck, and sacrificed Flagstones of Trokair to Smallpox. Then he used the trigger from Flagstones to get a Godless Shrine and paid 2 life to have it enter the battlefield untapped. I thought that didn't work?
A: You thought right! There are two effects trying to make the Shrine enter tapped: one from Godless Shrine itself, and one from Flagstones of Trokair. Paying 2 life gets him out of the first one, but not the second, so it still comes in tapped.
Q: If I open up, say, a Breeding Pool at the Gatecrash prerelease, can I play it in a Modern tournament the next day? Or do I have to wait for the official release?
A: You can! Breeding Pool is a Modern-legal card, so any printing of it you can get your hands on is legal for play in Modern (legality is based on the card name, not on the specific expansion a particular piece of cardboard came from, which is why you can also play Beta Lightning Bolts and Stronghold Mana Leaks in Modern — Beta and Stronghold aren't Modern-legal sets, but cards with those names appear in Modern-legal sets). Just don't try to play that Breeding Pool in Standard until Gatecrash officially releases, since no Standard-legal set will contain a card of that name until release day.
Q: I've noticed some cards are worded "Do X. Do Y." and others are worded "Do X, then do Y." Does that mean the cards work differently?
A: Nope. The specific types of wordings that cards use (called "templates") are largely chosen for their rules effects, but sometimes multiple templates accomplish the same thing, and one will be chosen because it reads more clearly for the specific card it'll appear on. And whenever you're resolving a spell or ability, you just follow the instructions in the order they're written, so either way you're doing to do X, followed by doing Y.
Q: If I've got a Prison Term on the battlefield, and my opponent casts some nasty hexproof creature like Geist of Saint Traft, can I still have Prison Term attach to it?
A: While I'm not sure exactly how you put a ghost in prison, this works. Hexproof only says you can't target the creature, and unless a spell or ability uses the actual word "target" (or uses a keyword whose definition includes the word "target"), it's not doing any targeting. Which means that Prison Term doesn't target, and its ability can even attach it to a hexproof creature.
I dreamed a dream...
A: Yup. Your earliest chance to activate the Guildmage is his upkeep step, after he's passed priority to you. And he can either activate Deathrite Shaman first (since he got priority before you did in his upkeep) or activate in response to the Guildmage's ability. Either way, the activation happened before the Shaman got detained, and detain won't counter or un-activate it; it'll just prevent the Shaman from being re-activated later.
Q: If I use Jace, Architect of Thought's last ability, how long do I have to decide to cast the cards I got with it?
A: Not long at all, really. Whenever an effect gives you some kind of special permission to cast a card, it can do one of two things. It can specify a duration (like "you may cast... this turn"), in which case that's how long you get. Or it can specify no duration, which means you either cast immediately, at that moment, or not at all.
Q: How does Everlasting Torment interact with creatures that have infect? Do they still give poison counters to my opponent, or just deal normal damage?
A: They'll be just as poisonous as ever! Dealing damage "as though" it had wither just means you figure out the result as if the creature had wither in addition to its other abilities. And wither doesn't change the result of damage to a player; it just does its thing (affecting the result of damage to a creature), and gets out of the way of anything that wants to change how damage gets dealt to players. So infect still causes that damage to be dealt in the form of poison counters.
Q: I have a Fellwar Stone and there's a Ritual of Subdual in play. What kind of mana can Fellwar Stone produce?
A: It can't produce mana at all! When you look to see what colors your opponents' lands could produce, the answer is "none" since Ritual of Subdual says they'll only produce colorless (when you determine what they could produce, you take replacement effects into account). And since there is no color they could produce ("colorless" isn't a color), there's no mana Fellwar Stone can produce.
Q: If my commander is Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, can I play Command Tower in my deck? What will it tap for?
A: Color identity is determined by the mana symbols on the card, plus any color indicators. Command Tower doesn't have any colored mana symbols on it, and doesn't have a color indicator, so it's legal to play in an Ulamog Commander deck. But it won't produce any mana, since Ulamog doesn't have any colors in its color identity.
Q: If I cast Thundermaw Hellkite and my opponent (who's at 4 life) responds with Faith's Shield to give his creatures protection from red, what happens?
A: Protection stops four things: damage, enchanting/equipping, blocking and targeting. Thundermaw Hellkite's ability tries to deal damage to each of your opponent's flying creatures, but protection from red will prevent that. Protection from red doesn't stop the Hellkite from tapping them, though; whenever a resolving spell or ability runs into something it can't do, it just does the things it can do (a targeted ability would get completely countered for having all its targets become illegal, but the Hellkite doesn't target the creatures it taps).
Q: If I'm being attacked by a bunch of creatures and activate Security Blockade's ability, does it only prevent 1 damage, or 1 per creature? And if it's only 1 damage, how do we decide which creature's damage gets prevented?
A: Security Blockade doesn't say it prevents 1 damage per creature; it just says it prevents 1 damage, so that's all it does. And if multiple sources are dealing damage to you simultaneously, you get to choose which 1 damage out of that will be prevented.
Q: If my opponent has Leyline of Anticipation, can I use Dispel on any of his spells?
A: You'll still only be able to use it on a spell that actually has the type "instant". And while his Leyline of Anticipation lets your opponent cast other types of spells whenever he could cast an instant, it doesn't actually change their types to "instant".
Master of the House
A: The answer is... it depends. The choice of card technically isn't made until Slaughter Games is resolving, at which point it's too late to respond to it. But it's not illegal to "jump the gun" a bit and tell your opponent what you plan to name as you're casting Slaughter Games, in which case he can certainly respond. So generally, this comes down to making sure you and your opponent communicate clearly about where you are in the game; also, remember that in tournament play, if you announce your choice early you'll be held to it unless your opponent responds to the Slaughter Games.
Q: I activated Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas' -1 ability to turn my Rakdos Keyrune into a 5/5 artifact creature. Then I activated the Keyrune. Is it a 5/5, or a 3/1?
A: It's a 3/1. Whenever multiple effects try to set a creature's power/toughness to specific numbers, the most recent one "wins". In this case, it's the Rakdos Keyrune's ability, which says 3/1. At the end of the turn, though, it'll go back to 5/5 since the Keyrune's own effect will end, leaving only Tezzeret's effect still applying.
Q: I've got a face-down Goblin Guide from Illusionary Mask. Will its ability trigger when it attacks, or does the trigger that turns it face-up not happen in time?
A: The Goblin Guide's ability will trigger, because Illusionary Mask... doesn't set up a trigger. It sets up a replacement effect (you can tell by the word "instead"). So when you declare your face-down Goblin Guide as an attacker, the normal process — "the face-down Goblin Guide becomes tapped" — gets replaced with "the face-down Goblin Guide turns face-up and becomes tapped". Then, once your declaration of attackers is complete, the game looks to see if it triggered any abilities; the now-face-up Goblin Guide's ability triggered, and gets put on the stack.
Q: If my Withengar Unbound dies while I control Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, what happens? Does it come back? Will it be Withengar or Elbrus? And does it get a counter?
A: It comes back, it comes back as Elbrus, and it comes back with a counter. First of all, undying doesn't care whether the card will still be a creature when it's in the graveyard, just that it was a creature when it died. And a double-faced card always enters the battlefield "day" side up (which is Elbrus) unless something says to do otherwise. And undying says to put a +1/+1 counter on it; the fact that it's not a creature doesn't stop that (all kinds of permanents can have all kinds of counters on them; counters which affect power/toughness just don't do anything useful unless they're on something that's currently a creature).
Q: If I make multiple emblems with Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, do they all add up, or do my creatures still get only +1/+0?
A: Your creatures will be pretty big. Each emblem generates its own independent effect, and you apply all of them when figuring out your creatures' power. So if you have two emblems, your creatures get a total of +2/+0; three emblems would get +3/+0, and so on.
Q: What about the emblem from Koth of the Hammer? Would my Mountains deal multiple damage each?
A: Not quite. Multiple Koth emblems will give each of your Mountains multiple instances of the damage ability, but you'll have to choose which instance you're activating when you tap one of them; the act of tapping will pay for only that instance of the ability, so only 1 damage will be dealt.
Q: I've cast Thromok the Insatiable, and I control Death's Presence. If I feed some creatures to Thromok's devour ability, can I also have him get the counters from Death's Presence?
A: Thromok is going to eat his way to hugeness! As Thromok is entering the battlefield, you can sacrifice as many creatures as you like, and he'll enter with the appropriate number of counters (say, if you sacrifice three creatures, he'll get three counters per creature, for a total of 9). This triggers Death's Presence, but the triggers can't go on the stack until you're done with the process of Thromok entering the battlefield. It's only then that you choose the targets for the triggers, and since Thromok's on the battlefield he's a legal target.
That's the end of the day for me, but be sure to come back when tomorrow... er, next week comes and Eli returns with a special Gatecrash prerelease edition of Cranial Insertion!
- James Bennett
About the Author:
James Bennett is a Level 3 judge based out of Lawrence, Kansas. He pops up at events around Kansas City and all over the midwest, and has a car he can talk to.
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