MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge - 「 B L U E M O N D A Y 」

Oh, absolutely. If he'd made any attempt to communicate that he was swapping it to a 4/1, that changes everything; even if it's just "Swap it, trade?" as he's moving it to the graveyard. But I'm not going to reward a player making zero attempt to communicate and expecting his opponent to fill in the blanks for him.

Absolutely! CASTING a spell is a whole other thing from RESOLVING one.

If an ability triggers on cast, then it's placed on the stack above the creature spell and resolves first. Even if the creature gets countered, the cast trigger is already on the stack and is going to resolve independent of the creature. Only way to counter a cast ability is with a card that counters triggered abilities such as Stifle, Voidslime, etc.

>be me
>listening to turn one thoughtseize
>start talking about ethics of rules lawyering
>saying there wouldn't be IDs ideally

What is ID?

Unrelated, what does IQ stand for and what is it? I know it's some kind of tournament not dissimilar to PPTQ or RPTQ.

thread is slow and this is semi-related

ID is Intentional Draw. It's when both players just agree to mark the match as a draw, rather than playing it out. There's some grumblings about it (and concessions) because of people using them to sort of 'metagame' tournaments. Even absent the clusterfuck of a discussion topic that is 'bribery', a lot of people are not too chuffed to see people conceding friends into the Top 8, or drawing the last two rounds to "lock" the top 8 the way they want. "Ideally" people would just play Magic.

IQ stands for Invitational Qualifier; it's a Starcity thing. Local-level events to qualify you for an invitation to the big Starcity Invitational events.

I had just never heard it as ID.

My opponent plays a card in a language I don't know and refuses to tell me its name. I call a judge and ask for the oracle text. Can I get the oracle text of a card my opponent has played, but don't know the name of?

obviously I'm going to appeal the fug out of the floor judge if he doesn't give me the oracle

>And refuses to tell me its name
Well fuck them with a rake, because that's not an option available to them. The name of any visible object is Free Information; that means all players are entitled to it, and if you ask your opponent about it, they MUST answer you fully and honestly. They cannot refuse that request.

All you need to get Oracle text is to uniquely identify a card. For example, you could say "That 1/1 snake elf thing for UG from Dissension" and that's enough for me to identify Coiling Oracle. You could say "The green Titan from the M11 cycle" and that's enough for Primeval Titan, etc.

Hell, in this case you could just point at the fucking thing and say "Could I get the name and Oracle text of this card?". But yeah, in reality your opponent MUST tell you the name at least, and if they don't, just call a Judge and explain "I need the Oracle text of a card my opponent played, but they refuse to tell me the name of the card".

There was some guy shitposting on reddit saying he's going to get a G stompy list or something all in chinese/japanese and alter all the text and whatnot off and just be a giant jerk.

I didn't know if they had to tell me the names of things but I assumed calling a judge would sort it out.

All right, so I've got 21 things on board, one of which is my commander. Someone drops Warp World and I put my commander in the command zone.
Am I flipping 21 cards or 20?

There's an article on TCGPlayer about breaking Comm16. It focuses on the group hug kings.
It's better to read it, but the tl;dr is that he plans to break the deck with things like Burgeoning, Horn of Greed, and Dirtcowl Wurm. Things that trigger when an opponent plays a land.
Those work with the kings, right?
He also mentions a few things that trigger when a land enters the battlefield, but I know those work just fine.

Stasis Snare on a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar that's currently a creature. Stasis Snare leaves the field. Does Gideon return to the field? I assume he does, back just as a regular Planeswalker as if he was just played, but just want to make sure.

And is the same true with land folk?

90% sure Gideon returns as a Planeswalker, Awakened Lands return as a non-creature land.

Just want a Judge's ruling to make sure.

So with Magus of the Will, when it says you can "play cards from your graveyard", what exactly does that mean? Am I still casting the things from my graveyard? Do I have to pay their mana costs?

>tick Lili when there are no creatures
Isn't that a legal play though?

If i cast a part the waterveil in a 2v2 game do i only get a extra turn? or does my partner also get another turn?

If i cast Emrakul the promissed end in that same game do i just controll one player or both?

Phyrexian mana counts as 1 in the cmc, right? So a chalice for 1 would counter a gut shot and a chalice for 3 would counter a dismember?

Not after they've passed the turn and I've already drawn my card when they didn't activate her at all during their turn.

Didn't see that part excuse my poor reading comprehension.

21. "That many" means the number of permanents that Warp World started to fuck with, not how many end up actually in the library.

They do not. "Putting a land onto the battlefield" =/= playing it. Horn of Greed does not trigger on Landfall, it triggers specifically on the special action of "playing a land", which is not what HugKings do.

He comes back as a normal Gideon because he's a new object with no memory of, or relation to, his previous selves.

Yes.

It means you can play lands from your graveyard (same as Crucible- you're still limited to your normal one-per-turn unless something like Exploration is giving you extra land drops) AND that you may cast spells from your graveyard. You still have to pay all costs, it's just letting you cast them from a place you normally cannot.

You and your teammate in 2HG share turns, so if you get an extra turn, your whole team does.

Emrakul is double good in 2HG because it gives you control of the whole team.

Correct. CMC is all the numbers plus all the symbols, with each symbol being "1" for these purposes.

I pass priority on my end step.
My opponent does a thing, now I want to do a thing on my end step after I let their thing resolve. Do I have priority again before the turn ends?

Can I only hold priority during my turn?

Active Player always receives priority after an object on the stack resolves. If you want to allow their response to resolve, and then take an action still in your End Step, you absolutely can; after all, the only way to move past the current step/phase is for all players to sequentially pass priority with the stack empty.

You can hold priority any time you have it; it's perfectly legal to take an action, explicitly hold priority, and then take another action during your opponent's turn.

Say I pay 5 to summon Apocalypse Hydra with 2 Hardened Scales already on the field. Would it come into play with 10 counters or do I still have to pay 7 mana for that?

If you paid 5, then X=3. It's coming down with 3 counters normally, and then getting 2 extra counters from the Scales, for a total of 5.

For it to get the 'extra' 5, you have to actually have X=5, not just "it's gonna have 5 counters from other stuff too". Hardened Scales basically just makes the effect read:

"Apocalypse Hydra enters the battlefield with X+2 +1/+1 counters on it. If X is 5 or more, it enters the battlefield with an additional X +1/+1 counters on it". It doesn't change that X needs to be 5.

Question regarding the new four color commander that gives things cascade, Ydris. If I cast conduit of ruin do I tutor then cascade or do I have the luxury of stacking my triggers to cascade and then tutor?

Up to you! Both triggers are firing from the same event of "When you cast Conduit of Ruin", so you can either cascade and THEN tutor, or you can tutor up something to cascade into. Just be clear about how you're stacking your triggers.

awesome thank you. I was pretty sure that's how it worked just wanted to be sure. Now back to looking for more good alternate cost cards, things like evoke and Force of will effects. Know any of the top of your head that'd be good?

I thought so. Didn't hurt to hope.

What happens to a duel faced card when it's Manifested or turned face down from Ixidron?

Evoke is a particularly tasty thing to use alongside Cascade. There's a full cycle of the Force of Will effects, but the other ones aren't great; similarly, there's a throwback cycle from Coldsnap that all cost 7 and have "exile 2" instead of exile 1 as an alternate cost. Those ones vary in power, but Fury of the Horde is pretty strong for Ylvis, and Allosaurus Rider/Commandeer aren't terrible options.

There's also the 'free' spells from Urza's block.

Manifested? It's a weird three-sided card. Right now it's face-down, but assuming the front face of the DFC is a creature, you can pay the mana cost to turn it face-up again, and then it'll be 'normal' again; it can transform to whatever the back-side of itself is.

Already on board? Nothing. You can't turn a DFC face-down because they don't have a "face down", except in that crazy three-sided nonsense with Manifest and Illusionary Mask.

If I have an Elite Arcanist with a +1/+1 counter on it, could I cast the card exiled by the Arcanist using Experiment Kraj? Elite Arcanist's casting ability is worded in such a way that it isn't self referential, so I'm wondering if Kraj can "see" the card Arcanist exiled and cast it, or if Kraj would have to have his own card exiled somehow, which I don't think is possible.

No bueno. Arcanist has two linked abilities; while Kraj will gain "X, {T}: Copy the exiled card. You may cast the copy without paying its mana cost. X is the converted mana cost of the exiled card" ability, it has no linked ability that has exiled any cards, and the ability on Kraj isn't linked to the ability on the Arcanist, so the ability does a lot of nothing.

Even if Kraj had a way to exile other cards (For example, if you put a counter on a Scavenging Ooze) that ability wouldn't be linked to the ability it stole from Arcanist, so it still wouldn't work.

tl;dr no, linked abilities are weird.

Do fused split cards trigger cards such as Nivix Cyclops only once?
Can I tutor Alive/Well with Demand?

Thank you very much. Helpful and friendly as always, you rock

So the only rulings I've seen on this card from wizards are "the bidding will continue until nobody will bid anymore" and "you can bid more life than you have".
This recently stopped a game where this was played and both players had Children of Korlis out, which has "sacrifice this creature to gain life equal to the life you've lost this turn. Both players were at 20 life.

Help?

A fused spell is only one spell. It won't trigger Cyclops more than once.

Alive/Well in your library is a multicolored card, and is thus a legal choice for the Demand half of Supply/Demand.

I do my best!

Very sad times. High bidder loses life equal to the bid and draws 4. Then SBAs see a player at 0 or less life and immediately kill them. Without outside help, Children can't save you from dipping below 0, because you die before you have priority to activate it.

Had a similar situation with both players playing Pay no heed in response to Pain's reward. Both players could bet unlimited amounts of life. Do the same rules apply? Does the source of damage even come from Pain's reward?

Pain's Reward does not do damage. It causes loss of life. Loss of life is not damage, and Pay No Heed will have zero interaction with Pain's Reward.

I see, thanks a bunch

How exactly does yixlid jailer interact with cards like snapcaster mage? Trying to decide if it's worth a sideboard slot against graveyard shenanigans in modern since I'm too poor for grafdigger's cage and don't like leylines.

Poorly, unless you flash it in. Jailer takes away all abilities in the graveyard in layer 6, but it doesn't stop NEW abilities from being added after (because since timestamps). Snapcaster adds on the Flashback ability after Yixlid strips them away (again, unless Jailer comes out AFTER Snapcaster's trigger resolves).

Well that's disappointing, considering if I flash it in after snapcaster's trigger resolves they can just cast the targeted card in response unless it was a sorcery. I assume it's the same for past in flames?

Correct.

Well, shoot. Guess I'll dig around to see if I have any relics, unless you have any suggestions. Thanks for your help.

gA i think cascade says 'you may' which means you don't have to cast the revealed card, right?
like if i cast violent ultimatum and cascade into negate i don't have to counter my own spell, is that correct?

Correct. You wheel until you hit a spell with a low enough CMC, and then you MAY cast it, if you want. If you don't want to (either because it'd be impossible, or because it would be disadvantageous), you just... don't. Put it on the bottom of your library (in a random order!) with the other cards you exiled up until that point.

can a creature with shroud have equipment attached to it?
like if a creature has lightning greaves attached and you want to attach a second equipment to it

I feel like this is a dumb question, but say my opponent casts gitaxian probe targeting me. I cast misdirection changing the target of gitaxian probe to my opponent. Misdirection resolves, then gitaxian probe resolves.

I look at my opponent's hand. Who draws a card?

Yes and no. Shroud doesn't make equipment fall off, but the equip ability targets so you won't be able to stick more on.

This one got me thinking. Two questions:
1. What would happen if this was cast and a player has platinum emperion on the field? I know it prevents paying life, but can they still bid life?
2. What if two different players both had something preventing them from losing the game due to having

They would be able to bid life, and would not lose life if they won the bid.
Assuming both could keep naming larger numbers, yes.

>I look at my opponent's hand.
Your opponent should look at his own hand and then draw a card. You do nothing. Misdirection doesn't change the spell's controller

Shroud only prevents abilities that specifically target. The equip ability targets, so you can't activate equip abilities targeting a creature with shroud, but equipment already attached stays on it because once it's attached there's no targeting going on.

Incidentally, if you gave something like Vulshok Battlemaster shroud, it's ability would still function, since the ability that pulls in equipment doesn't name Vulshok Battlemaster as a "target."

>Your opponent should look at his own hand
is there anything the opponent can do to NOT look at his or her own hand?

Two gitaxian probe questions if you don't mind

In a multiplayer setting how do you handle if a player having seen the others hand telling the rest of the group what was in it? Not touching the cards just saying what they saw?

Also the rule on merely saying "gitaxian probe" and looking at the cards because the player handed them to you?

I know these are super "that guy" questions, sorry.

Two gitaxian probe questions if you don't mind

In a multiplayer setting how do you handle if a player having seen the others hand telling the rest of the group what was in it? Not touching the cards just saying what they saw?

Also the rule on merely saying "gitaxian probe" and looking at the cards because the player handed them to you?

I know these are super "that guy" questions, sorry.

>In a multiplayer setting how do you handle if a player having seen the others hand telling the rest of the group what was in it? Not touching the cards just saying what they saw?
Struggling to find the ruling on this but I know gA has talked about it before. IIRC, since the hand is considered a "hidden zone" you're allowed to say as much as you want about what's in somebody's hand (or your own), but you don't have to tell the truth about it and you can't reveal your hand 'just because.'

>Also the rule on merely saying "gitaxian probe" and looking at the cards because the player handed them to you?
Not sure what you're asking here. Do you mean without them actually casting the spell? You're not obliged to reveal your hand until you've actually seen them pay the costs and put the card down.

>I know these are super "that guy" questions, sorry.
They really aren't.

That's what I thought for the first one, for the second one I mean instances where you say the word without actually casting and the player shows their hand without you having actually cast the card is it fully a misplay on their part?

If something has graft, and you put a creature onto the battlefield, does the "moving" of the +1/+1 counter count as putting it on that creature, for things like corpsejack menace and hardened scales, that increase it, or enduring scalelord, etc, that triggers its own effect from it?

>playing magic
>there's a minigame where the first player to shout 'GITAXIAN PROBE' gets to see the opponents hand for free
c'mon guy.

Yes it counts

If a creature with an Aura on it gain Shroud, do the Auras fall off?

I turn my swamp sideways, pay 2 life and put Thoughtseize on the table. If my opponent reveals their hand, can I write their whole hand down, then say I'm targeting me with Thoughtseize?

>then say I'm targeting me
first: dick move
your opponent is making a reasonable assumption that you are exploiting for your own benefit that is a scumbag thing to do
second: you must now reveal your hand, choose a nonland card and discard it
congratulations, you played yourself

>aura
no

I wanted to discard Griselbrand this whole time so I can bring it back and draw more cards.

But seriously, if information from a hidden zone is revealed, can I write it down?

Can you get multiple Prized Amalgams back from the graveyard off of one other creature coming back? Like for example, I have 3 Amalgams in the yard and one Haunted Dead. I bring Haunted Dead back, and then the three Amalgams come back at my end step, right?

Only if you can attach it directly to the creature without targeting it (for example, Stonehewer Giant). But you can't activate Equip targeting a creature with Shroud, so if that was your plan, you'd need to move the Greaves to something else first. Shroud doesn't make already-equipped stuff fall off, though.

>I look at my opponent's hand
No you don't. It's not your spell. Misdirection just changes the target of the spell, not the controller. Your opponent would look at their own hand, then draw a card.

1) Sure. It's not a payment, so they can bid as high as they want, since the life loss won't actually hurt them.

2) Yes and no. Eventually the game state needs to be furthered by one of them making a choice that breaks the back-and-forth, and that someone has to be the Active Player.

3) I like tacos.

If a player looks at your hand via Probe, they're free to tell everyone what they saw. They're also free to lie through their teeth about it. Technically they shouldn't REVEAL the hand, because they don't have that option, but a lot of the time it gets handwaved in multiplayer because it's faster than just telling everyone (but again, you can 'tell' them what's in the hand and be lying).

>Saying Gitaxian Probe
This will end badly. Your opponent will call a Judge, an investigation will happen, and you will need to come up with a very, very good explanation for why what you did wasn't "Attempting to trick my opponent into showing me his hand". You will fail at that explanation.

Yep! "moving" the counter really just means removing a counter from the first thing, and putting a counter on the second thing. Teeeeechnically they're not the 'same' counter, but it's more intuitive if you just say 'move'.

>Auras
Nope, otherwise Auras that give Shroud would really suck! Auras only target as spells. Once they're actually ON something, no targeting is happening.

>Thoughtseize
You "can", in the sense that you'll probably get in a lot of trouble. If your opponent just immediately reveals their hand as soon as they see the Thoughtseize before you could reasonably say you were targeting yourself (and I actually believe that your original intent was to target yourself, or your intent WAS to hit them, but their gun-jumping showed you nothing worth taking and you decided to act on information they mistakenly, but legally, gave you), you'll probably be "okay".

If you laid it on the table and just waited for them to 'assume', write it down, and then say you're targeting yourself? Same as the Probe thing. You'll have to give me a very good reason that there was a long pause between you placing the spell on the stack and choosing targets for it, and convincing me that the pause was not to trick your opponent into revealing their hand.

You will fail at convincing me.

I mean, we can't exactly punish someone for naturally remembering something their opponent mistakenly revealed (like accidentally playing an Emrakul when they meant to lay down a land), so it'd be silly to punish you for writing it down. The problem is when you're going out of your way to try and get access to information you aren't entitled to. Reminds me of a fun story, but I'll post it after this question, since I'm running low on characters.

Yep! The Haunted Dead coming back triggers all three Amalgams, setting up the delayed triggers for all of them to come back at the end step.

>Your opponent would look at their own hand
what if they don't want to

>since I'm running low on characters.
who is your favourite planeswalker character

Okay so, storytime.

GP Brisbane, October 2007. A pro player was playing against an opponent with -very- reflective glasses hanging from his shirt. They were so reflective, in fact, that the pro could clearly see his opponent's hand reflected from the glasses. When he was confronted about this fact by the HJ, he lied and said he hadn't been looking at the reflection, and was promptly DQed.

The fun part? The reflection isn't what got him DQed. It was him lying to a Judge about it. He wasn't going out of his way to try and gain information, it was basically being handed to him by his opponent's negligence. An analogy I read about it went something like "If your opponent shows up to the event with a full-body mirror suit, then it's their fault if you see every card they draw all game".

Tough? That's the instruction on the spell. That'd be like saying "I don't WANT to pay 2 life" after casting Thoughtseize, or "I don't WANT to draw 2 cards" after casting a Concentrate. You don't get that option.

Tell you what: Knowing what you know about me and my threads, you get three guesses.

If I attack with hellkite charger, can I cast seething song to add 5 mana and then tap 2 more mana to activate his ability or I need to have 7 lands when I attack with him to activate the ability?

Charger cares not from whence the mana flows, only that it flows.

But yeah- very, very few things "require" mana from a specific source, and they will clearly say they need that, if they do. Charger just needs 7 mana, so if "all" you have is 5 lands you can tap out to float 5 red mana, use 3 of it for Seething Song, and end up at 7 red mana to pay for Charger.

Also, you don't "tap mana". You tap lands. Lands MAKE mana. Saying "tap mana" is like saying "drink cow".

1. Dovin. precision and 'prevention is better than the cure'
2. Ajani. mentor of heroes pfft
3. Jace. you seem jace-ish, more about learning than doing

yep you sure can do

I know that if I cast gifts ungiven I can find 0,1,2,3 or 4 cards with different names.

In the case I only find a single card, can my opponent still send it to the graveyard? I assume yes, but my opponent cannot choose two cards when there is only one.

My favorite is probably Ajani lately, yeah. Giant mentor-y cat man that hangs out with Nezumi and Moonfolk kids is just fun.

Dovin's too rigid. One thing I've learned with the Judge program is that when it comes to the actual rules you have to be rigid, but that's -it-. Actually running an event and dealing with policy requires flexibility or you'll snap the fuck in half.

Jace is a pretty cool guy lately. I didn't used to like him much, but the recent stories have helped squash the super-moody Gary Stu vibes and made him a lot more fun to read about.

If you only find 1 or 2 cards, that card (or those cards) will be put into the graveyard. If they can't choose two, they do all they can and choose one. It's like casting Mind Rot when your opponent only has one card; it doesn't whiff, it just does all it can and makes them discard the one.

Is there any reason other than the rules say the property of a spell is the properties of a spell that the flashback cost isn't the cmc of that spell on the stack?

Is there some thing I can read on layers? I'd like a better understanding of the game and stop just googling 'X vs Y when Z is a frog but has base P/T 5/8 but has gained the abilities of Tarmogoyf'

>First thing
I'm not sure what you're asking. Can you clarify?

>Second thing
gatheringmagic.com/the-seven-layer-cake/

Okay, got a question on this:

>Control Leyline and Myr Welder
>Use Myr Welder to exile the Copter
>Myr Welder now has the Crew ability
>Activate the Crew ability of Myr Welder
>With ability on the stack cast Imprisoned in the Moon on the Welder
>Imprisoned in the Moon turns Myr Welder into a land
>Crew ability resolves

What is the P/T of Myr Welder, if any? Does it need the Vehicle subtype for the crew ability to do anything? Or does it become a 1/4 land artifact creature?

Also: If I exile non-artifact permanents with Myr Welder (such as by first exiling a Legacy Weapon) can I use their activated abilities? If I exile a planeswalker this way can I use its loyalty abilities?

Also Also: If I exile a card face-down (such as by first exiling Gustha's Scepter with my Myr Welder) I don't imagine I can use the activated abilities of those cards, but what specifically is stopping me, other than common sense and the extreme cheating potential?

Crew doesn't actually do much of anything to non-vehicles. The printed P/T on Vehicles is "turned on" by becoming a creature; the Crew ability doesn't actually set power or toughness. As I grok, the Crew ability will resolve and make it an Artifact Land Creature, restoring its normal P/T because nothing is telling it otherwise on that front.

Welder has the activated abilities of cards that it exiled with the first ability, only. It doesn't feel intuitive, I admit, but linked abilities are weird, so that second ability on Welder will only ever actually be looking at the cards that were specifically eaten by the first ability, because they're linked. Cards you exile via another ability (like hitting Legacy Weapon first) won't "show up" for the Myr, because that ability isn't linked to the second printed one.

What about putting a +1/+1 counter on one of Gideon planeswalkers while it's a creature? Can Experiment Kraj now activate loyalty abilities of that planeswalker creature?

Yes, but you still have to pay the cost (adding and removing loyalty counters is the cost, so you can't just "ult" your Kraj right away, or activate any of the minus abilities until it actually HAS Loyalty counters to remove), and you can only activate one Loyalty Ability per permanent per turn. It used to only apply to planeswalkers, so you could animate a Gideon, put a counter on it, and then just activate the abilities on Kraj over and over and over, but they fixed that.

Where do I report forcing raredrafting at fnms? Also am I allowed to check pairings and such at fnms? I think they manipulate them, is it possible that I was placed lower than a guy with to byes, when I was at 3:1? God, since my bro fun store was downgraded to gateway I play at another bigger one which is not fun.

Some silly questions.

Can you still deck yourself if instead of drawing a card you choose to dredge?

I hear there are questions your opponent would need to answer in game. How far does that extend? Cards in hand? Cards in Library?

Playing Legacy Grixis Delver im a mirror. I attmpt to stifle a fetch. He attempts a Force. I attempt a Force. He attempts Flusterstorm. I respond with my own Flusterstorm. I have no lands untapped, he has 2. Do I win the counter war? lose? I don't know. Flusterstorm destroys my brain.

You can't dredge if you don't have enough card in your library

"Forcing" a rare draft isn't really a thing you can report. The store can't force you to give your cards back for the redraft, but they can ban you from coming back if you refuse to cede to their policy. I don't think Wizards has an OFFICIAL statement about redrafting other than clarifying that once you draft a card, it's yours, and the store has no rules-based (or legal!) grounds to demand them back.

It's normal for pairings to be posted and remain posted, but I don't know if it's actually MANDATORY; if you think that the store is fucking with their results, you should report that to Wizards' Customer Support.

company.wizards.com/content/contact-us

You can't Dredge unless you have enough cards FOR the Dredge (So you can't Dredge 3 with less than 3 cards in your library). OTHER draw-replacers can 'save' you from decking though, since they replace the draw with something else.

Your second one, that'll get its own post.

Third question, depends on how you responded. If you allowed his Flusterstorm's STorm trigger to resolve, there's 3 copies of it aimed however they're aimed. Then YOUR Flusterstorm comes out, and makes 4 total copies. You'll have 5 Flusterstorms total to hand out, and he'll have 3, so it'll really depend on which Flusters were aimed at what.

If they force redrafting by banning you from the store, tough luck go find a place that's not shit.
If they try to force redrafting by physically taking your cards without your consent, call the cops because you've been stolen from.

If the creature havengul lich targets enters the battle field and dies. I have to activate it again to cast the same creature or is the target still that creature?

So, for your second thing: There's three kinds of information in Magic. Free, Derived, and Private.

Free information is information to which all players are entitled. If asked for Free Information, you MUST give it, fully and accurately. This would be the name of any visible object, the type of any counter in a public zone, the physical status and current zone of any object, current life/poison totals, the score of the current match, the contents of each player's mana pool, the current step/phase, which player is Active, and the details of current game actions AND past game actions that still affect the game state.

Derived information is information to which you are entitled ACCESS. Your opponent cannot hinder you from obtaining this, but they also don't have to volunteer it; if you choose to give Derived information, it must be truthful, but need not be complete. For example, if asked "What's that do?" about a Vampire Nighthawk, you can say "It's a 2/3 flier", because that is accurate, if incomplete. You can't say "It's JUST got flying", because that is a lie. Derived information consists of the number of any type of objects present in any game zone, all characteristics of objects in public zones that are not already defined as Free Information, and Game Rules, Tournament Policy, Oracle content and any other official information pertaining to the current tournament. Note that at Regular REL (FNM, prereleases, etc) there is no Derived Information; anything that would be Derived at a Competitive REL event is considered "free" at a Regular REL event.

Private information is anything not defined as Free or Derived. Not only do you not have to give this, you can lie through your teeth about it.

For your exact follow-ups: Cards in hand/library are Derived information. You can decline to answer, but you cannot hinder your opponent from determining the information themselves.

You'd have to activate it again. Once the object changes zones, it becomes a completely new object with no memory of, or relation to, its previous selves.

What are the rules regarding handling an opponent's cards?

Basically "Don't be an asshole". If I have reason to think you're intentionally mishandling your opponent's cards, we will have a very unpleasant conversation.