As future summoners and mages, it is crucial that you understand how to best direct our many allies in battle. For example, the Scion of Vitu-Ghazi is both a potent threat and a useful defender. Summoning the Scion from your hand will allow you to summon a Bird ally to your side, as well as to populate. When you populate, you can create a simulacrum of any token creature you have at your command, not just the Bird that attends your new Scion.
Scion of Vitu-Ghazi also works fairly well if you choose to ally yourselves with those Simic mages, although of course I don’t recommend working alongside those biomancers any more than you need to. Suppose your Simic “friend” happens to summon a Progenitor Mimic from his hand and chooses to copy the Scion of Vitu-Ghazi. In this case, the mimicked Scion will be considered to have been “cast from your hand,” so you will acquire a pair of feathered friends. This is true for any creature that can copy another creature, including Clones and even darker magic like Evil Twin.
Let us return to the example of Progenitor Mimic. As I said, when Progenitor Mimic joins your side for the first time, you will get some birds. However, on future turns, when the Progenitor Mimic creates another duplicate due to its ability, the token copy of Scion of Vitu-Ghazi will not produce any Birds or let you populate. This is because the token is not considered to have been cast from your hand — it simply sprang into existence on the battlefield. This is true for any effect that creates token replicas of the Scion, including spells like Cackling Counterpart.
I think that’s enough for today’s lesson. Don’t forget to perform your daily meditations on Mat’Selesnya’s benevolence, and may you always be at peace with the Worldsoul.
Today’s Rules Tip written by Paul Baranay