MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge - Tuesday Bluesday Edition

Epic is part of the actual spell's effects, rather than a trigger associated with casting it (as many people think). If it's countered (say, by a Dovescape) none of its effects happen, including Epic. You'll get 7 birds, but you won't be locked out of casting spells for the rest of the game (or get to search for an enchantment)

What exactly is going on that Karmic Justice triggers on boardwipes and on itself but something like Containment Priest doesn't cancel out Exhume? Knowing only about the Containment Priest scenario made sense but now seeing Karmic Justice in action I'm really confused.

Do you mean situations where things happen at the same time?

Yeah, it's worded kinda badly.

I don't really see a clear pattern with these things. Karmic Justice is some sort of "lingering" effect after it got destroyed, but Containment Priest doesn't care if that Grieselbrand just came in at the same time. Looking at Scapeshift Valakut, he DOES care that those mountains entered at the same time. What's the difference in those scenarios?

Cards that enter or leave the battlefield all at once 'see' each other do it. A Karmic Justice getting wiped out alongside other permanents is on the battlefield at the time the destruction happens, so at the time everything's getting nuked, you do control a Justice.

Meanwhile, REPLACEMENT effects need to exist immediately before the event they're replacing. With Priest, that effect has to exist BEFORE the creature your opponent cheats out is entering, and it doesn't, because Priest enters alongside it.

Basically it's because Justice is a trigger and Priest is a replacement.

One is a trigger, one is a replacement effect. Things that enter or leave together 'see' each other do it for the purposes of triggers (which is why wrathing a board of 4 Blood Artists hurts like 8 bitches on a bitch boat, and why Scapeshift + Valakut works), but replacement effects need to exist immediately prior to the event they replace (which is why Priest doesn't shut down the thing they Exhume unless it was on board before, and why Clones can't copy creatures coming in alongside them off of, say, Warp World)

Now I have to go into town to get lunch for the office, so I'll be back in a flash and a half

Now it makes sense, thanks.

I suck at layers.
So my opponent decides to Triumph of the Hordes his crap and swing out at me. I flick a Sudden Spoiling at him. I'm certain they retain the +1/+1, but do they lose the infect and trample?

Correct. Triumph of the Hordes works in two layers: Layer 6 (Ability changing; this is where it adds Trample and Infect) and layer 7c (static, non-counter changes to P/T).

Sudden Spoiling works in layers 6 (where it takes abilities away) and 7b (where it sets P/T to a specific number).

So going through the layers, we have two things in layer 6, so we apply them in timestamp order; first, we give Trample and Infect, and then we take away all abilities. Then in layer 7b, we set everything of his to 0/2, and then in 7c they get pumped up to 1/3s.

You have an army of vanilla 1/3s attacking you. That will probably end badly for your opponent.

If my opponent dies while I've stolen their creature with Unhallowed Pact, does it disappear when he leaves the game? I'm not entirely clear on the circumstances of what does or doesn't stay with dead Owners.

Hopefully it will. Gettin' real sick of someone who spends day after day whining about how OP infect is and then using it in a sliver EDH to kill people with glee. I'm also really glad that indestructible is no longer a characteristic. Hopefully this will be a bit humbling.
Thanks.

It does. When a player leaves the game, everything they own leaves with them. This is largely just a logistics thing; if I'm first one knocked out of a multiplayer game, it would really suck if I couldn't leave because you still have my creature.

So yeah- when a player leaves a multiplayer game, everything they own leaves with them, and all control-changing effects of theirs end. So if they stole something from YOU with a Mind Control or a Threaten or whatever, it immediately reverts to whoever 'should' control it.

Then, if there's still objects they control, but do not own (this'll be for things that didn't have a prior controller; things stolen with Bribery for example, or if they reanimate YOUR creature with pact and then die), those objects are just exiled.

I adore Sudden Spoiling just because of what a fucking blowout it almost always is.

Flickered manifests stay in exile if they happen to be nonpermanents, correct?

Correct. Permanents enter the battlefield untapped, face-up, unflipped, and phased-in unless something directly tells them otherwise. So, when you flicker face-down stuff, it comes back face-up by default. With manifest, that means it'll leave as a 2/2 creature with no abilities, and come back as a face-up permanent.

Instants and Sorceries, however, cannot enter the battlefield; any instruction that tells them to is simply ignored. So they stay in the exile zone because they can't go back to the field.

Correct. An instant or sorcery cannot be in any zone other than the stack, so if the game tries putting it there, it keeps it where it is instead.

Pretty sure your hand, exile, and the library are all zones other than the stack where an Instant or Sorcery can be, chief.

Can i play tournaments with cards from other languages other than muricaspeak?

Absolutely. As long as the card is legal in the format, it doesn't matter what language it's in. This isn't YGO.

In those zones they're instant and sorcery cards though ;)

You absolutely can. All cards are considered to have their English Oracle text printed on them, and your opponents have the right to call a Judge to get the oracle text of any card. There's no restriction on languages; you can mix and match, you can have half German and a quarter Russian and a quarter Japanese, you can just have a couple in other languages, you do you. As long as it's legal in the format and from a legal printing (IE no silver/gold borders), you're fine.

And on the stack it's an instant or sorcery spell AND card ;)

Curses, foiled again.

Alright, leaving the office. Gotta run a few errands on the way home, I'll post once my ass is in my chair at home!

And ass is in chair.

If I have a Hall of Gemstone out, all lands "tapped for mana" only produce mana of the chosen color no matter what they'd give me normally.

Does that affect the special abilities on lands like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx? And what about things like Dawn's reflection ... I still get to choose the color(s) there, right?

If you're activating a mana ability which includes the tap symbol as a cost, Hall of Gemstone overrides whatever color the lands WOULD have made with the chosen color. You can still select, say, Devotion to Blue, and it'll count your Devotion to Blue, but then make that much of the chosen color instead.

This is only true of mana generated from the activated mana abilities of lands; mana generated from nonland sources like Dawn's Reflection would not be subject to the same restriction.

Are they ever going to being back the other 2 eldrazi gods ?

Don't know! Technically they're pretty canonically dead, but people are guessing that it's possible for 'new' versions of them to be created, since Brisela had some of Ulamog's visual cues going (the tentacled mass instead of legs, the coloration, the bifurcated arms)

You Do not have to reveal your manifest cards if they are bounced back in hand or if the games ends like morphs?

If a player steals another players commander and starts to deal combat damage to them and they take 21 damage from their own commemeder, do they lose?

Yeah, the upgrade to GL is only for Morphs and only if it's discovered during the game, I believe.

Yep.

Protection and unpreventable damage?

Can't beats can. So if damage that CAN'T be prevented tries to hit something that CAN prevent damage... Can't wins.

Thanks.

gA if I have Voldaren Pariah and say 2x Blisterpod on the field, can I pay for Pariah's flip by sacrificing 2 pods and a scion or does the payment need to be all at one moment?

You pay costs in any order, but you have to pay entire costs all at once. You can't pay most of it, have a trigger resolve, then finish paying.

What happens if a creature has both a +1/+1 and a -1/-1 counter on it? Do you remove both counters, or do you keep track of both individually?
How does this work with effects that interact with and check for such counters?

If a creature has +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters on it, you remove them in a 1:1 ratio as a state-based action, until there's only one kind (or zero, if you have as many of each!) left.

Alright, cashing in for the night. See you kids tomorrow.

so that's a no. if my board state is:
Voldaren Pariah
Blisterpod
Blisterpod
then it is impossible to flip my Pariah, yes?

next question: If my opponent controls Fevered Visions and I have Avaricious Dragon, do I keep that card? you would know that the Dragon's discard effect happens before the actual discard (cleanup) phase because it says 'beginning of end step'
the way I interpret this is that the opponent's trigger goes on the stack last (?) so it would resolve first. Therefore the steps are:

both players pass priority in main 2, go to end step
put avaricious (and any other active player controlled triggers) on the stack
put enemy fevered visions on stack
fevered visions resolves, draw the card and maybe deal the damage
avaricious resolves, discard the hand and card you just drew

that right?

noooo okay

Eh, I can get one more in.

It's impossible to activate Pariah in that situation, because you do not have three creatures to sacrifice, correct.

>Next question
The card from Visions? You will not, because of how triggers work. When 2 or more triggers are trying to go onto the stack at once, we have the Active Player (that'll be you, the one whose turn it is) put all their triggers on the stack in the order of their choosing, and then the Non-Active Player (your opponent, the one whose turn it is NOT) do the same. NAP triggers resolve first so you'll draw a card and potentially take 2, then your trigger resolves and you discard your hand.

Were this reversed (As in, YOU had a card that drew you a card at the beginning of the end step, and your OPPONENT had a card that made you discard your hand at the beginning of the end step), you would discard your hand to his trigger, then draw a card from your trigger. Again, because AP/NAP.

NOW BED.

Say opponent has a 3/2 and I have a 4/4. I cast Prey Upon targeting the two, and in response opponent casts Woodcutter's Grit on his guy, giving it +3/3 and hexproof. What happens when Prey Upon resolves? Had this situation during prerelease and head judge said the spell does resolve, but nothing happens as my creature has no other creature to fight, but he wasn't 100% sure about it.

Can Curious Homunculus' flip reduce the escalate cost of cards, or does it only affect required costs?

Yes, cost reductions work on alternate and additional costs. GA will probably tell you the order that all cost changes are applied as well.

A spell will counter itself if all of its targets are no longer valid. Because it also targeted your creature, prey upon still resolves and does as much as it can (probably nothing in this case).

What about other, weirder counters ,like +1/+0 and -1/-0? Do they cancel each other out?

If my reassembling skeleton is in the graveyard, and an opponent activates scavenging ooze's ability in response to me using reassembling skeleton's ability, can I activate reassembling skeleton's ability again in response to put it back on top of the stack?

If lone rider is pumped into a 3/3 and goes into combat with another 3/3 creature, does the trigger from gaining 3 life cause it to transform before dieing?

What's the funniest judge call you've ever had?
What's the hardest one, rules-wise?

Appreciate your efforts in these threads!

Can I get an explanation of why this does or does not work on double sided creatures?

Normally, transform cards don't leave the battlefield when flipped. The only flip creatures that say "exile then treturn to the battlefield transformed" are the Origins planeswalkers (and even then Hallowed Moonlight doesn't work since they enter the battlefield as planeswalkers, not creatures).

As far as I know, creatures transforming do not "enter the battlefield" when they do - they're already there. Hence effects like Hallowed Moonlight or Containment Priest do not work on them.

I'm sure someone can give a more detailed in-depth explanation.

It should be noted that moonlight DOES work against meld.

The Prey Upon resolves but does nothing. It still resolves because it has at least one legal target (your creature), but since both targets aren't legal the Fight can't happen because Fight is weird.

Voracious Reader's discount works on Escalate spells, but only once (as in, it gives you a total discount of 1 on the whole spell, not 1 per Escalation).

To determine the cost of a spell, you start by taking the mana cost (or alternate cost, if paying one), then adding any cost increases (additional costs you chose to pay like Escalate, additional costs you MUST pay like Thalia, additional costs like sacrificing a creature for Altar's Reap), then subtract any cost reductions (like Voracious Reader), then Trinisphere.

Nope, just +1/+1 and -1/-1. Those are the only counters that have an SBA associated with them.

Sure. You can activate it as many times as you can pay for it while it's in the graveyard, it's just not normally useful because only one activation DOES anything. In this situation, it is useful!

No, because it triggers at the beginning of the end step, which is well after the First Strike step where it poked your opponent's creature for 3.

Funniest one was back when my group still played at a pizza place because we had no shop. We were doing our first ever FNM, back when we were allowed to 'associate' with a store and they could donate us their unused event sanctioning. I was newly L1, everyone's getting their decks ready, and one of our older, more terrible players calls me over. He asks in the smuggest possible voice: "gA, how many proxies are we allowed to use? It's 10, right? Because Ted think we can only use 5." And then just smirks at Ted. My response is a stunned silence, followed by "...zero, Bob. You get zero proxies."

I then watch him sadly and angrily de-sleeve 4 Giant Scorpions, 4 Mindless Null, and 2 Heartstabber Mosquito.

Hardest one rules-wise I honestly can't recall; the only hinky calls I remember are the ones that went tits-up policy wise. 99% of rules calls we get are fairly cut and dry, once we actually determine what's being asked.

The vast majority of DFCs don't go anywhere to transform, they just turn over. Some of them (like the Origins Legends that transform into Planeswalkers) do go to exile first, but they have to be coming back as creatures for Moonlight to stop them.

The only actual DFCs it hits (off the top of my head) are Loyal Cathar, Skin Shredder, and Persistent Nightmare.

This is a genuine question and not a joke. I understand Banding. It makes sense to me.

But I am considering adding Adventurer's Guildhouse to my Reki EDH and I need to know what the difference between Bands with Others and Banding is.

It doesn't seem all that different, but I've heard conflicting explanations.

So, two ways. First, Banding can work completely solo; you can mash as many Banding creatures (and up to one without Banding) into a band, and if any of them get blocked, the whole thing is blocked, and you are the Grand High Fuckmaster of Combat Damage for that combat, getting to choose how your opponent's blocker assigns damage to your band (and you can even assign not-quite-lethal to a creature before moving on; you could attack a band of 5 2/2s into a 5/5 and not lose a single creature). Similar on the defense- if even a single creature with Banding is blocking an opponent's creature, you decide how your opponent's creature assigns damage to your block-pile (so you could throw a Benalish Hero and five things without banding as blockers, and banding lets you fuck with the combat damage)

Bands with other is a little harder to use. It'll always be "Bands with other [quality]"; in your case, that's 'other legendary creatures'. That 'bands with other legendary creatures' Reki can form a band with as many Legendary creatures as you want, even if only Reki has the banding ability. However, it can only be things with that shared quality- you can't bring along one "outside" friend like normal Banding. Once you get that far though, it's the same; if your opponent blocks any member of your legend-band, the whole band is blocked and you decide how his creature assigns damage to your band.

On defense, you need to be blocking with a "bands with other legendary creatures" guy and at least one Legendary creature to get the benefit (whereas with normal Banding, you just need one on defense).

So, practically speaking for Reki and Guildhouse, it means that whenever you attack with Reki and other Legendaries, you can mash them into a band (but don't have to, if you don't want to) and if blocked, they're all blocked and you decide how they get damaged. On defense, just block with two green legends and you get to choose how they're damaged.

Savvy?

I think I've told this story before, but the hardest rules question I've gotten involved in was a League commander game where the board has - among all the dudes - hive mind, a copy of hive mind, and a chain of plasme on the stack.

That one took a good 30 minutes to work out.

I have been called over by my friends to see a Grip of Chaos, a Hive Mind, and an Eye of the Storm on the field, and I just kept walking. That's not really 'hard', just 'irritating and tedious'.

Okay, cool. That honestly seems worth a slot.

Question pertaining to the command zone, a guy with Norin mentioned a ruling that states that he can choose to put Norin in the command zone when he flickers and he comes back just fine.

This seems true and I didn't argue, but on the whole, what effects allow for this sort of thing? Banishing Light work the same way? Does commander tax go up at all?

gA what do you think of the rules chatroom? chat.magicjudges.org/mtgrules/
it seems to be much the as what you do, just less permanent.

quick q which I think I know:
Stromkirk Condemned ability discard a madness vampire which I cast for madness, does the madness vampire be affected by Condmened +1/+1 bonus?

another q which i don't
is it a bad idea to dump my hand to nahiri's wrath T3 to swing for 5 t3 with mecha pupper? my brain says don't do it but my heart says 'go balls deep' and run 4x avaricious dragon

sorry for words, am tired. next one:
distended mindbender. they cast and say 'give hand please' but can you respond by countering/ dumping your relevant instants before the on cast trigger happens?
judging by this raphael levy post it seems no, it strips the counterspell before counter can be cast. that' snot right? he must be referring to doom blade type spells which work once it is on field.

Because of the way Norin's ability is worded, it's not specifically looking for him in exile, it's looking for him in the very first public zone that he ends up in after he leaves the battlefield. The Commander replacement effect shunts him to the Command Zone INSTEAD of Exile, which is a public zone. And since it was a replacement effect, he never went to exile, so the Command Zone was the first public zone he went to, so that's where the delayed bring-him-back trigger will be looking for him.

Banishing Light works the same way, because it doesn't refer to "The exiled card". Same as Norin's thing, it'll pay attention to the first public zone the card hits, and keep it there until the duration stated by the effect ends.

Commander Tax only goes up each time you CAST them from the Command Zone, not each time they go there.

I used to hang out there a lot, but the IRC client kept fucking up on me, and then my region got a Slack chat, so I mostly hang there now. There's good people doing good work in the IRC room though.

>question
The pump from Condemned doesn't happen until the activation resolves. You activate it (including paying costs), Madness trigger goes on the stack above that. So you can cast your Vampire, it resolves, and then the Condemned boost hits all your Vampires, including the new guy.

>other question
Well, you'll be up shit creek if they have any kind of removal for your Greater Doggo.

You absolutely can. You don't get to see their hand until the trigger actually resolves, and they can respond by dumping instants they think you'll take. He's referring to removal, yes; since it's an on-cast trigger, you can strip away their Doom Blade with the trigger before Mindbender is on the field for them to hit.

I think it's the battlefield removal it's referring to. You can doom blade a thought-knot seer in response to the trigger, but not this guy.

>triggers at end step
silly me, I was going off memory and forgot that bit. Thanks!
>Grand High Fuckmaster of Combat Damage
giggled like a bitch

Okay. I'll start using that rule for effects like that. No harm in skipping commander tax if a Grasp of Fate gets blown up.

Of course, if I cast my Commander after it gets Grasp of Fate but before it blows up, there is no longer a link, right?

Right, the second it changes zones it becomes a new object.

Also, be careful: the "Stick it in Command Zone, still get it back" only works on the 'new' wording where it's an exile-with-duration like Grasp of Fate and Banishing Light. The "old" wording like on Oblivion Ring specifically refers to the exiled card, so it won't work with that.

Yeah. Which sucks because that means that people will still keep running Oblivion Ring despite it having this unintuitive and kind of gross wording.

I mean, I run Oblivion Ring in my Enchantress deck because it's shiny and you can't have enough O-Rings in an Enchantment deck.

But I prefer using Banishing Light if I have to choose between them just to avoid the shit feeling of "Okay, you killed me. Your thing is exiled forever because my O-Ring can never trigger to bring it back now."

How does mikaeus the unhallowed work with persist creatures?

Fairly well. When a creature with both Undying and Persist dies, both of those things trigger, and the controller of the creature (who is also the controller of the triggers) chooses the order to put them on the stack. Whatever goes on the stack last will resolve first, and bring the creature back with the appropriate kind of counter; then the other trigger will resolve and do nothing. The next time the creature dies, only ONE of the triggers goes off (because it has the counter from the other kind), and it comes back with the appropriate counter.

Basically if you have Micky, a Persist creature, and a sac outlet like Viscera Seer, you can just keep saccing your creature over and over again to your heart's content. It'll come back +1/+1 stronger, then -1/-1 weaker, and repeat.

If you have platinum angel on the field and you are at 0 health, if an opponents does damage to you do you go into negatives or stay at 0, can you pay life once you are at 0?

You can absolutely go into the negatives- life totals don't stop at 0. So they can beat you below 0 to prevent you from using a lifegain spell to stay afloat in case they blow up the Angel later.

However, you can't PAY life if you don't HAVE life. Once you hit 0, you can't pay life for anything anymore, because you can't pay with what you don't have.

If i have Spellheart Chimera (let's say it's 10/3) on the field and a Gigantoplasm copying it, if I pay say, 5 generic mana to save the Plasm from a burnspell, will its power shrink to 5 as well, or will the Spellheart's ability keep it at 10?
the card specific rulings say
>The activated ability overwrites all previous effects that set Gigantoplasm’s base power and/or toughness to specific values.
so i guess even though the power was variable, it's still its base power and thus would be overwritten by the Plasm's ability?

So, Gigantoplasm copies everything about Spellheart Chimera as it exists in layer 1, which includes that neat Characteristic-Defining Ability that... well, defines the characteristic of 'power'. That CDA 'works' in layer 7a, because that's the layer where CDAs that set Power and Toughness work.

The activated ability from the Gigantoplasm works in layer 7b, where power and toughness are set to specific numbers by things that are not CDAs. Since you apply the layers in order, the activation "overrides" the CDA, and your Gigantomera is a 5/5.

I know it might be a rough question, but can you explain the general concept of "layers"?

ah, i see. never heard of layers before, but thanks. seems the effect isn't even until EOT so it just because a big thing with flying and trample. makes Spellheart a less cool target but a flying trample thing that can get even bigger isn't so bad in EDH as long as it can get some damage in. thanks

Sure! So, a lot of things in Magic are what we call "Continuous effects". They modify things about other cards in some way. An example is Gaea's Anthem giving your creatures +1/+1, or Levitation giving them Flying. In the vast majority of instances you run into for Standard and Limited (by design, mind you), these will be very simple and intuitive to figure out; you just do what the cards say.

But in other instances, it might be confusing. THIS card says to give my creatures flying, and this one says my creatures all lose flying this turn, so which one is right? This card makes all my Enchantments into Creatures, and this other one makes my Creatures into Artifacts, what happens?

So, we have a system to show us the way that continuous effects interact, and it is called the "Layers" system, because it is broken up into 7 layers (technically 11 if you include sublayers). You go through them in order, from layer 1 to layer 7e. The layers are, in order:

>Layer 1: Copy
>Layer 2: Control
>Layer 3: Text
>Layer 4: Type
>Layer 5: Color
>Layer 6: Abilities
>Layer 7a: CDAs defining P/T
>Layer 7b: P/T set to a number
>Layer 7c: P/T Modified, but not set
>Layer 7d: P/T changes from counters
>Layer 7e: P/T switching

Alright, gonna go a little deeper into this, then I have to run an errand for about 40, 50 minutes.

A lot of what you'll deal with in layers is super simple, just go through them in order. This is why when you use a Clone it doesn't pick up counters or abilities the card gained; it's looking at the card in layer 1, where none of that has happened. You see mostly Layer 7 stuff in Standard, since that's all the P/T messing.

For example, if I have a 3/3 creature, and I cast a spell that gives it +2/+6 until end of turn, and in response you cast Turn to Frog, the end result is... a 3/7. That's because we apply Turn to Frog in 7b (making it a 1/1) and THEN we apply the +2/+6 in 7c. It doesn't matter what order those effects chronologically happened in the turn, we'll always apply the 7b effect before the 7c effect, so the end result is always a 3/7.

Where it gets crazy is when there's things working within the SAME layer or sublayer. For that, the time does matter; in most cases, we'll just apply the newest "timestamp" (the effect that was created most recently). So, going back to Turn to Frog. Let's say I equip my Bear Cub with a Brawler's Plate, and then after that you cast Turn to Frog. In layer 6, we have an effect granting trample (the Brawler's Plate) and another removing all abilities. So we apply those in order; first we give it Trample, then we take it away. Reverse those actions though and it's a different story; if you cast Turn to Frog on my creature and THEN I equip the Brawler's Plate, it'll have Trample, because the effect from Brawler's Plate has the newer timestamp.

When I get back, I'll explain the really crazy part of layers: dependencies.

Me and my opponent both have 20 life, and my opponent has a single creature in play. My opp also has hexproof.
The stormcount is 30 and I cast grapeshot targeting the creature and my opponent sacrifices it in response to the storm trigger. Do I now have to hit myself in the face with 30 copied grapeshots since I'm the only valid target?

Nope! The copies will be created with the same target as the original by default, even if that target isn't legal at the time the copies are put onto the stack. All 31 Grapeshots will just fizzle.

So, dependencies. These are weird. The majority of the time that you have two effects working in the same layer, timestamp order is intuitive and the actual answer. But every now and then, you run into dependencies, which say "fuck your timestamps". An effect is said to be 'dependent' on another if it applies in the same layer or sublayer as the other, applying the other would change the text or existence of the first effect OR what things it applies to OR what it does to any of the things it applies to, and neither is a CDA or both are CDAs.

So, an example of this is Blood Moon and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Urborg tacks the subtype Swamp onto all lands in addition to their normal stuff, and Blood Moon turns all nonbasics into Mountains, basically blanking their text box and replacing it with "T: Add R to your mana pool". If we apply Urborg first, then all lands are Swamps in addition, then Blood Moon overrides nonbasics. The end state is that Urborg is still 'working' on everything, but it's only visibly working on basic lands. If we apply Blood Moon first, then Urborg works on nothing because the effect stops existing.

So, Urborg and Blood Moon apply in the same layer. Neither one is a CDA, and applying Blood Moon first changes the set of objects that Urborg's effect applies to. Those are the requirements for a dependency, so Urborg is considered to be DEPENDENT on Blood Moon. That means we apply Blood Moon first 100% of the time, regardless of timestamp order. It will always "Beat" Urborg.

Dependencies don't come up much, and the ones that do are commonly known like Urborg/Moon in Modern.

So I have Falkenrath gorger and insolent neonate on the field. I activate neonates ability to discard and sac him: draw a card, and discard a vampire.

What does the stack look like? Do I get to pick how it builds?

>Nope! The copies will be created with the same target as the original by default, even if that target isn't legal at the time the copies are put onto the stack. All 31 Grapeshots will just fizzle.
Thanks. I thought that's how it worked, but then I listened to people talk about the risks of having to grapeshot your own face and started doubting myself.

Thank you very much for this.

To be fair, earlier in the thread (or last one? They all run together) someone was mentioning how people on MTGSalvation think that judges can give you derived information which makes Merfolk 'combat tricks' bad.

People are often wrong.

You state that you are activating your Neonate's ability, and place that ability onto the stack. You then pay all costs in any order (so you can sac then discard, or discard then sac; it's irrelevant here). At that time, the activated ability is placed on the stack, and the Vampire you discarded is discarded into Exile because it has Madness. The Madness trigger goes onto the stack, so right now the stack is

>Vampire Madness trigger
>Neonate activation

And your opponent has priority. Assuming they pass priority with no response, Madness resolves. As that trigger resolves, you may pay the madness cost to cast the Vampire. If you do, put it on the stack above the Neonate activation, and your opponent gets priority again. Assuming they have no response, your spell resolves, then they get priority to respond again before your Neonate draw resolves. If you don't cast the spell, they still get to respond after you decline to cast it, but before you draw from Neonate.

tl;dr you sac Neonate and discard, cast a Madness spell if you pitched one, then draw from Neonate.

You're quite welcome! Layers are seen as a sort of 'bogeyman' when they're really not that bad. The vast majority of player interaction with layers is rock-simple stuff like "Oh, I made it a 1/1, and it also has +3/+3, so I guess it's a 4/4?". Very intuitive stuff. It's just that with a handful of older cards, shit can get really weird.

Like how Humility can take a card's abilities away but those abilities continue working anyway.

I have inverter of truth on the battlefield and my opponent casts clip wings. Does it not work on my inverter because it doesn't have wings?

In a real game, it'll still hit your Inverter.

In Flavor Magic, it does nothing because your Inverter does not have wings.

Why can I NEVER remember the question I was going to ask when last looking for one of these threads? It was something in standard that seemed ambiguous.

It's a common problem! What I'd recommend doing is writing down your question while you're thinking about it, or emailing it to yourself or something so it's somewhere written down when the thread comes up, in case you forget it in the meantime.

I control Maralen of the Mornsong and Ob Nixilis Unshackled in play. Can my opponents choose not to search to avoid the 10 life loss? If they do search, can they choose not to find anything?

They can't choose not to search, because Maralen's trigger isn't optional. As the trigger resolves, they lose 3 life, search for a card, put it into their hand, and then shuffle their library. After that, Ob's trigger goes on the stack and causes them to lose 10 life and sacrifice a creature as it resolves.

They can't choose not to find anything, either, because they're just searching for "a card", and their library quite visibly has cards in it. The only time you can fail to find is when you're searching a hidden zone for cards of a stated quality (even if cards of that quality exist in that zone). But even then, you're failing to FIND during the search, not declining the search altogether. Unless they have something like Mindlock Orb to stop the search from even happening, they're getting domed for 13.

Is there a specific order to the cleanup step?

Scenario is if I discard a land to hand size with the Gitrog frog in play. I know that players receive priority followed buy another cleanup step.

My question is when during all of this would damage be cleared or an inkmoth nexus stop being a creature for example.

First, AP discards down to maximum hand size. Next, all damage marked on permanents is removed and all "until end of turn" and "this turn" effects end, all of that simultaneously. Then, the game checks to see if any SBAs need to be performed and/or if any triggered abilities are waiting to be put onto the stack. If so, SBAs are checked and triggers (if applicable) are put onto the stack, then AP gets priority, and after all that razzle dazzle the game makes another cleanup step.

So if you pitch a land for the Gitgud Frog, he'll trigger, but the trigger doesn't go onto the stack until after damage is cleared from things and your Nexus stops being a creature.