Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

[ZePancakes]

Question, say I have a storm count of 5, play tendrils of agony, let the copies start to resolve till I return to the original card that I had cast, could I then Reverberate it now having my storm count to 9 and have an extra 10 copies played?

tl;dr: How does copy effects interact with storm spells?

EDIT: I derped hard on this one, pay it no mind.

[Kapol]

You don't get more copies on top of the reverberated one.

Storm triggers when you cast the storm spell. Since you aren't casting the copy, storm won't trigger.

[phlip]

Right. Copy a Storm spell on the stack, you're not going to get another Storm trigger. If you have a Storm card outside the stack, copy it, and then cast the copy, then it will trigger, since it's casting that's the relevant bit.

If you have a Storm spell on the stack that you'd really like to make a bunch more copies of, you want to copy the Storm ability itself.

[ZePancakes]

Yeah I realized that because of the key word 'cast' made much more sense to me. Derp.

[Lemegeton]

hey dudes. if i have bloodghast in my grave and draw a fetch land like marsh flats or evolving wilds will i get 2 landfall triggers in a scenario like this.
cartel aristocrat and kalastria highborn in play.
play marsh flats, bloodghast comes back from landfall. sac bloodghast and pay B with highborn for ability. then during opponents turn , sac fetch land and when the basic comes into play bring back bloodghast and sac him again????

[Lurkon]

yes. Exactly as you described.

[ElFuzzy]

So a few friends and I were playing two headed giant and ran into a quandary. We had it set up as close to DotP2014 as we remembered so we shared a pool of 30 life and could only attack across to across each other. We also did not share mana and could cross block if needed. So how do you calculate Extort? Technically there are 2 players who get tagged by it but there is one health pool to be drained.

[phlip]

Each of your opponents will lose one life, so your opponent's shared life pool will go down by two. Yours will go up by two, since that's the total amount of life lost.

I recommend looking through the 2HG FAQ to see how the whole thing works, rather than just relying on remembered DotP things, as some parts aren't completely obvious. Exactly how combat works, for instance, is a little odd (but honestly probably the best option they could have come up with).

[korvys]

It's each opponent, so I believe it's 2 life drained.

Also, that way of setting up the two-headed giant seems a bit weird, but given your share a life total, and any creature can block any other, I guess it works out the same. Probably just seems simpler for DotP.

In paper magic, you attack as a team, and defend as a team.
http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Two-Headed_Giant has more if you're interested.

EDIT: Dammit phlip! Sneaking in before I could post

[tamaness]

This happened in a casual game, but I wanted to clarify for future reference.

So, my opponent chooses to play second,

My turn one: Forest, Avacyn's Pilgrim

Opponent's first turn: draws a card, sets it aside
Plays a plains,
Plays banishing stroke (the card set aside earlier) for its miracle cost, targeting my Pilgrim

As I read miracle, as soon as he played the plains, he's unable to play Banishing Stroke for its miracle cost, as it's not being played as it's being drawn. Since we were unsure, we let the miracle stand, and decided to ask a judge later.

So, should he have been able to banish my Pilgrim his first turn?

[Lurkon]

No. He has to cast during his draw step, and he can't play a land until his main phase.

[Utilitarian]

Can you target an untapped creature with a spell or ability that untaps a creature?

[AdmiralMemo]

Not a judge, but AFAIK, yes, unless it specifically states "target tapped creature" on the card. It'll just do nothing on resolution.
I know I've used Act of Treason, Mark of Mutiny, Traitorous Blood, Traitorous Instinct, Smelt-Ward Gatekeepers, and Molten Primordial on opponents' untapped creatures before, and Burst of Strength, Savage Surge, and Spidery Grasp on my own untapped creatures, and they all say to untap the creature.

[Lurkon]

Yes, unless it specifies that it untaps target tapped creature, which they rarely seem to do.

[phlip]

As a general rule of thumb:

If something is a cost, you have to be able to do it... an ability with a cost of "untap this" can only be activated if it's tapped.

If something is a targeting restriction, then that restriction has to be satisfied... if it says to untap "target tapped creature" then it must target something that is tapped. If the target becomes untapped by other means before the spell or ability resolves, then it will be an illegal target. If all the targets of a spell or ability are illegal, the spell or ability will be countered... otherwise, it will still resolve, but the parts which attempt to mess with the illegal target will do nothing.

If it just says "untap target creature", then you can cast it targetting an untapped creature, and it will resolve fine, the untap action just won't do anything. If there are other actions on the spell or ability, you'll do them. If there's an intervening "If you do" clause, then you'll only do the following things if you were actually able to perform the action (I can't find any examples for this, but if it said say "Untap target creature. If you do, draw a card." then you'd only draw the card if the creature was tapped, so you could untap it. But if the creature was untapped, the spell would still resolve, and any other effects of the spell would still happen).

This applies to other actions, too... you can target indestructible creatures with kill spells, and uncounterable spells with counterspells, because they don't say "Destroy target destructible creature" or whatever. That effect just doesn't do anything when it resolves. This is why you can, say, cast Mystic Genesis on an uncounterable spell, and you'll still get your ooze token (though the spell won't be countered). Similarly, if a spell says "Sacrifice a creature, then do X", and you have no creatures, you'll still do X, while if it says "Sacrifice a creature. If you do, do X", and you have no creatures, then you won't be able to do X. While if you do have a creature, you'll have no choice in the matter - you'll have to sac a creature, and then do X.

[AdmiralMemo]

Just double-checking: Due to the stack, Savage Summoning has to fully resolve first before its effects take place, correct? If you have a creature that already has flash, casting it in response to Savage Summoning won't make it uncounterable or give it +1/+1, I assume.

[korvys]

You are correct, Memo. "The next creature card you cast this turn..." means "The next creature card you cast this turn, after this resolves...".

Which is true of every card, really. With some odd exceptions, spells only do something as part of their resolution.

[Kapol]

While I'm confident I'm right on this, I ran into a rules question and want to know for certain I was correct.

I play an Angel of Serenity. He says that he can sac a creature (he was playing Aristocrats) in order to make the effect fizzle. We called the owner (who knows less about Magic than either of us to be completely honest). She said she thought it wouldn't fizzle. Everyone else asked said they thought it wouldn't fizzle. But he still brooded over the fact until after the match was finished. To be fair to him, it was a calling that won me the game, so I don't blame him too much.

But his argument was this: If you get rid of a target for Decimate, it makes the entire spell fizzle. I've seen a lot of places that that's just not true. Someone posted the specific ruling:

608.2b If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal. A target that's no longer in the zone it was in when it was targeted is illegal. Other changes to the game state may cause a target to no longer be legal; for example, its characteristics may have changed or an effect may have changed the text of the spell. If the source of an ability has left the zone it was in, its last known information is used during this process. The spell or ability is countered if all its targets, for every instance of the word "target," are now illegal. If the spell or ability is not countered, it will resolve normally. However, if any of its targets are illegal, the part of the spell or ability's effect for which it is an illegal target can't perform any actions on that target or make that target perform any actions. The effect may still determine information about illegal targets, though, and other parts of the effect for which those targets are not illegal may still affect them.

I noticed the part about 'for every instance of the word "Target,"' part, and thought that it might make serenity's effect not work, since it only has one specific instance of the word 'target.' I'm not sure if the others are implied or not.

[phlip]

The Angel's ability is only countered if all its targets are illegal at the time of resolution. The same is true for Decimate, incidentally... getting rid of one target doesn't counter the spell, you need to get rid of all of them.

The "for ever instance of the word 'target'" clause is in there specifically for cases like Decimate... to clarify that even if you get rid of one target (and thus get rid of every target for one of the "target" clauses) the spell isn't countered, because you haven't gotten rid of all targets, from every target clause.

Ultimately, the "illegal targets" thing only comes up when you have an spell or ability that has some targeted effects and some non-targeted effects... like destroy target creature, then do a thing, or exile target creature, and some not-targeted creatures.

[Kapol]

Right. As I said, I figured I was right. But I felt it best to check. Thanks.

[Utilitarian]

4/15/2013: In every zone except the stack, split cards have two sets of characteristics and two converted mana costs. If anything needs information about a split card not on the stack, it will get two values.

4/15/2013: If you cast a split card with fuse from your hand without paying its mana cost, you can choose to use its fuse ability and cast both halves without paying their mana costs.

Turn//Burn imprinted on an Elite Arcanist.

Does this mean that I can pay x=2 for the Turn half of the card, and then cast the entire fuse card for free?

[phlip]

(1) When an effect asks for the CMC of a split card, it gets back two numbers (2 and 3, for Turn//Burn)... this means, for instance, if you cast Firemind's Foresight, you could find Turn//Burn as either your 2 mana spell or your 3 mana spell. However, if something takes that CMC and tries to just treat it as a single number... not for the purposes of comparing with other numbers, but just straight-up using that number for a parameter (as Elite Arcanist does), then you add them together. So Elite Arcanist's ability costs "5, Tap" if it's exiling Turn//Burn.

Or, to be less verbose, from Elite Arcanist's Gatherer rulings:

If the exiled card is a split card, then {X} is the sum of the converted mana costs of each half. However, when you cast the copy, you choose only one half to cast. You may cast a different half each time you create and cast a copy.

(2) Elite Arcanist's copies are not being cast from your hand, so you cannot fuse them. You can only choose one half or the other.

So, unfortunately, it's the exact opposite of what you want... far from casting the fuse card for cheap, you're casting an unfused half for expensive.

[Utilitarian]

Curses, foiled by my inability to read the gatherer rulings for the actual card I'm asking about!

Ah well, at least I was right about the Firemind's Foresight trick ^_^

[Lord Hosk]

When Fleshpulper Giant Enters the battlefield, would it kill a Voracious Wurm with any number of counters on it? it still has a toughness of 2 it just has counters on top of that toughness.

[korvys]

No, the toughness isn't its printed toughness, it's its actual toughness, after calculating everything that might affect it (copy effects, p/t setting effects, p/t swapping effects, p/t increasing effects, I can't remember the order though).

On the other hand, a Ratchet Bomb for 2 will always kill a Vastwood Hydra, as X is only defined while the spell is on the stack.