Published on 04/27/2020
Order of Operations (Ikoria Version)
or, Don't Touch the Sides
By Carsten Haese, Nathan Long, Charlotte Sable, and Andrew Villarrubia
This Article from: Moko
Cranial Translation
Deutsch
Español
Français
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 Information in this article may be out of date due to subsequent Oracle and/or rules changes.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.
Bookmark this image.
(Click for B/W version)
(Click for B/W version)
LAYERS.
Please open your Ikoria Comprehensive Rulebook to rule section 613. We'll be back next week with more questions from the moko@cranialinsertion.com inbox and @CranialTweet, so mail or tweet in your questions if you want them published in that article or if you just want an answer!
Layers?
Yup, layers. In real life, if you splash a wall with coats of paint over and over, not only do you completely ruin the drywall and face vandalism charges, you end up with the last-applied coat of paint as the only one showing. But Magic is not a wall, no matter how much you feel like banging your head against it sometimes. In Magic, like in mathematics, some functions are simply applied first.
To go with an analogy that doesn't involve your Dear Aunt Sally (whom we won't excuse, since she hates monkeys), all of these continuous effects are a bunch of unruly toddlers drooling snot on your cards. They have to line up in order by height.
The system of layers defines that order of operations, or the heights of those toddlers. It tells you the order to apply continuous effects in, regardless of the order in which they were created or started to apply. That is, the stack may resolve last-in-first-out, but continuous effects do not, and the last-created effect may be applied first, last, or anywhere in between.
Timestamps yay!
Of course, the order in which effects were created does have some relevance. Within each of the layers that we're about to dig through, multiple effects may exist that belong in that layer. This collision is resolved 99% of the time by the order in which effects started to apply – that is, in "timestamp" order. So if you have one effect that says "Target creature is red" and then you create another effect that says "Target creature is blue," the last one to be created will win: the creature is blue.
An effect's timestamp is the relative time it started to apply. For an effect generated by a permanent's static ability, like Honor of the Pure, that timestamp is when the permanent entered the battlefield. For an effect generated by a resolving spell or ability, that's the time the spell or ability resolved.
But for an effect given to an enchanted, equipped, or fortified object, the timestamp is the time the Aura, Equipment, or Fortification became attached to that object. If you move your Gorgon Flail around amongst your creatures, the continuous effect it generates will have a new timestamp each time someone snatches it away from someone else.
What Happens in Each Layer?
I said that timestamps resolved intralayer collision 99% of the time, but that other 1% is important to have rules to cover. Otherwise, 1% of the time, the game would explode! In fact, that 1%, whenever it comes up, has to be taken into account before timestamps. Timestamps are a last resort to sort out effects in one layer.
Start from the top of the colorful layer list above and work your way down. As you enter each new layer, the first things to apply are characteristic-defining abilities. Characteristic-defining abilities. Too many letters. They're CDAs, so say we all.
A CDA is pretty easy to recognize. The most common one is on our good friend Tarmogoyf: it has an ability that defines its power and toughness asterisks. That's a CDA! CDAs define an object's power, toughness, subtypes, or color. They also have to be a part of the object itself, so Niveous Wisps does not produce a CDA, but Ghostfire does have a CDA. Changeling has the distinction of being a keyworded CDA! So, with these two criteria in mind, you can pick out almost any CDA. There is one exception that will very, very rarely pop up: If the ability is conditionally on/off, it can't be a CDA.
Well, That Depends
After you apply all of the CDAs, but before you look at timestamps, you run into one of the bogeymen of the layer system: dependency.
Dependency can be a real headache for even grizzled rules veterans. Here's the quickest, possibly easiest way to break down dependency:
Effect A depends on Effect B if both A and B are applied in the same layer and one of the following conditions is true:
- Applying B first causes A to no longer exist.
- Applying B first causes A to apply or not apply to object X.
- Applying B first changes how A works (but not how much A works).
If A depends on B, you wait to apply A until after you've applied B. This can get a lot messier where B depends on C and/or A depends on C, or where B also depends on A. Luckily, those never come up in a real game of Magic and only rear their frightful heads when rules gurus sit around a campfire (or IRC chat room) telling stories to scare each other. All you really need to know to be successful is the three things that make A depend on B, and that B must be applied first in that case.
The undisputed king of disgusting
dependency/timestamp issues.
dependency/timestamp issues.
Another example is having Dralnu's Crusade on the battlefield, and then you cast Conspiracy naming Goblin or naming Saproling. Part of the Crusade's effect applies in layer 4, and so does Conspiracy's effect! If Conspiracy is naming Goblin, then the Crusade must wait to apply until after everything's been made a Goblin to join on the Crusade. But if it's naming Saproling, the Crusade must wait until all the natural Goblins have stopped being Goblins before... well... not doing very much useful at all.
So I'm sure you're wondering why this is all so complicated. The reality is that this system of complication produces very natural results. Without dependency, your Humans-turned-Goblins wouldn't be Zombies, despite being Goblins, but they would get +1/+1 and be black. That is strange, counterintuitive, and not what the game's designers wanted. This also means that in most cases, you can guess how things will interact and you'll be right. Keep that in mind when you run into a strange situation where this system produces unintuitive results – they're bound to pop up from time to time, and the number of intuitive results greatly outnumbers the unintuitive ones.
Smash It Up
CDAs, dependency, and timestamp. You have the backbone of the layers, but there's one more thing to mention before we start adding flesh to these vertebrae. Let's look at Viridescent Wisps, a naughty little card that is less naughty under M10 rules. The creature not only becomes green, it also gets a power/toughness modification! If you've read ahead, you know that color-setting and power-modification apply in different layers, but here they're from one effect. Well, that's just fine. Break this effect up into its component pieces! Those pieces will be applied in the appropriate layers, and not all applied at once. The pieces of an effect, once broken up like this, will still be applied, even if the effect itself vanishes along the line (which can happen quite "easily" with Humility and Opalescence)
Layer 1a: Copy & Mutate
Let's start our journey through the wonderful world of the layers!
The first layer is the layer of copiable effects. This includes copy effects that say "becomes a copy," including Mirrorweave and Clone. It also includes the mutate tech introduces with Ikoria, and effects like Aquamorph Entity's that are generated by a replacement effect that replaces coming onto the battlefield or being turned face up by setting a characteristic.
Example: Lillith casts Clone and chooses to copy Sengir Vampire. Sengir Vampire dies in a bloody splatter (perhaps it was blocked by something unspeakable), so she casts another Clone, choosing to copy the first Clone. Because copy effects are copiable, the new Clone will be a Sengir Vampire, even though no creature card naturally known as a Sengir Vampire exists on the battlefield.
Example: Tamara controls a Runeclaw Bear and mutates it with Souvenir Snatcher, putting it underneath the Bear. This results in a flying Runeclaw Bear that can steal artifacts, which is an awesome sight to behold. Then she casts Clone and copies the Bear. The result is another flying Runeclaw Bear that can steal artifacts, since the effect from mutating the Bear is copiable.
Layer 1b: Face-down-ness
Layer 1 has a second sublayer where you apply changes to characteristics due to being face down. The copiable values of an object are the end result of applying layers 1a and 1b. Copiable values are the only things that get copied when something copies that object. Effects that apply in later layers will not be copied.
Example: Adam controls a 2/2 flying Primal Clay, and then he casts Ixidron, turning Primal Clay face down. Primal Clay was a 2/2 flying creature, but now it's a 2/2 nameless creature with no abilities. Eve casts Clone copying this creature, but Clone is a face-up 2/2 ability-free creature since these face-down values are copiable.
Example: Cain controls four face-down creatures, and Abel casts Mirrorweave targeting his Llanowar Elves. Cain's face-down creatures would be Llanowar Elves, except that since they're face down, they're 2/2 blanks instead (and he can't turn them face up, since Llanowar Elf doesn't have a morph cost). If Abel casts Break Open on one later in the turn, it'll be a Llanowar Elf when it's face up.
Layer 2: Control
The control layer is extremely simple. It's where you apply all effects that change control of an object. That's it. No shenanigans.
Example: Happy controls a Birds of Paradise. Grumpy casts Confiscate on it, so Grumpy controls it. Then Sleepy casts Control Magic on Birds of Paradise. Sleepy's enchantment has a later timestamp, so he controls the Birds now. But then Sneezy Threatens the Birds, so his latest timestamp controls the Birds. If Dopey Disenchants Control Magic before Threaten's effect ends, the only effect still applying after this turn will be Grumpy's Confiscate, so he'll get the Birds back.
Example: Bashful casts Confiscate on Happy's Birds, since the dwarves obviously play silly free-for-all games with a staggering amount of blue-based control decks despite their inherent weakness in multiplayer formats. Doc casts Confiscate on Bashful's Confiscate, though! Since Doc's Confiscate's effect changes what Bashful's Confiscate does (it changes who it gives control to), Bashful's Confiscate's control-change effect won't be applied until after Doc's Confiscate has confiscated Bashful's Confiscate and that Confiscate gives "you" – Doc, its controller – Happy's Birds.
(Meanwhile, Snow White is sitting in the corner crying her eyes out because she doesn't have any halfway decent opponents to test her Faeries deck against. One day her prince will come, but little does she know, he'll be an Elder Dragon Highlander player.)
Layer 3: Text
The third layer gets complicated again, sort of. The text layer is a layer for text changes. This means exactly that: effects that change text. It's not a place for gaining or losing abilities (text may create abilities, but abilities don't create and are not text). It's just text changing, like Mind Bend and Artificial Evolution. Volrath's Shapeshifter also fits into this layer, since it gains text, and not abilities, of the card in your graveyard. You'll notice that all of these cards specifically reference "text" – that's the key to fitting in here.
Example: Augustus casts Confiscate on Johannes' Volrath's Shapeshifter. Since Confiscate's effect is a control effect, it's already been applied back in layer 2, and Volrath's Shapeshifter uses its new controller's graveyard to determine what it is – as most players would expect.
Example: Andreas, being a terribly indecisive individual, has cast three Mind Bends on his Zodiac Horse. The first one's effect changes "Island" to "Forest." The second's changes "Forest" to "Swamp." The third's effect changes "Swamp" to "Mountain." These are applied right through in timestamp order: all instances of "Island" (in islandwalk, the only "Island" on the card) become "Forest," then become "Swamp," then become "Mountain."
Example: Laurens, always trying to top everyone else, casts Grayscaled Gharial on MTGO, then Mind Bends it, but misclicks and changes "Swamp" to "Forest." Trying to be clever, he casts a second Mind Bend changing "Island" to "Swamp." MTGO says that his Gharial has swampwalk now, and not forestwalk, so he writes a ten-page dissertation on why MTGO sucks and how it never handles the rules correctly because these two effects are dependent on each other, and goes on to tell judges all over the world that these effects are dependent because that's how it works on MTGO. But he's wrong. Remember that changing how much work an effect performs does not change what it does, so there is no dependency here. The first Mind Bend's effect is applied and does nothing, then the second's is applied.
Layer 4: Type
This layer would be an easy layer – just apply all effects that change, give, or take away supertypes, card types, or subtypes – except that this is the layer where you run into all sorts of dependency issues.
Example: Titania controls Titania's Song (she hasn't sold out yet) and Mycosynth Lattice. Since the Lattice causes the Song to apply to exciting new permanents that it wouldn't otherwise apply to, the Song's effect is not applied until after the Lattice's effect.
Example: Oberon controls a Skeletal Changeling and Humility. Since we haven't gotten around to any layer that removes abilities (don't worry, it's coming up soon), Humility's effect hasn't been applied yet. Skeletal Changeling has all creature types, even though it's going to lose the changeling ability.
Example: Puck uses Unnatural Selection to turn Chameleon Colossus into a Goat. Since Unnatural Selection's effect is a run-of-the-mill continuous effect and changeling is a CDA, Unnatural Selection applies after changeling and the Colossus will be only a Goat.
Layer 5: Color
Here's where the real paint comes in: apply all of the effects that change an object's color! Dye it, mark it, paint it, stain it, lace it, dark it, wisp, repaint it. All of that stuff. Pretty simple.
Example: Shane controls Painter's Servant naming black but Andrew controls Humility. Since, once again, we have not started stripping away abilities, Painter's Servant will continue to paint it black, black as night, black as coal, even though its ability is very shortly going to be blotted out from the card.
Example: Dan controls a Jund Hackblade with Runes of the Deus enchanting it. Nate bleaches the heck out of that hack with Niveous Wisps. The Runes haven't started to do anything yet, so Dan will later on apply them only caring about the fact that the poor Goblin is all white and pasty now and should join the Viper clan.
Layer 6: Abilities
And here we go, the most heavily populated layer of them all. This is where things gain abilities and lose abilities, either from effects or from keyword counters. That's all that goes here - this layer cares a lot about what has gone before, since many "lord" effects care about creature type and color, and many effects only affect permanents of a type that may have changed or affect objects under a player's control where the controller may have changed.
Ach, Hans, run!
It's Humility!
It's Humility!
Example: Collin casts Empty-Shrine Kannushi, and then hits it with Cerulean Wisps. Since the Wisps' effect was applied in the previous layer, the Kannushi will have protection from blue instead of protection from white. Look, an intuitive result! Aren't they cute?
Example: Gis casts Ovinize on Toby's Mass of Ghouls that has a Helm of Kaldra attached. This works by timestamp – Mass has no abilities now. If Toby activates the Helm's equip ability targeting Mass of Ghouls, it won't become attached again (it's already attached!) so nothing happens. But if Toby attaches the Helm to another creature and then reattaches it to Mass of Ghouls, the Helm's effect will have a later timestamp than Ovinize and he'll have a fabulously useless 0/1 creature with first strike, trample, and haste.
Example: Gis has not learned his lesson and now casts Ovinize on Toby's Walking Corpse. After Ovinize has resolved, Toby casts Spontaneous Flight on his Walking Corpse because he wants to have a Flying Corpse. His Walking Corpse will indeed have flying because of timestamps. Ovinize removes all abilities from Walking Corpse, and then the flying counter gives the Corpse flying.
Example: Mike is feeling educational, so he Confiscates a Spitting Slug, turns it into a Faerie with Unnatural Selection, and then plops out a Scion of Oona. Confiscate snags the slug in layer 2, and then the slug grows non-functional Faerie wings in layer 4, so by the time the Scion gapes in horror at this gooey, slimy fake Faerie, it's "a Faerie" that "you control," so it gets shroud from the Scion.
Example: Jaap controls Lorescale Coatl enchanted with Favor of the Overbeing. Riccardo casts an exceptionally redundant Snakeform on that snake. Except it's not entirely redundant - the Snake will be only green instead of green and blue, and since Snakeform has a later timestamp than the Favor the snake will not have vigilance despite being green. It also won't have flying, but that's because it's not blue and because snakes don't fly except in Mexico.
Example: Blades of Velis Vel says that the creatures "gain all creature types" and not "gain changeling." If they gained changeling, they'd gain it here in layer 6 – after type-changing effects have already been applied. So changeling would never do anything, and Blades has the wording it has which actually does what it's supposed to.
Layer 7a: Power/Toughness CDAs
Layers 7a through 7d could really be four distinct layers, but it's easier to lump them together as the P-and-T layer with sublayers. Like any layer, you apply CDAs first – that's layer 7a! (Note that the only dependency you can have here is between two CDAs, such as Sutured Ghoul exiling Mortivore.)
Example: Traproot Kami sat like a Wall.
Prismatic Omen gives your lands types all.
Since type-change effects are back in layer 4,
Traproot Kami's toughness goes up some more.
Layer 7b: Power/Toughness Setting
Before we evaluate how a creature's power and toughness are yoinked up and down, we need to establish a baseline from which to raise or lower its power and toughness. We started that with CDAs, and this layer finishes that work: anything that sets power and/or toughness to a specific number goes here.
Example: Brad controls Opalescence and Humility because he wants to be like Sheldon. Both set power and toughness, and neither p/t-setting effect is dependent on the other, so they're applied in timestamp order. Whichever came onto the battlefield last "wins," and its effect will determine Humility's power and toughness.
Example: Janet tosses a Snakeform at her Ancient Ooze, and then Frankie Humbles it. First Snakeform makes it 1/1, but Humble's latest timestamp wins out and this Ooze is merely 0/1.
Example: Rocky runs in and Invigorates Janet's Ancient Ooze from the above example before Frankie's Humble resolves. This invigorating effect will apply in some later layer after we've made Janet's Ooze either 1/1 or 0/1, so it'll be 5/5 before Humble resolves and 4/5 after.
Layer 7c: Power/Toughness + & -
This layer is for any abilities or counters that give pluses or minuses to power and/or toughness, such as Glorious Anthem, Giant Strength, Immolation, Scar, and Travel Preparations. Pretty easy – you just have to remember to apply these after the setting abilities, even if it sometimes feels a little weird to do so.
Example: Anthony has a Pirate Ship with a Heartseeker equipped. Johanna Humbles his Ship. Humble makes it 0/1 in layer 7b, but Heartseeker brings it back to 2/2 in layer 7c.
Example: Lucy has an Inkfathom Witch with Helm of the Ghastlord on. It goes unblocked, so she uses the Witch's ability to make it 4/1. Once again, this setting applies in layer 7b, while the Aura's pump applies in layer 7c, so she has a 6/3 Witch.
Example: Nellie has a little Marble Priest that is green and 4/3 because of Viridescent Wisps. Toby (not the same Toby as mentioned in layer 6's examples, mind you) activates Vhati il-Dal's ability to make its power 1. That power setting is applied in layer 7b, making the Priest 1/3, and then the Wisps raises it to 2/3 in layer 7c.
Example: Mary has a little lamb with a +1/+1 counter on it. It gets Ovinized and becomes... well... a grown-up sheep instead of just a lamb. But since it has a +1/+1 counter on it, it's now 1/2 instead of just 0/1.
Example: Mary encouraged her lamb to make a Glorious Charge. Upon seeing that, everyone collectively burst out in Hideous Laughter. The lamb starts off at 0/1 in layer 7b. Then, in layer 7c, lots of things happen in timestamp order: It goes to 1/2 due to the +1/+1 counter, up to 2/3 due to the Glorious Charge, and finally back down to 0/1 due to Hideous Laughter.
Example: Because the other children laughed at her lamb, Mary put a -1/-1 counter on each of them, then summoned a Godhead of Awe. Godhead of Awe made them all 1/1 in layer 7b, and in layer 7c, their counters made them all die. Mary was taken down by a police S.W.A.T. team sniper two hours later. Godhead of Awe has pleaded insanity due to having only one hideous eye and went on to form a support group for the ocularly challenged. Mary's lamb remains at large.
Example: William exiles Felix's Skullbriar, the Walking Grave, which has two +1/+1 counters on it, with Phyrexian Ingester. Because both Skullbriar's counters and Phyrexian Ingester's +X/+Y happen in layer 7c, and applying the counters changes how the +X/+Y works, we have a dependency on our hands! Because of this dependency, we apply Skullbriar's counters first, making it a 3/3, so Phyrexian Ingester gets +3/+3 and is a 6/6.
Layer 7d: Power/Toughness Switches
And last but not least, effects that switch a creature's power and toughness. This is the very last effect due to an ancient precedent: cards originally said "Further effects that affect this creature's power affect its toughness and vice versa." That rider on switch effects was stripped from the cards and stuck into the rules, and here it is. It's vital to remember that this is last, and does not follow timestamps earlier in layer 7.
Example: Charlie activates Aquamoeba's power-and-toughness switch ability. After it resolves, Grahame splashes it with Torpor Dust. Even though Torpor Dust resolved last, it must be applied before the switch: Aquamoeba is a -2/3 creature, then a 3/-2, and then it dies a messy death.
Layer 8: The Other Stuff
Layers 1 through 7 concern themselves with continuous effects that affect objects, but "layer 8" is for continuous effects that affect players and then continuous effects that affect game rules - the "player layer" and the "game rules layer." It's not technically a layer, since layers only really refer to objects, but it's a fair enough way to sum these last two sorts of continuous effects up since they apply after the continuous effects that affect objects.
The player layer. Isn't that fun to say? Player layer player layer player layer. To date, a handful of "you gain protection" and "you have/gain shroud" cards are the only cards with effects that apply in this layer, so there isn't much to give in the way of an interaction example.
There is also the game-rule layer. It's not as much fun to say as player layer, and it's also not a true layer since it also doesn't affect objects either, but it's hugely important. This is where you apply such wonderful things as Spellbook, Rule of Law, and Ballyrush Banneret. Some of the effects that fall in here are subject to other rules ordering them, such as the "plus, minus, set" order for spell-cost modification, but all other effects here follow the timestamp rule. Dependency is irrelevant here. Even if you could find a dependency, the effects would still be applied in timestamp order.
Example: Jack controls Spellbook and casts Null Profusion. Since Null Profusion's effect started later, it "wins," and Jack's hand size is two.
Example: Jill controls Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere, and six other artifacts. She wants to cast Myr Enforcer. For continuous effects affecting the cost of spells, first you apply any additions, then any subtractions, and then any effects that set the cost to a certain amount. First Sphere of Resistance adds
to the cost to raise it to 
, then affinity reduces the cost by to 
, but then Trinisphere sets it back to 
. The final amount she must pay is .Good, You Get It
The layer system is a lot to digest. If you haven't already been exposed to and studied it, you'll need to reread this article a couple more times to fully grasp it. If it's still a confusing mess of words, don't feel too bad; it's one of the trickiest parts of the rules to master. But once you're comfortable with this system, hundreds of common rules questions and absurdly complex rules puzzles suddenly become easy as pie!
Your homework: Ask or answer layer-interaction questions in the #magicjudges-rules IRC channel on Freenode!
Until next time, have fun with onions!
- Moko, with help from Eli Shiffrin and Carsten Haese
About the Author:
Moko was born in Tanzania, and died in a tragic accident involving a catapult while being transported from Eli Shiffrin to Thijs van Ommen between the first two Cranial Insertion articles. Subsequently zombified, he helps sort their mail and occasionally answers questions. His pastimes include bananas and brains. Mmm brains.
No comments yet.
