MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge - Friday Morning Edition

Good morning and welcome back to Ask A Judge!

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I pop quest for pure flame and activate my Heartless Hidetsugu who's holding a Loxodon warhammer. I have an even life total. Do I lose?

You do not. Lifelink means that as part of the damage that Hidetsugu does, you immediately gain that much life. So Quest's replacement effect doubles the effectiveness of Hidetsugu, hitting you for your full life total, and all of the other players for half of their life total, rounded down, then doubled (which will kill them at an even life total, and leave them at 1 if they're at an odd life total). You'll gain as much life as Hidetsugu does damage, so for yourself you'll take damage equal to your life total and gain that much life at the same time, just totally nullifying the damage effectively, and then you'll gain more for him doming your opponents on top of that.

I have Corpsejack Menace and hardened scales out. Drana, Liberator of Malakir attacks and triggers. Both have an intervening if clause, would only one trigger resolve?

There are no intervening-if clauses present in any of the three cards you listed. Intervening-if clauses are only ever found on triggered abilities, and always in the form of "When/whenever/at [TRIGGER EVENT], if [CONDITION], [EFFECT]." An example would be the Delirium trigger on Tooth Collector. It's supposed to trigger at the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, but it checks that "if there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard" clause. If it's not true, trigger never even goes on the stack. If it is true, trigger goes on the stack, but checks that condition again as it goes to resolve. THAT is an "intervening-if" clause.

Neither Corpsejack Menace nor Hardened Scales have intervening-if clauses, because neither of them have triggered abilities. They have replacement abilities, which (in this case) are formatted as "if THING, instead OTHER THING". They replace one event with another; Menace replaces "one or more +1/+1 counters would be placed on a creature you control" with "twice that many instead", and Scales replaces "one or more counters" with "that many plus one instead". Replacement abilities don't use the stack, and if you have more than one trying to apply to the same event (as you do here), the controller of the affected objects (you) chooses the order in which to apply them. Sometimes applying one makes the other not apply; that's not the case here.

So, Drana domes your opponent and triggers. Her trigger resolves and goes to put a counter on each attacking creature you control. You can either double that from 1 to 2, and then have Hardened Scales add another 1 to get 3 counters total, or you can have Scales apply first to bring 1 up to 2, then have Menace double it, to put 4 counters on all your creatures.

tl;dr no.

Oh, alright! I guess I just figured the term for it was intervening-if. I figured since "if this happens, this card intervenes and does this", which is, obviously not how the term works now that you've cleared it up. Thanks for clearing up what both effects do/mean.

Yeah, I can follow that logic. Intervening-if are just clauses smacked in the middle of a trigger that check for a condition as it triggers and as it resolves.

Corpsejack Mencae is just a bog-standard replacement effect. Not all of them are worded like that (though most are); some replacement effects modify how a permanent enters the battlefield, like Clone entering as a copy of something, or Hydras entering with some number of +1/+1 counters. Those are also technically replacement effects. They replace "enters the battlefield" with another thing; for Clone, that's "enters the battlefield as a copy of a creature on the battlefield", and for Hydra's that's "enters with some number of +1/+1 counters".

Also, a triggered ability will always say "At", "When", or "Whenever".

So. When can I just say "I win because of infinite combo"? Do I need to show them how the combo works one through and resets or do I need to go through each iteration until the opponent just gives up? It isn't a "True" infinite combo because they aren't mandatory triggers (like triple O-Rings).

So, the process for shortcutting through something like that is this: you demonstrate one iteration of the loop first. In this case, you'd say

"I tap Druid for G, he triggers and deals 1 to you. I activate Orochi Leafcaller, spending G to get U. I activate Freed from the Real with that U, untapping Druid. I am now in the same position I started with, poised to repeat the loop, except all of you have taken 1 damage."

You've shown that the loop is repeatable, and you know the exact outcome of each iteration of the loop (your opponents each take 1). So now you can propose a shortcut, because you can tell me the exact end-state of the shortcut, and exactly how many loops it'll take (for example, if your opponents are at 40, 25, and 28, you repeat the loop 39 more times to win).

Your opponents may decline your shortcut if they want to interrupt at some point in the middle (for example, 25 and 28 may have nothing, but 40 wants to respond to the 28th iteration of the loop so he doesn't die, but the other two do), but they can't just say "I don't agree to your shortcut". They have to actually have a reason.

Grok?

Thank. Btw it's pauper not commander.

Is there priority with cards being milled?

For instance, if I mill 15 cards off my opponents deck do all 15 hit the graveyard at once or do they hit one at a time?

"Mill 15" is not "mill 1" repeated 15 times. All 15 cards will go at once. If you have multiple spells or triggers that are milling, it IS done in blocks- Brain Freeze with a storm count of 10 doesn't mill 33 cards, it mills 3 cards 11 times because each Brain Freeze happens separately.

how do multiple instances of doubling an amount work? is it sequential where you would double the original amount, the double the new amount, and so on?

take corpsejack menace as an example

Thanks for doing this OP.

If I tap royal assassin to kill some niggaz and my bro hits it (the assassin) with an instant that exiles it, the creature is still dead right?

Stupid as fuck question but I honest am not sure.

See Corpsejack Menace has a replacement effect. If you have 2 of them, both those replacement effects want to apply to the same event, and since it's your shit getting messed with, you pick which to apply (which doesn't really matter here). You apply the first, and hey look, the second one still applies to the 'new' event, so you apply that. So let's say the event was "put 5 +1/+1 counters on target thing". 5 becomes 10, and then 10 becomes 20. A third Corpsejack would make 20 become 40, a fourth would make 40 become 80, etc.

You're quite welcome! Thank you for having questions.

Right. Abilities on the stack exist independent of their sources. Think of it like this: your creatures are soldiers. If they threw a grenade (an ability), and then got shot, the grenade they already threw doesn't disappear.

Alright, tis what figured. Keep these threads up, I'm sure I'll have more interesting questions as my bro and I etc back into magic.

>Keep these threads up
Does he not know gA's been doing this shit for literal years at this point

So, creatures that let you choose something as they enter the battlefield, like Silhana Starfletcher. Is that choice copyable?

As in, "if I make a copy of Starfletcher, does the copy automatically have the same color chosen"? No. That's a replacement effect that modifies how they enter the battlefield, and Clone's "I enter as a copy" applies before that. So you play Clone, it enters as a copy, you pick Starfletcher, and now you have a Starfletcher entering so it says "hey man, pick a color".

If an affinity deck swings an arcbound ravager at me and i deflecting palm it, can ravager sac itself in response-> deal no combat damage-> have deflecting palm fizzle?

Well, Palm won't fizzle, because it doesn't target. If they pop the Ravager in response to the Palm itself, then the Palm player can just choose a different source as it resolves. The smart play is to let Palm resolve, having them choose Ravager as the source, and then popping Ravager so they can't pick something else.

The Palm doesn't fizzle in that case- it already resolved. It just doesn't do anything.

Ahhh ty. Darn it, having a hell of a time dealing with arcbound

Yeah, he's a dodgy little fuck. At the very least, Palm will make them have to pop it and transfer the counters to something else.

All right, so if something like Cryptoplasm becomes a copy of the Starfletcher, it won't be able to tap for mana of the chosen color?

Correct. No color was ever chosen for it as it entered, so that ability doesn't have a "chosen" color to refer back to.

Does the same apply with drawing cards?

It does not! Quite the opposite. CR 120.2 tells us that drawing N cards is to be treated as "Draw a card" repeated N times. If you are told to draw 3 cards, you draw 1 card, then do it again, then do it again, rather than putting all 3 into your hand at once. This is important for, say, Future Sight or another reveal-the-top kind of card; your opponent will know what all 3 cards drawn were because they were drawn 1 at a time during the resolution of your spell/ability.

Don't you think that it's totally fucked up that Rose didn't make space for Jack on that door?

I mean, I'm sure she would have if he wasn't so dead-set on faking his death and moving to New York to become a bootlegger.

How does 'Enchanted Land is X' work?

If something is a swamp, what does that actually mean?

It's treated as though the card was a basic land of the Swamp type, and loses all abilities (except to tap for black mana)

That's very silly wording, especially when we have cards that change the creature type of a creature without taking away abilities, as well as lands that are already the basic land types without being those basic lands.

If it's just "is SUBTYPE" like Spreading Seas, then it overrides everything 'naturally' on the card's textbox. Throw that onto an Inkmoth Nexus and it is now a land named Inkmoth Nexus, with the subtype of "Island", and it only has the ability to tap for blue. That's it.

If it's like Urborg and gives them the land types IN ADDITION, then it tacks it on... well, in addition. They'll be able to tap for the 'new' mana type (Black, in this case), but also have their other abilities and subtypes.

It's less "silly wording" and more "the rules say so". It'd be possible for it to change to that, but cards like Evil Presence have existed since literally the dawn of the game, and were intended to say "fuck you, that's just a Swamp now". For it to work 'in line' with how Creatures work (IE, not inherently overwriting abilities) we'd have to change the CR entry that says that's what happens (not that hard), but also errata all of those cards to say "Enchanted land is a Swamp, and loses all other subtypes and abilities it naturally has (but keeps abilities given to it from other sources)", which... not preferable.

>If it's just "is SUBTYPE" like Spreading Seas, then it overrides everything 'naturally' on the card's textbox. Throw that onto an Inkmoth Nexus and it is now a land named Inkmoth Nexus, with the subtype of "Island", and it only has the ability to tap for blue. That's it.
>If it's like Urborg and gives them the land types IN ADDITION, then it tacks it on... well, in addition. They'll be able to tap for the 'new' mana type (Black, in this case), but also have their other abilities and subtypes.
If I cast it on a basic land, will it still be a basic land?

Yes. "Basic" is a supertype (you can tell because it comes before the 'type' of Land, on the left side of the card) and is not affected by fucking with the land's Land subtypes. If you put Spreading Seas onto a Swamp, it will be a Basic Land - Island named "Swamp".

That reminds me of a funny interaction - cards "remember" their choices even when shapeshifting or doing other funny stuff, right?

Which means, if I understand correctly, that if I have a thingy coming into play as Alloy Golem (choose a color, ~me~ is the chosen color) or a copy thereof, choose "red", and then my thingy shapeshifts, polymorphs, or otherwise becomes a copy of Order of the Stars (~me~ has protection from chosen color) it will now have protection from red because "red" is what it gets when it asks "what's my chosen color".

Hey gA, if I control a Gagagigo with an Axe of Despair on it and a face up Pole Position, what happens when my summons a Dark Magician?

Nah.

607.2d. If an object has an ability printed on it that causes a player to "choose a [value]" or "name a card" and an ability printed on it that refers to "the chosen [value]," "the last chosen [value]," or "the named card," those abilities are linked. The second ability refers only to a choice made as a result of the first ability.
607.5. If an object acquires a pair of linked abilities as part of the same effect, the abilities will be similarly linked to one another on that object even though they weren't printed on that object. They can't be linked to any other ability, regardless of what other abilities the object may currently have or may have had in the past.
Example: Arc-Slogger has the ability "{R}, Exile the top ten cards of your library: Arc-Slogger deals 2 damage to target creature or player." Sisters of Stone Death has the ability "{B}{G}: Exile target creature blocking or blocked by Sisters of Stone Death" and the ability "{2}{B}: Put a creature card exiled with Sisters of Stone Death onto the battlefield under your control." Quicksilver Elemental has the ability "{U}: Quicksilver Elemental gains all activated abilities of target creature until end of turn." If a player has Quicksilver Elemental gain Arc-Slogger's ability, activates it, then has Quicksilver Elemental gain Sisters of Stone Death's abilities, activates the exile ability, and then activates the return-to-the-battlefield ability, only the creature card Quicksilver Elemental exiled with Sisters of Stone Death's ability can be returned to the battlefield. Creature cards Quicksilver Elemental exiled with Arc-Slogger's ability can't be returned.

You get banished to the Shadow Realm because you're stupid enough to be playing against the protagonist of a Trading Card Game anime, which means you gon' lose.

What is a galvanic autogenitor?

A dude with too many bad Commander decks and not enough cast-iron cookware.

A new creature in Kaladesh. Judge leaks continue despite them knowing the consequences smdh

Running that 5 year long con

that's how long they plan sets out now these days
rosewater must feel so betrayed, the corruption goes deep

>not enough cast-iron cookware
What's 'enough' cast iron cookware?

As far as I'm concerned you can do everything with one pan.

Kinda hard to make cornbread AND chicken fried steak in the same pan when you only have one, though.

That said I have like 7 pieces of Le Creuset that my mother owned for 20 fucking years and never used once

Okay, okay, hear me out on this.

Two separate stir fries. AT ONCE

>Stir fries in cast iron
I own a wok for a reason dude

Fair enough. I don't do enough southern cooking for that, though Chicken Fried Steak is fantastic. I mainly use mine for British peasant food.

>spoiler
YOU ARE A NIGGER AND A FAG, HOLY SHIT

>stir frying in a cast iron pan
uh

Seriously. When I moved out she was pulling out some of her old cookware (it's Rachel Ray shit, but hey, free pans!) to 'start me off' and then she asked if I wanted "these old ones" and pulls out a full 7 piece set.

Apparently her rich-ass great-aunt gave them to her as a wedding gift and she used them exactly once, then stuffed them into a cabinet for 20 years because (I shit you not) "They're not non-stick, so they're a pain to use".

Anyway, speaking of family, I'm about to go get dinner with my kid brother. If the thread's still up when I get back, I'll answer questions! If not... probably new thread.

If my attacking creature gets assigned as a blocker and I give it protection, does the damage go through or does the damage not go anywhere?

If something is already blocking it, then no it won't go through.

In a game of EDH, if I have a card SOMEWHERE in my deck, can I wish in a different one? Or does making my deck have two of a nonbasic land count as illegal?

Tournament rules say no, but who the fuck plays EDH wih tournament rules

Hey Judge, here's a question. What happens if i cast newmrakul, and on my opponents controlled turn, i cast his newmrakul. Do I control my own turn from his newmrakul?

no

Invalidating blocks that have already been legally declared doesn't do much of anything. If you give your attacking creature Protection from Green after I block it with a Green creature, your guy is still blocked, it just won't take damage from my green blocker.

Well, how to handle Wishes is pretty much up to your group.

Does any effect grant you control of your opponent during the extra turn YOU have, in which he has control of you?

Non-Socratic answer: No. You only control him for that one turn, not for any other portion of the game.

>tfw newmrakul doesn't say target player instead of target opponent

I've heard so many stories about douchy and terrible judges on Veeky Forums
what the hell does a judge have to do to get wotc to fire them, anyways?

>went to a draft tonight
>drafted with two rednecks, a control freak and two decent people
>fight against the control freak
>he freaks out when I cast an instant during the declare blockers step, before damage was done, calls the judge to show me how wrong I am
>later fight against a redneck
>he plays abilities an instants after he declares "I am doing X damage" over and over again. nobody notices.
>I bring it up once out of spite from my previous game, the judge mentions that it is appropriate to declare what you are doing before declaring how much damage you are doing
>redneck keeps doing it

Alright, so this was a pretty shitty night. What do you think of this judge/other anons?

To be fair, I'd wager a non-zero amount of those judges are not Judges. As in, they might be the person entered as a judge for the store's events, but they don't have any actual certification.

WotC technically can't "fire" us because they don't consider us employees at the moment, but all certified Judges are expected to be... well, not assholes. We have to abide by the Judge Code of Conduct, and if players have issues with judges violating that, they should report it via this handy link

Thanks tab key.

This handy link:

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You can also use that link to report GOOD shit your local Judge is doing too- the Judge Conduct people love to hear good stories to break up the bad ones.

As in, he'd attack with a 4/4 and say "I attack for 4", then after no blocks throw pump spells at it?

I'd probably intervene if it was causing confusion or arguments.

Also, I am very tired now, so I'm gonna go to bed. Talk to you kids tomorrow.

>it doesn't actually exile anything unless they're dumb
i suppose this has to do with the specific wording on coco pops, can you elaborate?

how does Vampiric Dragon interact with tokens? say they have a 1/1 Soldier that i ping for 1 to kill, does the Dragon get a +1/+1 counter? i'm a bit confused by tokens x graveyards.
moreover, i noticed that even the gatherer text doesn't say "... this turn DIES, put a..." but keeps the "...this turn is put into a graveyard, put a..." that's the bit that puzzles me. i know tokens die and i know 'die' is shorthand for 'is put into the graveyard from the battlefield/play' but i also know that tokens can't exist in the GY so what's the bottom line?

You blanked the casted CoCo if you respond it with Hallowed Moonlight. They can still choose to find nothing and ship the 6 cards to the bottom.

ok, then how can they exile their creatures by being dumb? i'm not sure of the timing on that. if they're looking at the top 6 then it's too late to respond and the 2 creatures enter the battlefield before you can respond, right?

By still selecting 2 creatures to etb even though they know a Hallowed Moonlight was casted in response?

Yes, it will get a counter.
Tokens that dies hit the yard then ceases to exist.

>By still selecting 2 creatures to etb even though they know a Hallowed Moonlight was casted in response
that's pretty dumb

Ruling question:
How does summoning sickness interact with creatures being blinked?

blinked creature gets summoning sickness

Then how does the ruling work for blinked creatures the turn after? Is summoning a state-based trigger predicated on casting the card that turn, and overrides any other triggers, or is it something more complicated?

A creature is in summoning sickness if it have never been under it's controller's control since the beginning of that player's most recent turn.

a.k you have to spend your beginning phase (untap upkeep draw) at least once with the creature in your control for it to not have summoning sickness.

if a creature was a 0/0 and had the specific wording "when this creature enters the battlefield, put X +1/+1 counters on it" would it just straight up die? I'm looking at hydras and curious about words.

as opposed to "enters with X"

is there any functional difference between "enters the battlefield with" and "comes into play with" or is it just a case of updated wording a la "create token" vs "put token onto the battlefield"?

It would die as a state based action.

No. The updating wording just makes the card text more tidy and small, as in "create token" is same as put token onto the battlefield"

If I play an AWOL against my opponent's Misthollow Griffen, could they cast it again?

It would be extremely painful.

Are you actually asking rulings on un-cards?

I am controlling an opponent's turn with Emrakul. My opponent has a Blighted Fen. Misunderstand what that does, I sac the Blighted Fen targetting my opponent.
You discover that that is an illegal target, do you rewind to before I activated the ability or do I just have to pick a legal target (me)?

can anyone provide a source on the mention of a sphinx planeswalker?

cheerio pip

i like it

Since there's a legal target, you pick the legal target for it.

no. it's in the fuckoff zone, which is not exile. but, this is a judge thread so the official answer on all un-sets is "Sure, why not?"

calm down doctor now's not the time for meme, that comes later

depends on how long it's been since the mistake. if it's still in the same phase it's an easy rewind, but if there has been a draw or combat step then i guess you fucked up. not a judge so don't quote me.

>As in, he'd attack with a 4/4 and say "I attack for 4", then after no blocks throw pump spells at it?

wait, are you not meant to do this?

nah it's fine. if you are attacking with a 4/4 and hold a pump spell for no blocks, it's perfectly legit to say "i attack for 4" because that is 100% correct information. (public information?) the only reason gA says he would intervene is if it is "causing confusion or arguments" which is either
>1 the attacker being obsfucating (they are either a cheat or an idiot)
>2 the defender not comprender what's going on (they are a simpleton and need to be talked down to, or don't get that you can respond to no blocks)

Can I respond to Karoo? What I mean is can I declare my untapped Plains to be bounced, then tap my Plains in response or does this not satisfy the Karoo's condition? If it must be untapped with no tricks, what's the point of the Karoo cycle? Aside from Landfall I see no benefit and only the downside of losing a turn to play it.

If it must be untapped with no tricks, what's the point of the Karoo cycle? Aside from Landfall I see no benefit and only the downside of losing a turn to play it.
you're getting three mana out of two lands eventually, even if it takes you longer to get there

PT judges seem to disagree with you

it's a colorless source for your Eldrazi

once i donate the zurgo suit creature to another player, i don't get it back, right? i mean outside of homeward bound effects

>power/toughness judges
i know you mean pro/tour but still

This is why the first rule of MtG rule questions is "read the card carefully and do exactly what it says".

sorry, I forgot to actually answer

creature goes back to you at the end of turn, as the card says

the equipment itself never leaves your control

>can I declare my untapped Plains to be bounced, then tap my Plains in response
You can't since lands entering the battlefield don't use the stack.
You can, however, tap the plains to get a white mana and THEN put in the karoo. The opponent can't respond to either of these actions.

you can't be more wrong.

oh it says "until end of turn"
nvm me i have rtfc problems

It's true, i was thinking of the ravnica bouncelands
Forget what i said

Wrong. You're never forced to change the target of something that's already happened because the one you mistakenly chose was illegal.

Depends on what's happened since. If the answer is "nothing much", then we rewind to the moment before you activated Fen. If it's been longer and we don't think you were cheating, then we shrug and tell you to be more careful (at Regular REL) or both players get warnings (at Competitive+). If we do think you were cheating then there's a very different interaction.

Because you get three land drop's worth of mana out of two lands. It means that if the format is slow enough to support playing bouncelands at all, you need to put fewer lands into your deck to make all of your land drops on time.

Also, let's say your deck requires about three mana to do its thing consistently. Now you need to (on average) keep hands with fewer lands in them (two lands as opposed to three if you don't want to gamble on drawing one).

Moonlight exiles things that are trying to enter the battlefield if they weren't cast.

CoCo says "up to". You have to Moonlight in response to the spell, so they just choose to put 0 creatures from CoCo onto the field. If they're dumb, they can say "Okay, I pick these two creatures" still, and those get exiled.

Tokens die, and they go to the graveyard for things that care about it, they just stop existing right after. Tokens killed by V-Drag will grow the V-Drag.

Blinked creatures are new objects, and you haven't controlled them continuously since the beginning of your most recent turn.

"Summoning sickness" isn't a trigger of any kind. It's just a term for the reason you can't attack with (or activate the {T} or {Q} abilities of) a creature until you've controlled it continuously since the beginning of your most recent turn.

Yep. It'd enter as a 0/0 and trigger, SBAs see a 0/0 and kill it, then the trigger goes on the stack.

Not really- "comes into play" was just errata'd to "Enters the battlefield" back in M10.

>Silver bordered question
Deploying silver-bordered answer: "Sure, why not?"

Rewind. You're never forced to pick a new target for something that you mistakenly chose an illegal target for, we just back up through the whole illegal action.

I think Crucius the Mad (the Sphinx who devised Etherium on Esper) is hinted to be a walker?

Very incorrect.

It depends on how you do it. "Attack for 4" and then pumps after no blocks is okay, I worded it poorly. What's shitty is saying "4" when an opponent asks how much they're taking and then after they go to pick up their pen going "I MEAN 6 BECAUSE PROWESS" or things like that.

You can do that. I wouldn't, because then you have to bounce a different Plains. The Karoo cycle is pretty much hot trash, that's why they 'fixed' it with the Rav bouncelands.

Nah, it goes to the opponent of your choice each turn, and then comes back to you during the cleanup step of that same turn.