Summary of Linked Abilities

Occasionally in Magic, cards will have an ability that does something, and then another ability that directly refers to what the first ability did. These are referred to as Linked Abilities and can lead to some very interesting rules scenarios, which made it a great topic for this week’s Rulesday Tuesday.

Our first question dealt with Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, which has its first and second abilities linked (it also has its 3rd and 2nd abilities linked although that comes up less often. Our question was, if Ashiok had exiled a Grizzly Bear with it’s +2 ability, and then left the battlefield due to Banishing Light, only to return later when the Banishing Light is destroyed, could the -X ability of the newly reentered Ashiok be used to put the Grizzly Bear into play?

• Tim White found the correct answer here, which is that when linked abilities are found on an object, they only look specifically at things affected by or choices made by that object, not all card with the same name. So when Ashiok leaves and returns, it is a new game object and as such will not recognize previously exiled cards, even though the ability says “Card…exiled by Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver.

Next we asked, if we used the ability of Quicksilver Elemental to copy the activated abilities of Bane Alley Broker, could we then use the {UB, T}: ability on it to return a card exiled with the original Bane Alley Broker to it’s owner’s hand?

• Daniel Hall found the first part of the answer in CR 607.5 which tells us that the abilities on Quicksilver Elemental after it’s ability resolves will be linked since they were linked on the original card. However, just like with Ashiok in the last question, those abilities are only linked on the specific object they are on, so Quicksilver Elemental will only look at cards exiled by itself, and not cards exiled by any other Bane Alley Broker.

Our next question was a real No Mercy style question, and stumped a few people participating in the discussion. The question was, “Nicole controls a True-Name Nemesis with protection from Amy and a Grizzly Bear. Amy Casts Mirrorweave on her Sewer Nemesis, for which Nicole is the named player. With Mirrorweave on the stack, both players have 2 cards in graveyards. What happens?”

• This question deals with linked abilities, but also dips a little into copyable characteristics. Sewer Nemesis’ first ability is linked with both its second and third ability, which means when True-Name and Grizzly Bear become copies of it, they will also have their abilities linked. However, as it turns out, naming a player for abilities like this isn’t a copyable characteristic. So because no player was named for the Sewer Nemesis ability when True-Name and Grizzly bear entered the battlefield, they have no player to reference for the 2nd and 3rd abilities and will die since they are 0/0s. One could be tempted to think that True-Name should survive as it does have a named player, however, with linked abilities they only care about choices made specifically by the linked abilities, so even with a named played floating around out in the void for True-Name, it wasn’t named as part of Sewer Nemesis’ ETB trigger and as such does nothing.

With that doozy of a question out of the way, we moved onto something easier now that we had covered exactly how strict linked abilities can be. The next question was, “Amy controls Opalescence and a Monastery Siege, for which the chosen mode is “Dragons.” She uses Cytoshape to make it a copy of her opponent’s Frontier Siege, for which the chosen mode is “Khans.” What abilities does it now have?”

• Josh Olendorf hit the nail on the head here. The Monastery Siege will become a 4/4 Enchantment Creature with no abilities. CR 607.2k tells us that anchor words (such as Khans or Dragons) count as linked abilities. So even though Monastery Siege had an anchor word chosen when it entered, that only applies to the abilities linked to that choice. Once it becomes a Frontier Siege its new anchor word ability has no choice made for it and as such it has no abilities.

Our last question this week had some interesting discussion pop up about past rules and wording changes, but started with a simple question. If we use Strionic Resonator to copy the ability of Duplicant and exile a Hill Giant and then a Grizzly Bear, what is the P/T of the Duplicant?

• Holy Barra got this one with the help of the new oracle text on Duplicant, which is that it would be a 2/2 since it specifically cares about the last creature exiled to its ability. So while both of the exiles are linked to the P/T setting ability, that same ability makes it so it only cares about the last creature exiled. However, it turns out Duplicant actually works as an exception. CR 607.3 tells us when multiple cards are exiled and then referenced to get a value, we are supposed to use the sum of those values. So for example if we replaced the Duplicant in the question with a Phyrexian Ingester, then it would be a 8/8 not a 5/5 since it uses the sum. As it turns out Resonator was actually the reason Duplicant got an oracle update, just a little interesting piece of Magic rules trivia.

For additional reading regarding linked abilities see CR 607 which covers them in more detail and exactly outlines the requirements for two abilities to be considered linked.

Further reading: CR 607 Linked abilities

Related article: Linked abilities