Good day Judges,

We’re all very much familiar with the card Blood Moon, Blood Sun and Alpine Moon and Chuanjie Seow L2 judge from Singapore, would like to guide us as we delve deeper into the Sun and Moon.

In this final segment of the Sun & Moon series, we come to look at the final piece of the puzzle:Blood Moon. You can refer to the All about Alpine Moon or The Blood Sun by clicking on their respective hyperlinks.

So let’s start with its most updated Oracle Text:
Nonbasic lands are Mountains.
Yup 1 sentence 4 words but a whole load of headache for you and me!

Also the Gatherer rulings:
* If a nonbasic 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, such as the first ability of Cavern of Souls. This is a change from previous rulings.
* Nonbasic lands will lose any other land types and abilities they had. They will gain the land type Mountain and gain the ability “Tap: Add Red.”
* This effect doesn’t affect names or supertypes. It won’t turn any land into a basic land or remove the legendary supertype from a legendary land, and the lands won’t be named “Mountain.”
*If a nonbasic land has an ability that triggers “when” it enters the battlefield, it will lose that ability before it triggers.

Before we delve deeper into the actual interactions between Blood Moon and other cards, let’s see which segment of the Layer system does Blood Moon uses:

CR 613.1d Layer 4: Type-changing effects are applied. These include effects that change an object’s card type, subtype, and/or supertype.

This means Blood Moon will make all nonbasic lands into Mountains. These lands loses all their other land types and abilities but keep their other non-land types and supertypes. The lands will remain being nonbasic lands despite gaining a basic land type.

Other Scenarios where there are type changing/adding involved

Prismatic Omen and Blood Moon both work in Layer 4 hence we use the timestamp system. If Blood Moon is in play first then Prismatic Omen will override Blood Moon to make all lands you control have all basic land types and vice versa.

Do take note that Blood Moon‘s type setting effect will still cause nonbasic lands to lose their other printed abilities. They will be able to however tap for any colour if Prismatic Omen has the latest timestamp as they continue to have every basic land type.

Interaction with Lands with abilities
Lands with abilities

Your Shockland will enter the battlefield untapped as Blood Moon removes Shockland’s ability that makes it enter the battlefield tapped unless you pay 2 life. You cannot pay 2 life even if you want to as the ability is removed due to the CR update in Ixalan.

For this instance, Hallowed Fountain will enter play without “shocking you”, is untapped and is a nonbasic Mountain that taps for Red.

Lands that comes into play with counters

Blood Moon will cause Gemstone Mine to enter play without any Mining counters and its mana ability is replaced with tap for red.

Similarly Blood Moon will cause Dark Depths to enter play without any Ice counters. Dark Depths will lose its ability to pay 3 generic mana to remove an Ice counter and its ability to free Marit Lage from her prison. It however retains its Legendary and Snow Supertype and hence will be able to tap for red snow mana.

However once the Blood Moon is removed from play, Dark Depths seeing no Ice counters to hold Marit Lage back will release the 20/20 behemoth into the world!

Dryad Arboriculture

Dryad Arbor

With Blood Moon in play, Dryad Arbor will still be a Dryad creature with the ability to tap for red mana. It will still be green.because it has a green color indicator which is not removed when Dryad Arbor becomes a Mountain as Blood Moon does not operate on Layer 5 Colour-changing effects.

Lands of Artifice

Blood Moon will remove all of the lands’s abilities and change it into a Mountain that taps for red. Darksteel Citadel also loses its Indestructible ability.

Darksteel Citadel and other artifact lands affect by Blood Moon still retains their artifact type.

Manlands

With Blood Moon in play, Shambling Vent and other manlands will lose their animation ability together with their other abilities and be a nonbasic Mountain that taps for red.

However if Shambling Vent is a creature and Blood Moon enters play after it was animated, it will still be a 2/3 white and black creature with its Elemental subtype. It still has Lifelink as when you set a land’s subtype, it loses the abilities generated by its rules text but not abilities granted by other effects. In this case, the Shambling Vent will lose its printed ability but not the abilities that it gave itself when you activated its animation ability.

Shafted by the Ixalan CR Update

Poor Vesuva and its kin such as Cavern of Souls. Blood Moon will remove Vesuva’s ability that lets it enter the battlefield as a copy of a land. With Blood Moon in play, Vesuva is a nonbasic Mountain that taps for red. Once Blood Moon is removed, Vesuva is not a copy of anything and is just a blank land.

Similarly for Cavern of Souls, as you will not be able to choose a creature type when Cavern of Souls comes into play with Blood Moon in play, it can only tap it for C once Blood Moon leaves play.

Dependency
If you have been following these articles, dependency is something we cannot escape from. So behold Blood Moon the originator of dependencies in the CR in its glorious interactions below! But first a recap on identifying 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.

Both Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Blood Moon operate on the same Layer 6 of type changing effects. However applying Blood Moon first will change what Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth affects. This creates a dependency where Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is dependent on Blood Moon. Hence no matter which order they enter the battlefield, we always apply Blood Moon first. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth Urborg to lose its ability, so lands will not gain the swamp subtype.

Further explanation: Applying Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth first will not change anything about what Blood Moon will do, but applying Blood Moon before Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth will make Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth into a Mountain, removing its abilities.

Moon Worship

Now we have discussed much about Blood Moon but how about its most infamous worshiper, the Magus of the Moon?

With the same Oracle Text and Gatherer Text, how does the worshipper of the Blood Moon interact with other cards?

While having a Magus of the Moon in play will affect nonbasic lands similarly like having a Blood Moon in play, what happens when we have nonbasic lands which have abilities that affects creatures?

What if we have The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale and Magus of the Moon in play?

The ability adding of The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale is also in Layer 6 while Magus of the Moon is in Layer 4. Hence Magus of the Moon will remove Tabernacle’s ability and will not be affected by the Tabernacle tax!

How about Humility is also in play with Tabernacle? It is pretty simple actually.
Layer 4 – Magus of the Moon type changing effects apply.
Layer 6 – Humility causes all creatures to lose all abilities while Tabernacle causes all creatures to gain the Tabernacle tax ability. However Tabernacle’s ability will be removed thanks to Magus of the Moon’s type changing effect.
Layer 7b – Humility wants to set all creatures to 1/1

Hence after we apply the Layer system in sequence, Magus of the Moon is a 1/1 with no abilities however all nonbasic lands are Mountains. All hail the Blood Moon!

The Author would like to give credits to: Smith Lo for verifying the post, to Maykel and Sugeng Hartawan for the assistance.