Showstopper only affects creatures you control as it resolves.

Posted on May 24, 2013 by bimmerbot

It’s the end of another week here at the Rules Tips Blog, and we’re going out with a bang! It’s the hope that no heads will explode from adding this extra bit of knowledge about how Showstopper works.

This card is one of only a few in the entire game that cause creatures to actually gain a triggered ability spelled out on the card, meaning that while nothing special will happen at the time Showstopper resolves, each creature that gained the death trigger ability will be able to Shock something at the time it dies. However, because adding and losing abilities is an effect that changes a creature’s characteristics, Showstopper only applies to creatures that were on the battlefield at the time it resolves. If any other creatures show up late to the party, they won’t gain the death trigger, and thus won’t be able to re-gift a Shocking surprise if they die later on.

Today’s Rules Tip written by Jen Wong

Posted in Characteristics, Resolving spells and abilities | Tagged | Comments Off

Scavenging Jace’s Phantasm with Varolz only gets you 1 counter (but Boneyard Wurm is different).

Posted on May 23, 2013 by bimmerbot

Jace’s PhantasmAs a general rule, abilities of a creature only work when that creature’s on the battlefield, unless the rules text or common sense suggests that it works in another zone. Varolz, the Scar-Striped, for example, has an ability that gives all creature cards in your graveyard scavenge. Scavenge wouldn’t make very much sense if it applied while the creature was on the battlefield, so it has reminder text indicating that the ability can be activated from the graveyard (and only the graveyard). The flip side to this is that if Varolz dies, he can’t use his first ability to scavenge himself — the ability works perfectly fine while Varolz is on the battlefield, so there’s no reason to suppose it works anywhere else.

We can use this same rule to figure out how big other creatures will be when scavenging them. Jace’s Phantasm, for example, can be a Dragon-sized 5/5 when it’s on the battlefield, but in the graveyard it’ll always be a paltry 1/1. The ability that gives it +4/+4 won’t apply, regardless of how many cards are in your opponent’s graveyard.

That’s not the case for creatures with variable power and toughness, though, such as Boneyard Wurm. The */* in its lower right corner indicates that Boneyard Wurm’s ability is a characteristic-defining ability — a special kind of ability that works no matter what zone it’s in. For example, if you have a Boneyard Wurm and two other creature cards in the graveyard, Boneyard Wurm is 3/3. And if you use Varolz’s added ability to scavenge it, it’ll put three +1/+1 counters onto Varolz or whatever you targeted (which was its power at the time it left the graveyard, so it does count itself; it also doesn’t matter what happens to the other two creature cards in the graveyard before the ability resolves).

Today’s Rules Tip written by Jen Wong

Posted in Activated Abilities, Characteristics, Static Abilities | Tagged , , | Comments Off

Duskmantle Seer is extra painful when revealing Fuse cards.

Posted on May 22, 2013 by bimmerbot

Split cards are great; it’s like getting two cards in one! You get two names, two (or three) colors, and two sets of rules text… and when you use the Fuse ability, you can even get both at the same time!

Of course, one of the downsides of Fuse is that since your spell has two mana costs, you’ll have to pay both at the same time. For example, the mana cost of Far // Away is 3UB. When a split card isn’t on the stack, it goes back to having two separate mana costs, but anything that cares about its converted mana cost will see both those costs… at the same time.

So let’s say that you reveal Far & Away off Duskmantle Seer, causing you to lose life equal to the revealed card’s converted mana cost. Asking “What is the converted mana cost of this card?” gives two answers: Far’s converted mana cost is 2, and Away’s converted mana cost is 3. Mr. Duskmantle will henceforth do some quick math to determine that 2+3 is 5, making you lose a grand total of 5 life.

Today’s Rules Tip written by Jen Wong

Posted in Characteristics, Resolving spells and abilities, Triggered Abilities | Tagged | Comments Off

Don’t put up with insults or threats from your opponent.

Posted on May 21, 2013 by bimmerbot

First things first: Don’t insult, demean, bully, harass, or threaten your opponent, or anyone else at an event. Really, just don’t.

Unfortunately, not everyone you meet at a tournament is going to have an understanding of basic respect and courtesy. However, this doesn’t mean you have to put up with it. If telling the offender point-blank to stop the behavior doesn’t work, you can also call a judge or talk to the tournament organizer. Be aware that you can do these things at your match, or speak to a tournament official in private (for example, if your opponent’s body language is making you feel unsafe).

When you call a judge, hopefully he or she will take the time to understand and if necessary, defuse the situation. There are certain penalties that he or she might give to the offending player. The most minor of these is a Warning for Unsporting Conduct — Minor, which will be given out for things like swearing or non-bigoted insults — the sort of thing you might refer to as “trash talking.” A Game Loss will be handed out for repeated instances of Unsporting Conduct — Minor, as well as any instance (even the first) of Unsporting Conduct — Major. Examples of this are when a player uses racist, sexist, etc. language, or slams his cards on the table in anger after losing a game. The most serious penalty is a Disqualification for Unsporting Conduct — Aggressive Behavior. This includes not just overt physical aggression but also making threats or damaging tournament property (yes, you will get DQed for flipping over a table).

Note that while specific Unsporting Conduct infractions only technically apply at Competitive events, the expected behavior applies across all sanctioned events, and threats/aggressive behavior earn a Disqualifaction no matter what the event (along with a possible suspension/ban by the DCI). A tournament organizer has a vested interest in making sure players are comfortable at the store/venue and in events. Inappropriate behavior can result in refusal of service even without being assigned an infraction. If you simply treat people the way you’d like to be treated, then you won’t run into any problems.

If you’re in a situation where there is no on-duty judge (aside from the Tournament Organizer), the judge doesn’t feel that your concerns warrant giving a penalty, or the player has received multiple penalties but still won’t change the behavior, you may still have recourse if you explain your concerns to the Tournament Organizer. This may entail anything from the TO having a stern talk with the player in question, up to the player being asked to leave the venue and/or being excluded from future events.

Today’s Tournament Tip written by Jen Wong

Posted in Tournament Rules | Comments Off

Turn // Burn vs. Aetherling

Posted on May 20, 2013 by bimmerbot

Those of you who have been playing Magic for much, much longer than I have may remember a little creature called Morphling. Today we’ll be looking at his latest incarnation, Ætherling. While he has a lot of abilities, the only ones we care about right now are the last two (the only ones that have remained unchanged from the original Morphling): one adds a point of power and subtracts a point of toughness, while the other one does the opposite.

Suppose our Ætherling gets hit with a fused Turn // Burn. The fuse spell follows the instructions in order (left to right), so first Ætherling shrinks down to a 0/1, then it’s dealt 2 points of damage. Before we hold a funeral for our poor little Ætherling, though, let’s check if it’s really dead! While the Turn half shrinks it into a 0/1 and takes away all abilities, it doesn’t remove the lingering effects of any abilities that were activated beforehand; those effects continue to change Ætherling’s power and toughness. So if we used Ætherling’s last ability twice to give it -2/+2, the end result will be a -2/3 creature. While that’s certainly a weird set of numbers (and a red Weird Ætherling), it’s not against the rules to have negative power, so Ætherling will continue to live. On the other hand, if we had activated the ability that gives Ætherling +1/-1 just once, casting Turn (never mind fusing it with Burn) will cause it to become 1/0 and die immediately afterwards; not even making it indestructible can save it from dying for having 0 toughness.

Today’s Rules Tip written by Jen Wong

Posted in Activated Abilities, Continuous Effects | Tagged , | Comments Off

You can’t tap a Cluestone for mana to activate its own “draw a card” ability.

Posted on May 17, 2013 by bimmerbot

There’s a small caveat in Magic: you can only pay any given cost for one ability or spell; you can’t use the same cost to pay for two separate abilities. That’s just not how life (or Magic) works.

Very simple here with the Cluestones. Since the Cluestone’s abilities require it to tap for both the mana and the card drawing, you can’t tap it once to fulfill both abilities (unless the Cluestone became untapped somehow from another ability). If you tap it for mana, you won’t be able to tap it to pay for the sacrifice ability. So you’ll need mana from other sources in order to fully pay for the ability that draws you a card.

Today’s Rules Tip written by Eddie Cheung

Posted in Activated Abilities, Casting / playing a spell or ability, Mana Abilities | Tagged | Comments Off

Goblin Test Pilot only chooses randomly among legal targets.

Posted on May 16, 2013 by bimmerbot

Because of this card, I’m going to have to start carrying a random number generator (I also suggest all judges do so as well!).

Goblin Test Pilot‘s ability says that it deals damage to “target creature or player chosen at random”. A target creature, while activating this ability, can only be chosen if it can be legally targeted by the Test Pilot. An opponent’s creature (or the opponent) with hexproof or any creature with protection from red or from creatures, for example, will not be a part of this “random selection” because it’s an invalid target to begin with.

Note that since Goblin Test Pilot says “…target [...] chosen at random”, the random target is chosen when putting the ability on the stack. Players will know what the target is upon activating the ability, and can respond accordingly before the ability resolves.

Today’s Rules Tip written by Eddie Cheung

Posted in Activated Abilities, Casting / playing a spell or ability | Tagged | Comments Off

Melek doesn’t let you cast spells for free.

Posted on May 15, 2013 by bimmerbot

Melek, Izzet Paragon can do many things. One of the things that you might not realize is that it doesn’t let you play the top card of the deck for free.

In Magic, we often combine “You may cast this card” with the second sweetest phrase, “without paying its mana cost” (the first sweetest phrase being “Draw a card”, of course). Unfortunately, Melek doesn’t do that, so you’ll have to pay all the costs, including additional and alternate costs if you can.

“What does Melek do then?” Well, Melek gives you the ability cast cards that are revealed from the top of your deck. Since this is a static ability, if you cast that top card, the card underneath it becomes the top card of your deck, and will also fit the criteria set by Melek’s static ability.

If you cast ANY instant or sorcery card from your library, Melek’s ability will trigger and give you a copy of that spell the way it appears on the stack. That means if you cast the Toil half of Toil // Trouble, you copy Toil, and you don’t get a choice to try to copy Trouble (Note that you don’t even have the option to Fuse the spell, because you’re not casting the card from your hand). This also applies to spells with choices made during casting; if you copy a spell like that, you’ll copy the choices made when you cast the spell, except that you get to change targets if applicable.

Today’s Rules Tip written by Eddie Cheung

Posted in Casting / playing a spell or ability, Static Abilities | Tagged | Comments Off

Know the policy on trading and buying/selling cards at your venue.

Posted on May 14, 2013 by bimmerbot

Trading cards is something many collectors enjoy. The excitement of trading off something you don’t need for something you’ve been looking for is a great feeling. It’s a win-win for both traders, generally! This social activity is something the most stores and tournament venues allow or even encourage.

However, you should be aware of the policy regarding this before you do it, especially when you’re in a new place. You don’t want to find yourself banned from a location because you broke a rule you weren’t even aware of!

The most important thing to be aware of is whether buying or selling cards for cash is allowed between players. While you might know a local store where the shop owner doesn’t really care if you buy/sell cards between friends, that is actually pretty unusual. Remember that many stores make their living by doing exactly that! If you ever are tempted to do a cash exchange, please ask the store first (and don’t be surprised if they ask you not to).

Similarly for large tournaments, most tournament organizers restrict the exchange of cards for cash to only the vendors that have paid for a booth at the event. There will be signs posted to the effect of “Trading is ok, but you may only buy/sell cards with authorized vendors.” This is a quick way to be ejected from the venue if you ignore these rules. Trying to bypass them by agreeing to meet outside the venue for an exchange is also generally disallowed, and if you get caught, will end badly for you.

So respect the rules wherever you are. By following them, you’re not just staying out of trouble; you’re also supporting the local businesses that keep Magic widely popular and available for you!

Today’s Tournament Tip written by Josh Stansfield

Posted in Tournament Rules | Comments Off

Plasm Capture vs. X spells

Posted on May 13, 2013 by bimmerbot

Let me tell you a little secret. X, if it’s not on the stack, is treated as 0. While an X spell is ON the stack, X stops being a variable and starts being a number (Note: the quality of the spell being considered an X spell doesn’t change; it’s still an X spell on the stack; that’s how cards like Frontline Medic work!). Once an X spell is on the stack, its CMC (Converted Mana Cost) can then be calculated.

In short, when Player A counters an X spell with Plasm Capture, Player A will be able to perform their own version of “Can’t touch this!” and will also be able to add whatever value X was at the time the spell was countered.

For example: If you cast Immortal Servitude with X=3, and I counter it with Plasm Capture, the mana cost of Immortal Servitude (3{W/B}{W/B}{W/B}) converts to 6, and I will add 6 mana in any combination of colors to my mana pool at the beginning of my next precombat main phase! To go a step further, if you Miracle Bonfire of the Damned and pay 4R (choosing 4 for X), the converted mana cost is still determined from the mana cost in the top right corner. Since you chose 4 for X, the mana cost in the top right is treated as {4}{4}R, and I will get 9 mana by countering it with Plasm Capture, even though you only paid 5 mana for it. Crazy, huh?

Today’s Rules Tip written by Eddie Cheung

Posted in Casting / playing a spell or ability, Characteristics, Costs | Tagged | Comments Off