MTG Salvation

Abilities that trigger when a creature dies see the creature as it existed on the battlefield, but if the ability takes an action on the card in the graveyard, at that point the card is a different game object with no relation to what it looked like on the battlefield. So a combined creature where one of the creatures had undying would only return that one creature card when the undying ability resolves.

If both creature cards have undying, then the combined creature has two instances of undying, each of which refers to the creature card it's on. So they would both trigger and return their respective cards.

The semantics of my hypothetical may have been off, but I think we agree on the basic point I was trying to make, which is that there isn't a state where you're somehow stuck with your selection of Dryad Arbor and can't put it onto the battlefield. The option exists to pick something else.

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Templating for that seems to be "Whenever a permanent is turned face up" according to similar cards on Gatherer.

Enraged Scorpion 1B
Creature - Scorpion
Morph B
Deathtouch
If a creature an opponent controls would fight another creature you control, it fights Enraged Scorpion instead.
1/1

Quote from Radar73 »

quotation from the first paragraph: "You can, however, pay additional costs."

This means that when you cast a card without paying its mana cost, you can still pay additional costs (e.g. optional ones like kicker) when casting it. For example, if you cast Rite of Replication for free via As Foretold, you can still pay 5 to kick it. You don't get the kicker for free, but neither are you banned from using it (this is different from alternate costs, where you can only choose one alternate cost and As Foretold's 0 is one.)

quotation from the second paragraph: "Ignore any alternative costs, additional costs, cost increases, or cost reductions that could apply to it."

This ruling specifically refers to how you determine an object's converted mana cost. Additional costs don't factor in. Using Rite of Replication as an example, its CMC is 4 under all circumstances. It doesn't become 9 when you kick it.

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This is essentially the same question as this thread's, regarding whether a static ability creating a continuous effect can apply to objects that stop qualifying for the effect after the effect has been applied. The answer is yes, this works. The way continuous effects are applied, the game decides what objects are affected by the effect first, and once that determination has been made, the qualifier ceases to matter.

I'll use Conversion again as the proof that this works - the effect "All Mountains are Plains" makes Mountains stop being Mountains, and the only way this card can work is if it can lock in what objects it applies to and stop caring whether they qualify after the effect has been applied.

The thing to watch out for (and likely the reason we don't see effects like this on actual cards much) is that this sort of effect is highly likely to create dependencies, which are an area of the rules that tend to be pretty unintuitive. For instance, if you had a Knight of the Masses and a Glorious Anthem on the field, a Glory Seeker would be a 3/3 regardless of the timestamp order of the effects; this is because applying Anthem's effect can change what objects the Knight's effect is able to apply to, which creates a dependency and forces Anthem's effect to apply first. Additionally, because power and toughness changing effects from continuous effects are applied before power and toughness changes effects from counters (the former is layer 7c, the latter is layer 7d) you would apply the Knight's effect before the effect of counters - for example, a Champion of the Parish gets the bonus even if it has half a dozen +1/+1 counters on it, while a Kitchen Finks that has persisted would not get the bonus even though it's a 2/1 creature.

Continuous effects don't invoke themselves repeatedly. Knight of the Masses wouldn't make a 0/1 creature into a 3/1 creature for the same reason that Glorious Anthem doesn't turn all your creatures into Infinity/Infinity creatures.

Your opponent's tokens will be untapped (and your token will be tapped.)

As with any other ability, Terastodon's effects are carried out in the order written. First the targeted permanents are destroyed - and the instant this happens, Vedalken Shackles' control-change effect ends and your opponent regains control of Thalia - and then the tokens are created. So Thalia is under your opponent's control at the point that the game is deciding whether any replacement effects apply to the token creation.

Just to cover our bases, the interaction as described above only applies to noncombat damage that would be dealt to an opponent. Combat damage is dealt to planeswalkers directly as an outcome of attacking the planeswalker, and can't be replaced by Delaying Shield.

This is also true of spells and abilities that would deal noncombat damage directly to a planeswalker such as Magmaquake or Chandra's Defeat - if the damage isn't headed for the player first, Delaying Shield will do nothing.

Quote from joedude5 »

In theory yes...

But if the player knows what he/she is doing they would just go off, or continue on after you cast either of the two spells and kill you before it resolves.

This in turn depends on what timing the OP uses. The vast majority of infinite recursion combos have some window where the opponent can respond and the combo player isn't able to keep performing more of the combo in response to that. In this case, if Ethereal Haze is cast while Redcap is in the graveyard and its Persist ability is on the stack, there's not much the combo player can do about it unless they have another Redcap.

(Of course, they could just do the loop again at the first opportunity on the next turn, after the Haze's effect has ended, so there's that.)

Awaken's order of effects is similar to Lifecraft Awakening on a noncreature, nonvehicle artifact, so let's use it instead.

When the spell resolves, you follow the order written. First you put the counters on the artifact, then the artifact becomes an artifact creature with the subtype Construct.

Then, when you want to figure out what that permanent currently is, you use the layer system. What is its power and toughness? The Layer system is the one that says it is a X/X rather than a 0/0, because the layer for +1/+1 counters come after the layer for P/T setting effects. It doesn't mean you're 'putting' counters on it every time you want to know its power.

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The layers system is like the order of operations in math. If you have 2 * (3 + 5), the rules say you start with what is inside the parenthesis, so 3+5=8, 2*8=16. That doesn't mean the answer was 8 'first' and then 'became' 16; the answer was always only 16, you just follow this sequence of operations to figure it out.

Similarly, just because you look at the 0/0 first, and then at the X +1/+1 counters to figure out the land creature's current P/T, doesn't mean it was a necessarily 0/0 'first' that 'then' gained +1/+1.

Iona, Shield of Emeria. I dislike everything about this card. Oh, I just cheated it out onto the table on turn 2? Congratulations with having a deck full of worthless cards.

Quote from asmallcat »

Quote from TheArchitect »

Why do you expect all people to evaluate a situation/scenario the same way?

Because I expect people to be polite or expect to be called out for being a rude ********. This argument is like saying that people shouldn't say "good morning" to other people, because that person might not be having a good morning and how dare you be so insensitive and rude to not consider that fact. It's idiotic. I have no problem with people evaluating scenarios in different ways, but when the "scenario" is a simple polite turn of phrase, I'm allowed to say that the people who go out of their way to find offense at it are huge crybabies. When someone's evaluation of a scenario reaches such a dumb conclusion, it's perfectly reasonable to call that evaluation into question.

Again, ask yourself - why can elementary students handle saying good game after any sporting event, but adult magic players seemingly can't. The only nice side about arguments like this is that the people opposed to this appear to be a very vocal, very tiny minority. I've been saying good game for literally years, and I've never been insulted when someone else said it or had someone get mad at me, so it's thankfully not a real life issue for most of us.

Your stance seems to be that how your opponent feels about what you do or say isn't your business (I think that is generally true, except in extreme situations), but you insist on saying "good game." What is your motive in saying this thing?

Reading through the comments relating to Manipulator really shows how spoiled magic players have become. I'm sorry it can't steal a creature for turn and requires an investment to get going. Isn't that why decks are designed around the mechanics utilized. I think everybody is just getting too used to throwing all the best cards of X colors together and having decks work like that rather then designing decks that work well together. The Manipulator is a fine creature, if it were any more powerful it would be broken, better to have something be weaker then to have it warp the format.

That's correct. You only apply static effects like this if the effect only considers itself, as opposed to some collection of permanents which may or may not include itself.

Under Zameck Guildmage, Corpsejack Menace with 1 +1/+1 counter, and Melira's Keepers enters with 0 +1/+1 counters, since that card's ability only affects itself.

Quote from CR »

614.12. Some replacement effects modify how a permanent enters the battlefield. (See rules 614.1c–d.) Such effects may come from the permanent itself if they affect only that permanent (as opposed to a general subset of permanents that includes it). They may also come from other sources. To determine which replacement effects apply and how they apply, check the characteristics of the permanent as it would exist on the battlefield, taking into account replacement effects that have already modified how it enters the battlefield (see rule 616.1), continuous effects generated by the resolution of spells or abilities that changed the permanent’s characteristics on the stack (see rule 400.7a), and continuous effects from the permanent’s own static abilities, but ignoring continuous effects from any other source that would affect it.

Yes, it does, and you can.

The card is changing the rules of the game, not any characteristics of any objects.