Q: Can I target my heroic creature multiple times with this replicate multikicker strive spell to get multiple triggers?
A: No. The same object cannot be selected more than once for each instance of the word ‘target’ [CR 114.3]. None of the strive spells use that word more than once in their effects, so they can’t be used to target the same heroic creature multiple times.
Note: Even if they could, all the heroic triggers are worded ‘Whenever you cast a spell that targets [this]…’, so you still couldn’t get multiple triggers because you only cast one spell. This rules out synergy with even replicate or storm, because the copies they generate aren’t cast, they’re just put on the stack [CR 706.10]. Compare this to Cephalid Aristocrat, which triggers on becoming the target of a spell or ability, so it would generate multiple triggers with storm or replicate.
Note: All the strive spells can be cast with ‘any number’ of targets – even zero. The spell would resolve, but wouldn’t do anything noticeable in that case. I can’t think of a reason why that would come up, though. Casting a spell for such little value is one of my worst fears.
Q: How does Worst Fears work in Two-Headed Giant?
A: Very well. “If an effect causes a player to control another player, the controller of that effect controls the affected player’s team” [CR 805.8].
Note: This ruling makes more sense if you consider that such effects were originally templated “you control target player’s next turn” (reference the original printing of Mindslaver). Since turns are shared in 2HG, it was natural to rule that Mindslaver would control both players on that turn. After changing the wording on these effects, this ruling is less obvious, but hasn’t changed.
Q: Nicole’s Oppressive Rays is enchanting Amy’s Grizzly Bears. Can Nicole use her Akroan Mastiff to tap Grizzly Bears if Amy chooses to pay 3, but before she attacks with it?
A: No. Paying costs to attack is part of the process of declaring attackers, and no player gets priority to activate abilities while this process is being carried out [ref CR 508.1 et seq., which outline the steps].
Note: As seen in that passage of the CR, Amy actually will decide to attack with Grizzly Bears before she pays the 3 mana.
Q: Amy controls an Impetuous Sunchaser enchanted by Oppressive Rays and 3 untapped Mountains. What happens when she goes to combat?
A: She has to decide whether she wants to pay 3 and get in for one damage or let her sunchaser sit back and be on blocking duty. ‘If a creature can’t attack unless a player pays a cost, that player is not required to pay that cost, even if attacking with that creature would increase the number of requirements being obeyed’ [CR 508.1d].
Note: Even if this rule didn’t exist, she still wouldn’t have to attack unless she already had the mana in her mana pool (which is difficult to do, but possible with a Kruphix). Activating mana abilities isn’t mandatory, even if paying a cost is [CR 117.3c].
Q: Amy controls a Thassa and an Pain Seer. Can she scry before she uses the Pain Seer trigger?
A: Yes. Triggered abilities aren’t put onto the stack right away when they trigger; they have to wait until a player would receive priority [CR 603.3]. That doesn’t happen in the untap step [CR 502.3]. The first time a player would get priority is during the upkeep, and by that time, Thassa will have triggered also. Because Amy controls both triggers, she chooses the order they are put onto the stack [CR 603.3b].
Note: Say Amy controlled an Aerie Worshippers and a Ley Line. She cannot put a creature token into play then give it a +1/+1 counter. That’s because targets for triggered abilities are chosen when the ability is put onto the stack [CR 603.3d, 601.2c]. Even though she can put both abilities on the stack in whatever order she likes, they both are put onto the stack before either one can resolve.
Q: Amy casts a Hypnotic Siren on Nicole’s Eidolon of Blossoms. Does she get a constellation trigger?
A: Yes. The game checks to see if any triggered abilities should trigger directly after the siren enters the battlefield [CR 603.6a]. There is no point where Hypnotic Siren is on the battlefield and its control-changing effect is not being applied [CR 611.3b]. Therefore, the game will see that an enchantment entered the battlefield under Amy’s control, which matches the trigger condition of Amy’s new eidolon.
Q: Amy untaps an Arbiter of the Ideal and puts a basic Island into play with its ability. Does this cause her constellation cards to trigger?
A: If you said ‘no’, you would have been right under the old rules. Ordinarily, instructions are carried out in the order they’re written, so the Island would be put onto the battlefield with a counter on it, then become an enchantment. Since the Island wasn’t an enchantment when it entered the battlefield, that event wouldn’t match the constellation ‘enchantment enters the battlefield under your control’ trigger condition. The rules team thought that was stupid, so they gave us a new rule to change the answer to what most people probably think it should be. ‘If a spell or ability both puts a card onto the battlefield and then creates a continuous effect that changes that card’s color or type, that effect will apply simultaneously with the permanent entering the battlefield.’ With this, the continuous effect that makes the Island an enchantment applies as soon as the Island enters the battlefield, so it will trigger constellation.
Note: The manifestation counter is not tied to the permanent becoming an enchantment. If the counter is removed (say, with Aether Snap), the enchantment typing will remain. Compare this wording with Makeshift Mannequin, where removing the counter will remove the ability.
Q: Amy used to control a Cloudfin Raptor and a Nightveil Specter, but they are now exiled by Nicole’s Detention Sphere and Banishing Light. Amy casts an overloaded Cyclonic Rift. Will her Nightveil Specter cause her Cloudfin Raptor to evolve?
A: That depends. Banishing Light returns its creature as soon as Banishing Light leaves the battlefield. In contrast, Detention Sphere has a triggered ability that triggers when it leaves the battlefield. The creature it exiled doesn’t come back until that trigger resolves. So if Cloudfin Raptor was exiled under Banishing Light, it will come back first and be on the battlefield in time to see Nightveil Specter entering. If the raptor was under Detention Sphere, it won’t come back until it’s too late.
Note: If Nicole had a second Banishing Light instead of Detention Sphere, both creatures would come back at the same time. The Cloudfin Raptor would see Nightveil Specter coming in at the same time as it, so it would get an evolve trigger [CR 603.6d].
Note: If Nicole had a second Detention Sphere instead of Banishing Light, both Detention Spheres’ leaves the battlefield abilities would trigger at the same time. As their controller, Nicole would choose what order they would go on the stack [CR 603.3b]. She will probably want to stack them so that Nightveil Specter is returned first, then Cloudfin Raptor afterwards.
Q: Amy discards a Far // Away to her Disciple of Deceit. What converted mana cost can she search for?
A: Anywhere except the stack, a split card has two converted mana costs. If the game needs to make a relative comparison, such as asking if it has the same converted mana cost as something, it does the comparison on each half and the answer is yes if it gets at least one yes answer [CR 708.6a]. Therefore, Amy may search for any card with a converted mana cost of 2 or 3.
Note: In the same way, she can discard a card with either converted mana cost to find a Far // Away.
Note: If she discards a Far // Away, and wants to find a Breaking // Entering, the game will compare the CMC of each half of Far // Away to each half of Breaking // Entering. Even though it will get three ‘no’ answers and only one ‘yes’, it only takes one yes to pass the check.
Q: Amy controls a Disciple of Deceit and a Library of Leng. She untaps the disciple. What will happen if she discards a card to the top of her library with its ability?
A: Because no effect instructed her to reveal the card, it remains hidden and its converted mana cost is undefined [CR 701.7c]. If a player is instructed to search a hidden zone for cards that match an undefined quality, that player may still search that zone but can’t find any cards [CR 701.15c].
Note: Even though the discarded card is hidden, the disciple’s requirement that the card not be a land still applies. If Amy wants to discard to the top of her library, she will need to either show the card to her opponent or else call a judge over to verify that she has in fact discarded a nonland card.
Note: Suppose that instead of Disciple of Deceit, Amy was using a transmute spell, such as Muddle the Mixture. She could not choose to discard Muddle the Mixture to the top of her library. This is because Library of Leng’s Oracle text indicates that it can only be applied to discards caused by effects and discarding to transmute is a cost.
Q: Amy discards an Ancestral Vision with her Disciple of Deceit. Can she find a Chrome Mox? A Living End? A Chalice of the Void?
A: Yes. While Ancestral Vision’s mana cost is undefined, its converted mana cost is defined by the game rules to be 0 [CR 202.3a]. Chrome Mox’s converted mana cost is 0 too, so Amy can find it. Living End is also covered under CR 202.3a, so its converted mana costs matches also. For chalice, anywhere except the stack, X in a mana cost contributes 0 toward the converted mana cost, so that’s fair game as well [CR 202.3b].
Q: Amy casts Deicide on Nicole’s Thassa. Nicole responds by casting Turn (of Turn // Burn) on Thassa. What happens?
A: Thassa becomes a weird. Because Turn doesn’t indicate that Thassa keeps its original creature types, this overwrites any other creature types that Thassa had [CR 205.1a]. Unfortunately for Thassa, changing a subtype (like weird) doesn’t affect its card types (like creature or enchantment) at all, so it’s still a legal target for Deicide and will be exiled. What’s worse, exiling Thassa will make it a new object with no memory of its prior existence as a weird [CR 400.7]. This means that when Deicide checks whether ‘the exiled card’ is a god card, Thassa will pass that check, and Amy will be able to search for all Nicole’s other Thassas and exile them too.
Note: Suppose that Deicide had been worded “if that enchantment was a god creature…”, similar to Death’s Caress. In this case, the effect is looking for information about Thassa as it existed on the battlefield. Since it’s no longer there, the game will use Thassa’s last known information to establish what its creature types were [CR 608.2g]. That would mean that Thassa would be counted as a weird and Amy couldn’t search for the other Thassas.
Note: Why wasn’t Deicide worded like that? I’m not aware of another similar effect in Magic that’s worded like Deicide to check the characteristics after it changes the object’s zone rather than before (prove me wrong in the comments). The reason they needed to make Deicide work like that is because becoming “not a creature” results in losing all creature types [CR 205.1a]. This would mean that you would only get to search for other Thassas if the targeted Thassa was animated when it was exiled.
Q: You are on the deck check team at a standard format event run at competitive REL. While scanning Amy’s decklist, you notice that she has ‘3x Erebos” listed under both her ‘creatures’ and ‘spells’ columns. Counting her list, you find that she has registered 63 cards in her main deck. What do you do?
A: First, it is acceptable to use the shortened “Erebos” rather than the full card name even though there is another card (Erebos’s Emissary) whose name starts with “Erebos”. This is because Erebos is a legendary permanent representing a storyline character, so that version of the card takes precedence [IPG 3.5].
As for the number of them, the overwhelmingly most likely explanation is that Amy mistakenly listed her Erebos’s under both columns when filling out her decklist. I would still target Amy for a deck check, and, assuming this is the case, would downgrade the penalty for Deck/Decklist Problem to a Warning and modify her decklist to show the proper number of them.
Q: While judging a competitive REL event, you notice that Amy is using her cell phone to keep track of life totals. What do you do?
A: As of the newest MTR update, this is no longer allowed. Once players have sat for their match, the recent changes to the electronic device policy restrict electronic device usage to taking brief personal calls, and even this requires the opponent’s permission.
Note: Those who may have legitimate reasons to receive calls during an event (first responders, active duty military, on-call medical personnel, etc.) are advised to inform the head judge of this before the tournament.
Note: As with any recent policy change, especially one involving a reversal from a previous policy, it’s important to be understanding, rather than draconian when it comes to enforcement. This is especially the case here, given that the standard penalty for Outside Assistance (a match loss) is quite severe. At least until the next MTR update comes out, I plan to ask the head judge of every tournament I am on staff for about the possibility of downgrading this penalty. Until that time, and possibly longer depending on how often I see violations, I would consider a warning more appropriate.
Q: Amy is playing in a draft at competitive REL. She opens a JOU pack and finds that it is a “god pack”. What happens now?
A: Somehow these things always happen to Amy and never to me. Oh well…
This situation could actually play out a couple of ways, depending on choices made by Amy, the Tournament Organizer, and the Head Judge. Suppose that Amy estimates that the secondary market value of the cards she has opened exceeds her current tournament equity. In that case, Amy may wish to consider dropping from the draft, which would entitle her to keep all cards she correctly has in her possession, including any cards she has already drafted, any packs she has that have not yet been opened, and the entire contents of the pack she is currently picking from [MTR 2.10]. Since Amy would be taking all of her cards with her, the draft would continue as normal with one less player.
If Amy wishes to continue in the tournament, the decision of whether to allow or replace this booster pack rests with the Head Judge and the Tournament Organizer [MTR 7.4]. In a draft, my preference would be to replace the pack. This is because the overwhelmingly higher average card quality in such a pack has a potential to give a significant advantage to players who take early picks from this pack. One unlucky player will end up with only one card from this pack, which may lead to enmity and reduce the players’ overall enjoyment of the event. Additionally, drafting this pack will necessitate having everyone else keep their basic lands in the pack to ensure everyone gets the same number of cards, which is a deviation from the standard practice [MTR 7.7]. Finally, if the pack is drafted, each player in turn will face the tempting offer to drop from the tournament in exchange for all the remaining cards in it.
Note: The ‘drop and keep all the cards you opened’ option is also available in a sealed event to ‘save’ yourself from having to pass an expensive pool to another player during the deck swap.
Note: In a prerelease, I would (and did) allow the player to play with the cards, especially if it was a seeded prerelease pack. The more casual nature of the event, combined with the difficulty of replacing a seeded pack, makes replacement less appealing as an option.
Note: If a pack is replaced, that opens up the question of who should get the cards from it. Though the tournament organizer could claim the contents of the ‘god pack’ for him- or herself upon replacing it, all the ones I spoke with (including representatives from larger organizers like Star City Games and Pastimes) considered this extremely bad form and would allow the player to keep the cards and replace the pack on the house. This echoes the recommendation from the Wizards representatives posted here. Speaking as a player, if I were the recipient of such generosity, I would do my part by at least offering to pay for or replace the pack myself and mentioning by name the store or owner in any social media post I made relating to the incident.