Q: How does [this card] work in 2HG?
A: This question takes on special meaning given the 2HG-focused nature of this limited environment. Probably about 90% of cases are covered by the 4-2-1 rule (that is, there are 4 “player”s, 2 “opponent”s, and 1 “you”). If you come upon an interaction that doesn’t cover, I suggest the 2HG blog, which publishes a 2HG focused FAQ every set.
Q: Amy has 3UU available and wants to use Snapcaster Mage to flash back Comparative Analysis. Can she?
A: No. Surge and flashback are both alternate costs to cast Comparative Analysis. When casting a spell, only one alternate cost can be paid; they can’t be combined [CR 119.7a].
Q: Amy casts Crush of Tentacles for its surge cost and copies it. Does she get a token from just the original or from the copy also?
A: Copies of spells copy all choices made while casting the spell, including the choice to pay an alternate cost [CR 706.2]. The copied Crush of Tentacles will see that its controller “paid its surge cost” and generate a token.
Q: Amy controls Celestial Dawn and some Islands and Plains and an Unknown Shores. What does she need to tap to cast Blinding Drone? To activate its ability?
A: Blinding Drone costs 1U to cast. The 1 can be paid with one mana of any type; Amy can tap any of her lands to pay for it [CR 107.4b]. With Celestial Dawn out, none of Amy’s lands can tap for U, Amy will have to tap a Plains (aka, any of her lands) and spend the white mana as though it were blue to pay for that.
The colorless mana to activate Blinding Drone is where things get really interesting. Celestial Dawn allows Amy to spend white mana “as though it were any color,” but colorless isn’t a color, so she can’t use a W to pay this cost [CR 105.4]. Amy would like to tap Unknown Shores for a colorless, or perhaps an Island to produce a blue mana, which Celestial Dawn would enable (force?) her to spend as though it’s colorless, but Celestial Dawn makes all her lands Plains, so this doesn’t work. If she had an artifact (or any nonland) source of nonwhite mana, she could use that, but with just the cards mentioned, she can’t activate the ability.
Note: Celestial Dawn makes the lands Plains without using the phrase “in addition to their other types,” which means that all their abilities are overwritten [CR 305.7]. This is why Amy can’t just tap an Island for blue or use Unknown Shores’ second ability to make a nonwhite mana.
Q: Can Eye of Ugin apply to the colorless-required portion of Kozilek, the Great Distortion‘s mana cost?
A: No. This is pretty straightforward if you think of the colorless-required mana symbol as being just like, for instance, the blue mana symbol, which for this purpose, it is [CR 117.7a]. Magic players have had years of experience referring to this as “colorless mana” though, so expect an adjustment period.
Q: Can you use Convincing Mirages to make a land into a Wastes and tap for colorless?
A: No. Convincing Mirage instructs you to pick a basic land type. The list of basic land types is given in CR 305.6, and includes only Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest. Wastes is not on this list, so you can’t pick it.
Note: A land’s subtypes (also known as land types) are found after the long dash following the word “land” on the card’s type line [CR 305.6]. Wastes, like many lands, does not have anything after the word “land,” therefore, it doesn’t have any land types.
Q: Cool, so does that mean I can Wasteland a Wastes?
A: No. Wasteland can only target a nonbasic land. This means a land that does not have the supertype “Basic” [CR 305.8]. Wastes does have this supertype, so it is indeed a basic land, even though it doesn’t have any basic land types.
Q: Amy casts Kozilek while she has Kozilek’s Return in her graveyard and Soulfire Grand Master and Silver Knight in play. If she exiles Kozilek’s Return, how much life will she gain?
A: First, Kozilek’s Return will deal 5 damage to both Soulfire Grand Master and Silver Knight. Having devoid means that this is considered a colorless source of damage, so protection from red doesn’t prevent it. Even though all the damage goes through, Amy will not gain life. This is because Soulfire Grand Master only gives instant and sorcery “spells” lifelink. By definition, a spell is a card on the stack, but when the damage is dealt, Kozilek’s Return will be exiled [CR 111.1]. The triggered ability that deals the damage exists on the stack as an object that’s not a card, which is close (especially in the way players often physically represent it), but not close enough [CR 603.3].
Q: Amy casts Damnation, which kills both her opponent’s Grizzly Bears and her own Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. Does she get a token?
A: Yes. Replacement effects apply just before the event they replace [CR 614.1]. This means that both creatures are still on the battlefield when the game is deciding what zone to put Grizzly Bears in.
Note: The token is not destroyed by Damnation, even though it’s created while Damnation is destroying all creatures. The step-by-step breakdown of exactly what happens makes this clear. First Damnation’s instructions create an effect in the game [Destroy Kalitas and Grizzly Bears]. Then, Kalitas’ replacement effect modifies this to [Destroy Kalitas, exile Grizzly Bears, and put a zombie token into play]. Then this event occurs.
Q: Amy controls Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and casts a Flaying Tendrils. Nicole controls a Grizzly Bears. What happens?
A: After Flaying Tendrils resolves, the game will perform state-based actions. Grizzly Bears will die because it has 0 toughness [CR 704.5f]. There are two replacement effects that want to apply to this event. Nicole, as Grizzly Bears controller, is the affected player, so she gets to pick what order they apply in [CR 616.1].
Suppose she applies Kalitas first. Then her bear is exiled and Amy gets a token. Simple enough. If she chooses to apply the effect from Flaying Tendrils first, though, the event becomes [exile Grizzly Bears], which Kalitas does not affect, because the bear isn’t dying anymore. Kalitas’ effect is no longer applicable, so it doesn’t apply and Amy doesn’t get a token [616.1e].
Note: If Flaying Tendrils’ effect was a self-replacement effect, it would have to be applied first [CR 616.1a]. This is not the case, though, because the effect doesn’t change any of Flaying Tendrils’ own effects (although it may superficially look that way, it actually changes what will happen after the spell resolves) [CR 614.15]. Nicole really does have a choice here, so she could give Amy a token if she wanted.
Q: Amy taps four lands and casts a Bearer of Silence, saying “You sacrifice a creature.” In response, Nicole casts Altar’s Reap, sacrificing her only creature in the process. Amy then untaps two lands saying that she doesn’t want to pay to have Nicole sacrifice a creature anymore. Nicole argues that Amy shouldn’t be allowed to do this. What is your ruling?
A: The decision whether to pay 1C for Bearer of Silence’s triggered ability is made when that ability resolves, not as a condition to put it onto the stack [CR 117.12]. Therefore, by the time Amy decides whether or not to pay, it will be too late for Nicole to sacrifice her creature to something else in response. Amy’s words and actions when casting Bearer of Silence constitute her proposal of a shortcut: I cast Bearer of Silence, its triggered ability goes on the stack, all players pass priority, then I pay 1C when the ability resolves [CR 716.2a]. Nicole is within her rights to interrupt this proposed sequence of actions, but she cannot hold Amy to the choices she made in her original proposal after changing it [CR 716.2b, 716.2c].
Note: If Bearer of Silence were worded “As an additional cost to cast this, you may pay 1C,” (following the template of Gatekeeper of Malakir, for example) the decision to pay would be made as it was being cast [CR 601.2f]. Amy would have to make this decision knowing that her opponent may sacrifice the creature some other way in response.
Q: Amy attacks with Erebos’s Titan, and Nicole blocks with Llanowar Elves, her only creature. Before damage, Nicole taps Llanowar Elves to activate Bonds of Mortality. After damage, is Erebos’s Titan indestructible or not?
A: Erebos’s Titan has an ability that wants to give it indestructible. Bonds of Mortality wants to take that ability away. No matter what order these apply in, both effects exist, and the objects they apply to and what they want to do to those objects don’t change. Therefore, there is no dependency between them [CR 613.7a]. The effect from Bonds of Mortality’s ability receives a timestamp when the ability resolves [CR 613.6b]. Erebos’s Titan giving itself indestructible is the result of a static ability, which means that it has the same timestamp as Erebos’s Titan – i.e., when it entered the battlefield [CR 613.6a, 613.6c]. This means that Bonds of Mortality has the later timestamp, so it “wins” and Erebos’s Titan does not have indestructible.
Q: Amy draws her opening hand, takes a mulligan, but draws 7 cards for her new hand. What is the proper infraction, penalty, and fix?
A: Amy gets a Warning for a Hidden Card Error. By far the biggest change this time around, the infractions that used to be DEC, Improper Draw at Start of Game, and even some GRV’s are now all contained into this new infraction. Expect a full article on Hidden Card Errors soon, but for now, the basics.
Amy made a Game Play Error (taking an additional card into her hand) that cannot be corrected using only publicly available information (because we can’t be sure which card should be put back). This fits the definition. The fix is to reveal the complete set of cards that contain the unrecoverable information (in this case, Amy’s 7-card hand) and return a number of them equal to the excess (1) of the opponent’s choice to their proper zone.
Note: Suppose this happened in game 1, and Amy didn’t want her opponent to know what deck she was playing before she took a turn. The IPG specifies that a player may concede or mulligan (if applicable) to avoid the additional remedy. Good customer service dictates that the judge remind Amy of this alternative before she reveals her hand.
Note: If Amy mulligans in this spot, she draws cards based on how many she should have had in her hand, not how many she actually does. In this case, she would go to 5.
Q: Amy casts Shoulder to Shoulder choosing to support her two Grizzly Bears. In response, Nicole casts Kozilek’s Return. Amy puts both bears in the graveyard, then draws a card. Nicole then calls for a judge and asks if Amy gets to draw a card here. What do you do?
A: First, Amy is not supposed to get to draw here. Supporting a creature targets it, which means that all of Shoulder to Shoulder’s targets are now illegal, so the spell is countered when it tries to resolve [CR 701.32, 608.2b]. This means that Amy, in drawing a card, has committed a Hidden Card Error. Nicole will get to choose a card from Amy’s hand and shuffle it back into her library.
Q: The players call you to the table and explain that they just noticed that Nicole’s General Tazri is still on the battlefield, even though it shouldn’t be because Amy Wrathed the board a couple turns ago. You determine that this error is unintentional, and went unnoticed by both players because Nicole moved General Tazri to the far side of her board after Amy Pacifismed it earlier. What do you do?
A: Nicole has committed a Game Rule Violation by not putting her General Tazri in the graveyard. Amy, who didn’t notice in a reasonable time, has earned a Failure to Maintain Game State. Both infractions have a Warning as the penalty. Previously, the “correct” way to handle this would have been to leave General Tazri on the battlefield. That’s because it’s too late for a backup and the partial fix that we could employ specified “an object changing zones is put into the wrong zone.” This doesn’t fit what happened to General Tazri, which was supposed to change zones, but didn’t. This partial fix has now been expanded to apply to such cases where a required zone change was missed, so put General Tazri in the graveyard now.
Note: Pacifism will also be put into the graveyard the next time state-based actions are performed [CR 704.5n].
Note: The fix also stipulates that it applies only if moving the card would cause only a “minor disruption” to the game state. That’s a safe bet here, since both players have been playing on as though Tezri were already in the graveyard anyway.
Note: The fix still does not technically apply to cases where a card isn’t supposed to be changing zones, but does anyway (for instance, if the extra cards with Genesis Hydra are put into the graveyard rather than shuffled into the library).
Q: Amy calls you to the table and tells you that two turns ago, her opponent’s creature died, but she forgot about her Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, and so the creature wasn’t exiled, and she didn’t get a token. What do you do?
A: This question is similar to the last one, but with a couple of additional wrinkles. First, the proper infraction for Amy’s opponent is a Game Rule Violation also. This is because she is partially responsible for the error. Although Amy controls the effect that was forgotten, Nicole is the one who physically put her creature in the wrong zone.
The fix described above fits this case too, so Nicole’s creature is exiled. The other difference from the previous case is that the forgotten instruction should have also generated a token. The fix we are using is a partial fix, though. It doesn’t allow us to perform any auxiliary instructions that should have gone together with the accompanying zone change. Amy doesn’t get a token.
Q: Amy calls you to the table and explains that she just found a card from her deck on the floor. Sure enough, a card count confirms that Amy had only 59 cards to start with if the floor card is not included. What do you do?
A: In times past, this was a Game Loss for a Deck/Decklist Problem, but now, the head judge may downgrade this to a Warning. The card is shuffled into Amy’s library and the game can proceed as normal.