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I was sure that was the case, but my friend didn't think so. Anyway, another rules kerfuffle happened tonight, with Ulasht, regarding hardened scales. If I have one creature that is both red and green, and a hardened scales, and I cast Ulasht, how many counters does it enter with? I say 4, because getting a counter from the red is a separate effect from the green, and he says 3, because it's all one sentence.

Only 3. It's one ability placing a total of 2 counters, replaced by placing 2+1 counters by Hardened Scales. The counting is done in two parts, but they're only placed once, and it's the placing of the counters that is affected.

Ok, so if I had 2 RG creatures out, I'd get 5 on there? Alright, good to know.

So my question relates to off color flip cards in commander. For example, could I run the new avycn in a mono white commander deck, or would I need to run red as well? Another example would be Elbrus, the binding blade. Could I run it in a non black deck?

Tacos_yay wrote:So my question relates to off color flip cards in commander. For example, could I run the new avycn in a mono white commander deck, or would I need to run red as well? Another example would be Elbrus, the binding blade. Could I run it in a non black deck?

Not a judge, but the answer is no to both of those questions, you can only run the new Avacyn or Elbrus in Commander decks that contain White/Red or Black respectively. It doesn't matter if the front face is otherwise playable in those decks, the color indicator on the reverse face says nope.

You can have cards in your Commander deck that mention colors your deck can't run (a Mono-Red deck can contain creatures with Protection from Blue, like Goblin Piledriver), and cards can even create objects that are off-color (Dark Depths for example can go into literally any Commander deck, even though the Marit Lage token is Black, because the card itself is colorless and the activated ability costs generic mana), but if any part of a card's color identity is outside of your commander's, whether that's in the mana-cost (like say... hybrid mana), an activated or triggered ability, or in the case of cards without mana costs like the Pact cycle or the reverse side of DFCs, via the color indicator, then you can't play those cards with that particular commander.

The colour indicator on both faces of the card is included in the colour identity... so new Avacyn's colour identity for Commander is both white and red.

Comp Rules wrote:Example: Civilized Scholar is the front face of a double-faced card with mana cost {2}{U}. Homicidal Brute is the back face of that double-faced card and has a red color indicator. The card’s color identity is blue and red.

Tacos_yay wrote:So my question relates to off color flip cards in commander. For example, could I run the new avycn in a mono white commander deck, or would I need to run red as well? Another example would be Elbrus, the binding blade. Could I run it in a non black deck?

Small caveat to prevent confusion in future conversations. "Flip cards" and "double-faced cards" are two very different things. Flip card example: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/ ... seid=78694

New cards, new questions... Neglected Heirloom/Ashmouth Blade...



Equipping this onto an Origins flip-Walker as Heirloom is a nonbo, right? Let's use Lilly as an example...



Since there's nothing that actually says "Transform Liliana, Heretical Healer" then Neglected Heirloom would not trigger, correct?

Clearly it would fall off due to 1. the exile and 2. not being able to be equipped on a Planeswalker, but it wouldn't transform into Ashmouth Blade either, right?

Correct. It's similar to putting Fallowsage onto the battlefield with Alesha. Fallowsage's ability won't trigger because it never tapped, it just entered the battlefield that way. However, there's another problem that you have mentioned in a roundabout way: because Liliana gets exiled first, there's no equipped creature to check!

If I use this card, and sacrifice a clue as part of its cost, how does that interact with this guy:

Like, will he see the spell being cast after he transforms, or before?

As part of casting Angelic Purge, while paying costs, you sacrifice your clue. Daring Sleuth's ability triggers, but doesn't go on the stack just yet.

Then, you finish casting Angelic Purge, and we check if any "when a spell is cast" triggers happen. Daring Sleuth still doesn't have Prowess, so nothing happens.

Then Daring Sleuth's trigger goes on the stack, on top of Angelic Purge. If nothing else happens, Daring Sleuth will transform, then Angelic Purge will exile its target.

That's unfortunate, but that card is still too good to pass up as removal, especially when I'll hopefully have an abundance of clue tokens.

Madness can happen at instant speed even if the card itself can only normally be cast at sorcery speed, correct?

For example, you could activate the ability of Insolent Neonate on your opponent's turn. If you discarded Gisa's Bidding, you could pay 2B to have 2 instant-speed zombies, right?

Correct, Madness ignores the normal timing restrictions.

I did quickly scan the Comprehensive Rules on Madness for some clarification, but it wasn't there. Instead, I will present this quote from the MTG Salvation wiki (and perhaps someone with better CompRules-searching-skills will be able to find something specific there):

MTG Salvation wrote:When you discard a card with madness, you discard it but the card goes into the exile zone instead of the graveyard. Then, you may cast it, or you may put it into your graveyard. Casting a card with madness is just like casting an instant from your hand, except you pay the spell's madness cost instead of its mana cost. It goes on the stack like any other spell and it can be countered like any other spell.

Emphasis mine.

Atifexe wrote:(and perhaps someone with better CompRules-searching-skills will be able to find something specific there)

I can't find a concise place where this is clarified in the CR, but I did find:

CR 608.2f wrote:[...] If an effect specifically instructs or allows a player to cast a spell during resolution, he or she does so by putting that spell on top of the stack, then continuing to cast it by following the steps in rules 601.2a–h, except no player receives priority after it’s cast. [...]

Notably, 601.2 does not include timing restrictions (instant vs sorcery, et al), but it does include other checks (like being able to choose targets, and pay costs if required).

So, to throw a bunch of things together, say you had this terrible card: "{3}{G} Sorcery / As an additional cost to cast ~, sacrifice a creature. / Destroy target artifact. / Cast ~ only if you control an enchantment. / Madness {1}{G}."

To cast that normally, it would need to be your turn, during your main phase, while the stack is empty. You would need to have (or be able to generate) 3G of mana, and control a creature and an enchantment that can be sacrificed, and there has to be an artifact you can target.

To cast it for its madness cost, after you discard it, it would not need to be your turn, or your main phase, and the stack would not have to be empty (indeed, by definition it won't be empty, at a minimum there will be a still-resolving Madness trigger on the stack), but you'll still have to control a creature and an enchantment (which you'll still have to sacrifice), and there'll still have to be an artifact you have to target. (At the point you're trying to cast the spell, you've already paid the 1G to the madness trigger itself.)

The same sort of thing is true any time a spell or ability says "you may cast a thing" (or "you may cast a thing without paying its mana cost", or in the case of Suspend, "cast a thing if able").


For reference, the same sort of reasoning does not apply when something says "you may cast a thing until end of turn"... even though it looks the same, it parses slightly differently. In "you may cast a thing", it's instructing you to cast it, right now, and has a "may" to make it optional (it's almost always optional, because casting a given spell is frequently not possible... as mentioned the main counterexample is Suspend). While in "you may cast a thing until end of turn" here the "may" is in the sense of permission... you are allowed to cast it, even though you would normally not be able to (because it's in your graveyard, or exile, or wherever)... you're not being instructed to cast the card, it's just setting up a rule that you're allowed to. So when you go to actually cast it, you have to follow all the restrictions that normally apply to casting a spell.

After watching the pre-prerelease, I had a question about the double sided cards. How are you supposed to play with them without sleeves? Are you just allowed to know when it pops up to the top of your deck?

Checklist cards! This one is from Origins.


They have a normal back, and you mark the front to say what card it is (basically an official proxy, which can only be used with certain cards). When the card is in a public zone (play, graveyard, etc), you play with the real card, and when it's in a hidden zone (hand, library, etc), you put it aside and use the checklist card.

In drafting, you do get to see which card it is.

You find them in packs instead of token/ad cards.

So I've just built a Toshiro Umezawa Commander deck, and I need to confirm something because I'm unsure on it. If an ability say I way play something, I still need to pay it's casting cost. For example, Toshiro's ability say I can play an instant in my grave when a creature my opponent controls dies. Do I still have to pay to cast the card, or do I get to play it for free?

@RadioshackRaider

That is correct, you still need to pay the mana cost to cast the instant/sorcery. Effects that don't require you to will say that you may do so 'without paying its mana cost'.

Right, cool. Thanks. Just needed to know if running ramp in the deck was as relevant as I thought it would be. I thankfully went with as much cheep removal though.

Can a spell cast via madness (discard) be countered by using a counterspell?
If yes, does countering it negates the activated ability of the card that causes the discard, such as a rummaging ability?

Yes, a spell cast for madness can be countered. It's still a normal spell, it just got cast in an unusual way... once it's on the stack, it behaves the same as if it was cast normally.

The requirement of "discarding a card" is completely satisfied as soon as the card hits exile, before you even cast it (the rules say that if you try to do something as a cost, and that something gets changed by replacement effects, the cost is still satisfied... so even though Madness replaces discarding with exiling, the "discard a card" cost is still paid). That you then have a trigger that lets you cast the card from exile is separate at that point. So countering the spell doesn't matter, whatever effect you get from discarding the card will still happen.

Yes, cards cast with Madness can be countered - they're still being cast, you're just doing so in an unorthodox way.

No, countering it doesn't negate the ability that caused the discard. In many cases, that ability will have already resolved when the Madness ability actually lets you cast the spell, and even in the situations where it hasn't, you still discarded the card before you could cast it.

If I have Kemba out, and then at the beginning of my upkeep, in response to the trigger, either flash out grifter's blade or do something which puts the first equipment on her at instant speed, how many cats do I get? My friend says there's an intervening if clause, but I'm 90% sure he's wrong because it doesn't say if in her ability, but I agreed because I didn't want to hold things up.

There is no intervening if, Kemba checks the number of Equipment attached as the triggered ability resolves.

I'm not sure if they're looking at the two commas - if they are, while 'two commas' is one of the distinctive features of an intervening if, one of the commas is part of Kemba's name.

Kemba's ability is worded: "[Trigger event], [effect]" - this is your standard non-iif ability. Intervening if's are worded: "[Trigger event], if [condition], [event]". As you can see, not only is there no 'if' in Kemba's ability, there is also no condition that is necessary for the ability to trigger.