MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge - 「 W E D N E S D A Y W E E K 」

Welcome back to your not-so-regularly scheduled Ask A Judge thread!

Been trying to get this up all day, but posting issues have been giving me fits.

Do not fear, we are here!

Interesting question, how many judges frequent this thread?
I'm about half way to becoming an l1

I have no idea, honestly. I know two L2s who used to frequent them, but neither one still uses Veeky Forums much, to my knowledge.

Not formally a judge, but I've been the "friendly local rule guy" and doing casual game judge-things for a good half-dozen years now.

Do you lose much street cred when people find out you run a thread on a site best known for hackers and porn?

Also, actual question, I've been really studying layers and I think i've got them down pat. If I have a godhead of awe enchanted with a darksteel mutation, its effect does not apply. But if I have a painter's servant enchanted with a mutation, everything is still the colour I chose. And if godhead also changed the colour of something, enchanting it with darksteel mutation wouldn't stop its effect at all.

Have i got that right?

Usually the response when other judges find out I do this on Veeky Forums is "Why would you ever subject yourself to that"

>actual question
More or less. Godhead gets shut off by Mutation because the effect stops existing in layer 6, but it doesn't hit Servant because that effect works in layer 5.

If Godhead applied in Layer 5 and Layer 7b both, then Mutation wouldn't stop it because it already started applying in an earlier layer (5) when it gets removed (6), so it'll keep working in later layers (7b)

So I have a chord of calling in hand, with some lands and creatures. What is the proper procedure for casting it with convoke? My understanding is that you are supposed to put the card from your hand down, then pay costs, so I reveal, then tap the creatures and lands right? I know that you are allowed to tap your lands first before casting because you are technically "floating" the mana, but you shouldn't just start tapping creatures on the board, then after you have 5 creatures and 3 lands tapped, convoke for 5, right? You do the former?

Can you do anything clever with one Faerie Miscreant and a flicker effect? At first I was thinking you could flicker your one faerie with the ETB trigger on the stack, and then the game would recognize it as a different permanent named Faerie Miscreant. But then I realized the ETB trigger wouldn't go on the stack at all, right?

TECHNICALLY speaking you'd announce that you're casting it, move it to the stack from your hand, announce the value of X, total up the costs, generate mana, and then pay the costs in any order.

Practically speaking, it'd be fine to say "Chord for 5", tapping your 5 dudes and 3 lands.

Correct. The formatting of "Whenever EVENT, if CONDITION, EFFECT" is what we call an Intervening 'If' Clause. That clause is checked twice: As the trigger would go on the stack, and as it goes to resolve. It has to be true both of those times.

Say I have a birds of paradise and a scavanging ooze in play, and I am being attacked. Is it possible for me to chump with the birds, float a green mana, then when the birds dies use the green mana to use ooze to exile the bird from the graveyard and get a counter and one life?

Yep!

Or pardon, no. You'd have to be able to float mana across pool emptyings for that, and you can't.
Unless you've got Big Green Om.

Unfortunately, no. You can block and float, but you have to use that mana in the Declare Blockers step. You can't float it between steps and phases. You could tap the Birds and have Scooze eat something ELSE, but not the Birds themselves.

okay, but it does work for non-combat damage like a bolt at the bird or something, right?

As long as you spend the mana in the same step you tapped the Birds.

Yeah. If you can spend the mana in the same step you made it, you could respond to their spell by floating G with bird, letting it die, then using that mana to activate the Scooze AFTER Bird dies, in the same step.

If I have a syndicate trafficker and a hidden stockpile and a servo on board, can I pay the mana cost for each, sac the 1 servo, and get each card's effect? Or do I need to sac a separate artifact creature to each?

A Wurmcoil Engine takes eight combat damage but was made indestructible by Ready and Willing. Would immediately putting a single -1/-1 counter on it kill it?

Can you put the same dollar bill into two different vending machines?

Could you activate both of those things if you had 2 Servos, but only 1 mana?

The non-Socratic answer is "no". You can't apply one payment to multiple things, any more than you can tap one Forest and cast four Wild Nacatls.

Would an indestructible 5/5 with 8 damage on it die?

Non-Socratic answer, no. It's not that damage ALMOST kills an indestructible creature, and you need a little more to finish it. You have to reduce its toughness entirely to 0 to kill it with counters.

Way to be an asshole there, chief. God forbid some user asks a question in the ask a question thread. Better be a total smartass in your response!

I'm sorry that it came across as "being an asshole". That wasn't my intent. We use the "answer a question with a question" method a lot in the Judge program to help people learn, rather than just hand them the answer. No malice was intended.

Not that other user here, but it did come off as really dickish. I can understand that it might sound different in real life, but its not possible to read tone online. Just something to keep in mind.

Duly noted. I'll avoid it in the future.

If an opponent manifests my dead creatures through Ghastly Conscription, do I retain ownship of the manifested creatures and can get them back with Homeward Path?

You do. The owner of a card is whoever's library it began the game in. What's more, your opponent has to "keep track" of which face-down things are yours and which are theirs, even absent a Homeward Path.

So does the lethal damage state check not 'see' any of the damage done by the creature?

"Lethal damage" is "Damage equal to or greater than a creature's toughness", and it doesn't really matter for Indestructible (other than 'at what point can I trample over'). You can do lethal damage to an Indestructible guy until you're blue in the face, it won't kill it.

An indestructible Wurmcoil that's taken 8 damage is not a 6/1; it's a 6/6 with 8 damage marked on it, which doesn't kill it because it's Indestructible. Putting a -1/-1 counter on it won't turn that damage into 'kill it', because that'll just make it a 5/5 with 8 damage marked on it, but it's still indestructible, so it still doesn't die.

And now, bed.

Am I allowed to Unsummon Heart of Kiran during my opponent's endphase when it was crewed the same turn? I'm trying to find the window when I can bounce it so they can't recast it.

Considering it's end step, they'd only be able to play instants or cards with flash.

How about you go fuck yourself for being so stupid you yell at people for fucking helping you