Good day Judges,
This year marks the return of Core Set and just like any other sets, Core Set 2019 showcases some cards that needs to be looked into and for this set Chuanjie Seow L2 judge from Singapore, would like to guide us as we delve deeper into the red enchantment known as the Alpine Moon
Chuanjie Seow
Oracle Text and Additional Rulings
So we have WOTC printing another but mini variant of the “Moon” effects in Core 2019.
Let’s see the oracle text of Alpine Moon:
As Alpine Moon enters the battlefield, choose a nonbasic land card name.
Lands your opponents control with the chosen name lose all land types and abilities, and they gain “T: Add one mana of any color.”
Also from Release Notes/ Gatherer rulings we got:
Alpine Moon’s effect doesn’t affect supertypes or other card types. It won’t remove the artifact card type from an artifact land or remove the legendary supertype from a legendary land.
If an affected land has an ability that triggers “when” it enters the battlefield, it will lose that ability before it triggers.
If an affected land has an ability that causes it to enter the battlefield tapped, it will lose that ability before it applies. The same is also true of any other abilities that modify how a land enters the battlefield or apply “as” a land enters the battlefield.
Relevant reference from the CR
CR 205.3i Lands have their own unique set of subtypes; these subtypes are called land types. The land types are Desert, Forest, Gate, Island, Lair, Locus, Mine, Mountain, Plains, Power-Plant, Swamp, Tower, and Urza’s.:: Of that list, Forest, Island, Mountain, Plains, and Swamp are the basic land types. See rule 305.6.
CR 300.1. The card types are artifact, conspiracy, creature, enchantment, instant, land, phenomenon, plane, planeswalker, scheme, sorcery, tribal, and vanguard.
CR 305.5. Land subtypes are always a single word and are listed after a long dash. Land subtypes are also called land types. Lands may have multiple subtypes. See rule 205.3i for the complete list of land types.
Example: “Basic Land — Mountain” means the card is a land with the subtype Mountain.
Examples with commonly played non basic lands
Note that all examples are assuming the named land is controlled by the opponent of the owner of Alpine Moon
Urza Tron bloomed the Alpine Moon
Right away we see what happens when there is an Alpine Moon naming
Urza’s Tower (Name of Land) will lose its Urza’s and Tower Type (same for Urza’s & Mine and Urza’s & Power-Plant for Urza’s Mine and Urza’s Power Plant respectively). It retains its Card Type: Land
It will also lose its ability to tap for C and gain the ability to tap for any colour instead.
It would seem that natural forces have a keen dislike of Urza and his stuff, just ask Multani!
Arboriculture
So with the Alpine Moon,
Lose its Forest type but retain its Dryad type
Gain the ability to tap for any colour
Is still Green 1/1 creature (Green is now a colour indicator on Arbor)
Soul by Moon
When Cavern of Souls is in play choosing Spirit and an Alpine Moon resolves naming Cavern of Souls, Cavern of Souls will lose both its ability to generate C and the rainbow colour specifically for creatures.
When Alpine Moon is in play naming Cavern of Souls, you do not get to choose a creature type when placing Cavern of Souls into play as that ability has been removed by Alpine Moon.
Either way, with Alpine Moon naming Cavern of Souls, Cavern of Souls will just be able to produce mana of any colour for any type of spell and those spells can be countered
Shockland Tapland Triland
This is where Alpine Moon turbo charges all forms of duals like shocklands and tapped lands.
An Alpine Moon naming say Hallowed Fountain and you play a Hallowed Fountain, it will come into play untapped (without life payment) and be able to tap for any colour of mana!
However Alpine Moon also removes the land types from the shockland, which in this case both Plains and Island. Say no to
Darksteel Weaksteel
Darksteel Citadel once again cannot withstand the effects of neither the Sun nor Moon.
With Alpine Moon naming Darksteel Citadel,
It will lose its Indestructibility and its ability to produce C.
It is still an Artifact Land and can produce any colour of mana.
Weirder interactions
With Alpine Moon naming Dark Depths, Dark Depths loses its ability to remove an ice counter and will keep stopping Marit Lage card from gaining her freedom. It will now be able to tap for any colour of mana.
However if Alpine Moon is in play and Dark Depths enters the battlefield, Alpine Moon will melt all the ice and Dark Depths will ETB with no ice counters as this ability is removed. Once the Alpine Moon naming Dark Depths is removed, Dark Depths’ state trigger will trigger and release Marit Lage upon your foes!
The ability adding of The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale is also in layer 6 similar to Alpine Moon. Also applying the other (Alpine Moon) would change the text or the existence of the first effect (Tabernacle) (CR613.7a). Hence Tabernacle is dependent on Alpine Moon. We refer to CR613.7 If a dependency exists, it will override the timestamp system. Hence it does not matter if Alpine Moon or Tabernacle is in play first. Once Alpine Moon is in play, Alpine Moon will remove The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale’s ability.
Tabernacle however will be able to tap for any colour of mana!
How to identify dependencies?
For something to qualify as a dependency, the effect cannot be a “characteristic-defining ability,” and must apply in the same layer that the effect it “depends on” is applying. Effect A is said to depend on Effect B if:
Applying B first would cause A to no longer apply.
Applying B first would change what A would apply to.
Applying B first would change how A applies to the things it applies to.
The Great Father of Machines, Yawgmoth has no fear of the Moon! Why? While Alpine Moon affects layer 6 ability removal, Urborg applies in layer 4 of type-changing ability. Put together, Urborg adds the Swamp subtype to all lands including itself (layer 4) then Alpine Moon removes this ability (layer 6) which happens after Urborg has infected all the lands with Yawgmoth’s touch! Therefore you end up with Urborg with no abilities that is not a Swamp (Because Alpine Moon removes this land type) which can tap for any colour and Phyrexian infected lands everywhere on the battlefield!
Interactions with fellow Sun and Moon
How about Alpine Moon’s interactions with its sisters Blood Moon and Blood Sun? Blood Sun has been discussed here in depth earlier by the way: Delving Deeper… Blood Sun
Two Moons
Blood Moon applies in layer 4 (type-changing effects). While, Alpine Moon applies in layer 6 (ability adding and removing effects) and also in Layer 4 to remove land types.
Hence this is just a basic timestamp system. Alpine Moon first = affected land is Mountain while Blood Moon first = affected land is not a Mountain.
So if Blood Moon is in play first, we apply Blood Moon first causing all non-basic lands to be just Mountains. Then Alpine Moon causes the specifically named non basic land to lose all of its abilities and Mountain type afterwards. The specifically named non basic will just be a Land that can tap for any colour.
So if Alpine Moon is in play first, Alpine Moon causes the specifically named non basic land to lose all of its abilities and type. Then we apply Blood Moon causing all non-basic lands to be just Mountains. The specifically named non basic will be a Land-Mountain that can tap for any colour (as Alpine Moon removes the Tap for Red ability in layer 6).
Sun and Moon
Both Blood Sun and Alpine Moon applies in layer 6 (ability adding and removing effects) so we add them in timestamp order.
Since Blood Sun removes all abilities but mana abilities and Alpine Moon removed all abilities and gives the mana ability to tap for any colour so no matter how the timestamp applies, the named non basic land by Alpine Moon will have no abilities except tap for any colour and have no land types.
Credit goes to:
Wearn Chong and Giorgos Trichopoulos
for assisting Chuanjie Seow
with this topic.
Post Verified by: Smith Lo