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Q: Amy plays Relentless Advance while she controls Mentor of the Meek (and no Armies). Does Mentor of the Meek trigger?
A: Yes. The token momentarily enters the battlefield as a 0/0, and immediately after, the game checks to see if any triggered abilities have triggered and need to go on the stack. This does match Mentor of the Meek’s trigger condition, so after Relentless Advance finishes resolving, that trigger goes on the stack.
Note: For the same reason, Enter the god-Eternals would not cause Kronch Wrangler to trigger. When the token enters the battlefield, its power is not 4 or greater.
Q: Can I proliferate a poison counter to my opponent, but not an energy counter?
A: You used to, but this is no longer possible due to a change in how proliferate works. Now, every permanent and player chosen will get an additional counter of each type they already have. To put it another way, you can only choose permanents/players. You don’t choose which counters get proliferated. Assuming that your opponent already has at least one of each, they will get another of each kind of counter, or no additional counters.
Q: Amy reveals Foresee with god-Eternal Kefnet while she controls Omniscience. Can she play the copy of Foresee for free?
A: Interestingly, yes! The copy is created after you draw the card, so the copy is created in and played from the hand. Omniscience says you can cast “spells”, not “cards”. A copy of a spell is still a spell, so Omniscience applies to this just fine.
Q: If I Collected Company into two Charmed Strays, how many +1/+1 counters does each one get?
A: After Collected Company resolves, the game checks to see if any triggered abilities have triggered and need to go on the stack. In this case, each Charmed Stray’s ability has triggered. Thus, each one will get one counter.
Note: Suppose Amy plays a Justiciar’s Portal on one of the strays before either ability resolves. Of course, this causes that stray to enter the battlefield and trigger again, giving the other a second counter. The stray that left the battlefield and re-entered will get two counters also: one from its friend’s trigger, and a second when the triggered ability that happened when it originally entered the battlefield resolves. In leaving the battlefield, that stray became a new object with no memory of or relationship to its previous self. As such, it will qualify as an “other creature you control named Charmed Stray”.
Q: A couple of turns after activating Ugin, the Ineffable’s +1 ability, Amy looks at the card under her token. Nicole calls a judge. Amy says she forgot what the card was, so she wanted to check. What is the appropriate infraction, penalty, and fix?
A: Ugin is templated differently from cards like Thief of Sanity in that it doesn’t say that you can look at the exiled card after the initial time when you exile it. This text is superfluous, though. Once a player is allowed to look at a card that was exiled face down, that player can look at it any time they want [CR 406.3]. Accordingly, Amy hasn’t committed any infraction, so the players can continue the game.
Note: Being able to look at the card applies to all players equally. For example, if Nicole used Mindslaver on Amy, she would be allowed to look at all Amy’s face down cards exiled with Ugin because those are cards Amy could look at. Any time after that turn, she could continue to look at those cards because she was allowed to look at them at one point, so she can continue to look at them. She could not look at any subsequently exiled cards, though, because there was never an effect that let her see them.
Q: Amy uses Banefire to deal 5 damage to Nicole’s 10/10 Ugin’s Conjurant. What happens?
A: Although Banefire’s damage cannot be prevented, the prevention effect from Ugin’s Conjurant still applies to it [CR 615.12]. That effect won’t prevent the damage from Banefire, but its other effects still happen. Ugin’s Conjurant ends up as a 5/5 with 5 damage on it and is destroyed by state-based actions.
Q: Nicole has Shield of the Realm attached to Ugin’s Conjurant. What happens when she blocks a 2/2 with it?
A: Similar to replacement effects, if multiple prevention effects want to apply to the same event, the affected player chooses which one to apply first, then the game re-evaluates whether all the others can apply to the new event. Nicole can choose to apply the Shield of the Realm’s prevention effect first, and if she does, the Ugin’s Conjurant’s prevention effect no longer applies, so it doesn’t lose any +1/+1 counters.
Q: Amy animates her Gideon Blackblade and Nicole Dismembers it. How many counters does Amy’s Rising Populace get?
A: Rising Populace’s ability triggers whenever something you control that’s a creature or planeswalker dies. Because only one permanent Amy controlled died, Rising Populace’s ability only triggers once.
Q: Amy activates a Jace, Wielder of Mysteries -8 while Jace has 9 loyalty counters and her library has 4 cards in it. What happens?
A: After Amy draws her first four cards normally, the replacement effect from Jace’s static ability will be applicable when Amy attempts the fifth. Amy will win the game instead of taking that draw. The “you win the game” in the text of Jace’s -8 is only relevant if its controller starts with exactly 7 cards in their library or if Jace leaves the battlefield before that ability resolves (such as if its -8 is activated while it has 8 loyalty counters on it).
Q: Amy and Nicole both control Jace, Wielder of Mysteries when Amy plays Emergency Powers. After shuffling their hands and graveyards into their libraries, Amy’s library contains 5 cards, while Nicole’s contains 4. What happens?
A: If an effect instructs more than one player to draw cards, the active player performs all of their draws first, then each other player takes their draws in turn order [CR 120.2c]. Accordingly, Emergency Powers will have Amy draw her 7 before Nicole gets to draw any of her cards. The sixth of Amy’s draws will be replaced by her winning the game since her library will have no cards in it by that point.
Note: The addendum part is written after the draws, so it happens afterwards. Amy will win the game before this happens, so she will not have an opportunity to put a permanent into play.
Q: Amy puts Mowu, Loyal Companion into play with Neoform. How many +1/+1 counters does Mowu get in total?
A: Two. As Mowu is entering the battlefield, the game checks to see if any replacement effects apply to this event. The self-replacement effect from Neoform wants to put a +1/+1 counter on Mowu, so the event becomes [Mowu enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it]. Mowu’s own replacement effect applies to this, and increases this to two +1/+1 counters.
Note: Winding Constrictor’s ability is similar, but yields a different answer. Replacement effects apply before the event they replace happens, so normally a permanent’s own replacement effects cannot apply to that permanent entering the battlefield. An exception applies for replacement effects that only apply to the permanent itself entering the battlefield rather than permanents in general or all permanents of a given type. Otherwise “enters the battlefield tapped” and similar effects could not apply. Because Mowu’s replacement effect only applies to counters put on itself, it falls under this exception. Winding Constrictor applies to counters placed on all creatures and artifacts you control. Because of this, it doesn’t get the exceptional treatment Mowu’s ability got. While Winding Constrictor is entering the battlefield, the game will not be able to apply its counter adding replacement effect, so it will only get the one +1/+1 counter from Neoform. This is a tricky concept, for sure. For more information, consult CR 614.12 or read this article, which goes through that rule sentence by sentence with worked examples.
Advanced Note: Immediately before Mowu enters the battlefield, it’s in its controller’s library. Astute readers may be curious how the game can see that it has a replacement effect to apply to this event when it’s in a hidden zone immediately before it enters the battlefield, which is when that replacement effect applies. It turns out the CR writers thought of that. CR 400.6 describes the process of objects changing zones in detail, and includes a step where the object is revealed immediately before the zone change happens. This step is specifically for cases like this where an object that’s moving from a hidden zone has a replacement effect that affects the move.
Q: Amy plays Teferi’s Time Twist on a Relic of Progenitus while she controls March of the Machines. Will Relic enter the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter?
A: Yes. Teferi’s Time Twist applies a replacement effect to the event of returning the permanent to the battlefield. To determine how such replacement effects apply, look at the permanent as it would exist on the battlefield, taking into account continuous effects that would change its characteristics. Accordingly, the game sees Relic of Progenitus entering as a creature and gives it a +1/+1 counter.
Q: Amy plays Teferi’s Time Twist on Rusted Relic. When it is returning to the battlefield, she controls 2 other artifacts. Does Rusted Relic enter the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter?
A: Oddly, no. As before, the TTT putting a counter on is a replacement effect, so it applies before Rusted Relic enters the battlefield. The game does take Rusted Relic’s continuous effect into account when deciding how TTT’s replacement effect is applied, but at the time that effect applies, Rusted Relic will not yet be on the battlefield, so Amy will not control the three artifacts necessary for it to be a creature.
Note: If Amy controls 3 or more other artifacts while Rusted Relic is entering, it will get a +1/+1 counter.
Q: Can I use Finale of Eternity with X=10 to kill my Thragtusk then return it to the battlefield?
A: Yes. The instructions are performed in the order written. Destroying Thragtusk puts it into the graveyard in time for the return effect to revive it.
Q: Do all the counters from Price of Betrayal have to be the same kind?
A: No. Nothing on the card says this, so you can pick what five counters come off. This means you can, for instance, remove loyalty and +1/+1 counters from a Gideon.
Q: Amy uses The Elderspell against Nicole’s Chandra, Fire Artisan. Does this cause Chandra’s ability to trigger?
A: No. While the physical act of resolving The Elderspell likely involves removing counters first, then putting Chandra in the graveyard, as far as the game is concerned, what actually happened is Chandra got destroyed, and the counters went away as part of the process of it changing zones. This doesn’t match the trigger condition on Chandra’s ability, so it doesn’t trigger.
Q: Amy activates the +1 of Sarkhan the Masterless and attacks with it. Nicole blocks with a 1/1 creature. What happens?
A: Unlike other similar effects, Sarkhan’s ability does not specify that your planeswalkers retain their former types. This means that they become creatures and are no longer planeswalkers. Since it’s not a planeswalker when the damage is dealt to it, Sarkhan does not lose any loyalty counters.
Note: Although creatures don’t usually have loyalty abilities, there’s no rule against activating them if they do. So you can activate loyalty abilities of other planeswalkers you control even after a Sarkhan +1.
Note: Changing the plansewalkers’ types doesn’t affect their names or supertypes, so if Amy plays a second Sarkhan later that turn, the legend rule will still apply to them.
Q: Amy casts Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi on a Forest. Afterwards, she makes her Thespian’s Stage a copy of that Forest. What are the characteristics of Thespian’s Stage?
A: When copying a permanent, continuous effects acting on that permanent are not copied, nor are any counters on it. Thespian’s Stage will be a Basic Land – Forest. Its name is still “Forest” and its still not legendary.
Q: Amy casts Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi on a Mutavault and animates it with its own ability. What are Mutavault’s characteristics?
A: Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi’s name change is a text-changing effect and applies in layer 3. In layer 4, Mutavault becomes a Legendary Land Creature – Elemental, then gains all creature types. Mutavault’s effect has a later timestamp, so that happens later. More significantly, Mutavault becomes a 0/0 in layer 7b first, then becomes a 2/2 afterward for the same reason. Thus, after the +1/+1 counters are applied in layer 7d, Mutavault is 11/11.
Note: Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi uses the phrase “it’s still a land.” This means that even if Mutavault is animated first, then Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi is played on it, Mutavault retains all types, subtypes, and supertypes that it had before the Awakening’s continuous effect is applied [CR 205.1b]. Mutavault will be a 9/9 (because in this case the 0/0 effect will have the later timestamp), but it will still have all creature types.
Q: Amy controls Metallic Mimic for which the named type is “Citizen”. She casts Planewide Celebration and chooses to put 2 tokens into play and proliferate twice. How many +1/+1 counters does each token end up with?
A: The instuctions on Planewide Celebration are performed sequentially in the order written. Thus, the first token will be created, then the second, then the first proliferate will happen, then the second. The tokens enter the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter each, so they can be chosen for each proliferate, ending with 3 +1/+1 counters apiece.
Q: Amy plays Bioessence Hydra, then plays Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, then uses the +1 ability of Jace. How many counters are now on Bioessence Hydra?
A: Five. Abilities that refer to counters being put on an object see both counters put on it (for any reason) while it’s on the battlefield and counters put on it as it enters the battlefield.
Q: Amy plays Casualties of War choosing to destroy Spellskite as the artifact and Grizzly Bears as the creature. Can Nicole use Spellskite’s ability to change the Grizzly Bears target to Spellskite?
A: Yes. Spellskite can be the target of Casualties of War once for each instance of the word “target” on the spell. Because that word appears in each mode, Spellskite can simultaneously be the target artifact and also the target creature.
Q: Amy targets her Feather, the Redeemed with Mighty Leap while she controls Rest in Peace. What happens?
A: Both of Mighty Leap and Feather’s replacement effects want to apply to exile Mighty Leap as it finishes resolving. It actually matters which effect Amy chooses to apply first (Amy chooses because she owns the affected card, Mighty Leap) because the “if you do” in Feather’s effect applies only if you exile it using that replacement effect. Thus, Amy should apply Feather first to ensure she gets to return Mighty Leap to her hand.
Note: Suppose that Amy played Artful Maneuver rather than Mighty Leap. Rebound is not a self-replacement effect because it does not replace part of the spell’s own effect. Accordingly, Amy may choose to apply either rebound or Feather’s ability first, so she could either play it for free next turn or return it to her hand.
Q: How does Tamiyo, Collector of Tales interact with…
- Desecration Demon? A: Amy cannot choose to sacrifice creatures for her opponents’ abilities. She therefore cannot tap Desecration Demon. Incidentally, this means that it is not an infraction for her opponent to forget to announce Desecration Demon’s trigger, just like if Amy has no creatures.
- Painful Quandary? A: Amy cannot choose to discard a card, so she must pay 5 life.
- Killing Wave? A: Effects that say to do something unless you do something else mean “You may do something else. If you don’t, do something” [CR 117.12a]. Thus, Amy may choose to pay X life for each of her creatures. If she doesn’t, she still won’t have to sacrifice it because of Tamiyo.
- Locust Miser? A: Even if Locust Miser is reducing your hand size, you’re still discarding due to game rules, not due to an opponent’s card effect, so Tamiyo doesn’t keep this from happening.
Q: Amy controls Nicol Bolas, Dragon-god and activates the +2 ability it got from Gideon, the Oathsworn. Which planeswalker is animated?
A: Abilities that use a card’s own name in their text refer to that specific object. If another object somehow gains that ability (as happened here), use that object’s name instead. So Nicol Bolas will become a 5/5 white Soldier creature that’s still a planeswalker.
Q: Amy plays Time Wipe and returns a Banisher Priest that had exiled a Grizzly Bears. What happens?
A: The instructions of Time Wipe are performed in order, so Banisher Priest is returned to its owner’s hand before all creatures are destroyed. Banisher Priest’s templating of “until Banisher Priest leaves the battlefield” indicates that Grizzly Bears is returned as soon as Banisher Priest leaves, so it comes back in time to be destroyed by Time Wipe.
Note: Time Wipe does not make it optional to return a creature, so if you have one, you have to return it. On the other hand, it doesn’t target, nor does it make the destruction contingent on returning a creature with phrasing like “if you do”, so if you control no creatures, you can still play Time Wipe as a wrath effect just fine.
Q: Amy uses the +1 ability of her Teferi, Time Raveler. Nicole also a Teferi, Time Raveler. Can Amy play a sorcery during Nicole’s next turn?
A: No. Having flash says that Amy can play her sorceries during Nicole’s turn, but Nicole’s Teferi has an effect that says she can’t. In cases where a “can’t” and “can” effect conflict, the “can’t” effect wins, so Amy cannot play sorceries during Nicole’s turn [CR 101.2].
Note: The phrase “any time [a player] could cast a sorcery” actually has a specific definition in the CR. It’s shorthand for “any time the stack is empty, it’s your main phase, and you have priority” [CR 307.5]. Whether the player could otherwise cast a sorcery at some other time (as is the case here) has no influence on this definition; Nicole’s turn is not considered a “time Amy could cast a sorcery” even if Amy is somehow able to cast sorceries at that time.
Q: Can I have multiple The Wanderers out at once?
A: No. The Wanderer is Legendary, so having two of them would constitute two legendary permanents with the same name, which means the legend rule will make you put all but one in the graveyard. The fact that it has no planeswalker types is anomalous, but not in a way that helps here.
New Rules
Q: Can I look at the card I’m drawing before deciding whether to reveal it with god-Eternal Kefnet?
A: Yes. A new rule added this time around makes this clear. ” If an effect gives a player the option to reveal a card as they draw it, that player may look at that card as they draw it before choosing whether to reveal it” [CR 120.9].
Q: Amy attacks Nicole and two of Nicole’s planeswalkers while Nicole controls Ever-Watching Threshold. How many cards can Nicole draw?
A: The updated Oracle text on Ever-Watching Threshold makes it clear that you only draw 1 card per attack, even if multiple things that would cause Ever-Watching Threshold to trigger happen during that attack. Nicole only draws one card.
Policy
Q: During a deck check, you find that Amy is playing Delver of Secrets in non-opaque sleeves. Her decklist also has a 56 card maindeck, with 4 Brainstorm not listed. What is the appropriate infraction, penalty, and fix?
A: Playing double-faced cards in non-opaque sleeves fits the definition of Marked Cards. The penalty is upgraded to a Game Loss because a player could use those markings to gain a significant advantage. This is fixed by either having the player use sleeves that are opaque or use checklist cards. If neither of these options are available, the player’s deck should be modified by replacing the cards with basic lands and the player’s decklist revised accordingly.
Having a decklist of less than 60 cards is a Decklist Problem. The penalty is a Game Loss. The player’s decklist is updated to reflect what they intended to play.
None of this has changed since the last IPG, but the net result has. Although the root cause of these Game Losses is not the same, they are not assessed separately. Now, if a player is assessed two or more Game Losses at the same time, they combine into a single Game Loss.