Published on 08/21/2017

Leonin and Dragons and Fangs, oh my!

Commander 2017 Special

Cranial Translation
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Note: This article is over two years old. Information in this article may be out of date due to subsequent Oracle and/or rules changes. Proceed with caution.


Phasing? Really? *sigh*
It's time to break out your favorite 100-card deck, polish your favorite dice, and get ready to fight for your favorite tribe! Commander 2017 is releasing this Friday, so it's time for me and the rest of the CI crew to help get you ready. (Not Moko, though. He's sulking because there isn't a zombie deck or a monkey deck.)

Remember, even if we didn't answer your question here, you can still contact us with your questions. If you have a short question, you can Tweet us at @CranialTweet. But if you have a longer question, feel free to e-mail us at moko@cranialinsertion.com . Onto the questions!

Q: How exactly does Alms Collector work? Aren't cards drawn one at a time?

A: Alms Collector is the first card to have a replacement effect that can modify multiple card draws at once, so new rules had to be created to handle it. While it's true that individual draws happen one at a time, Alms Collector can still see that an opponent would draw multiple cards and will replace all of those draws with a single draw for your opponent and one for you. Because of the nature of the effect, Alms Collector's replacement effect has to be applied before any replacement effects that modify the individual draws.



Q: So what happens if my opponent draws for their turn while I control Alms Collector and they also control a Thought Reflection?

A: Since your opponent is only going to draw one card, Alms Collector doesn't care. Only Thought Reflection's replacement effect is applicable here at first, so it replaces drawing a card with drawing two cards. But now that your opponent is drawing multiple cards, Alms Collector is suddenly interested and now applies its effect, changing those two draws into a draw for you and a draw for your opponent.



Q: What happens if they cast Hieroglyphic Illumination instead?

A: Hieroglyphic Illumination is going to make your opponent draw multiple cards, so Alms Collector steps in and collects a card for you and leaves the other for your opponent. Its ability is applied first because it modifies the set of card draws and not just the individual draws like Thought Reflection does. Your opponent is still going to draw a card, though, so Thought Reflection can still apply its effect here and so your opponent will end up drawing two cards and you'll draw one card. (Alms Collector has already modified this event and so it can't modify it again, even though the opponent is drawing multiple cards again.)



Q: Does Shifting Shadow's trigger still work if it's enchanting a creature with indestructible?

A: Yes. Being able to reveal cards until you find a new creature card doesn't depend on Shifting Shadow being able to actually destroy the enchanted creature. If the enchanted creature has indestructible, you'll still reveal a new creature card when the trigger resolves and attach Shifting Shadow to it.


The next test is currently unavailable.
It has been replaced with a live-fire course
designed for military androids.



Q: What happens if I use Portal Mage to make an Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger attack someone else? Who's library does Ulamog eat?

A: Ulamog's trigger is already on the stack by the time you cast Portal Mage here. When Portal Mage changes which player or planeswalker Ulamog is attacking, it also changes who Ulamog's trigger will affect. This is a new rules change for Commander 2017 so now Ulamog's trigger will affect whichever player is the defending player when the trigger resolves. Ulamog's hunger may be ceaseless, but it can still be redirected with the handy use of some portals.



Q: What happens when I cast Transguild Courier while I control Ramos, Dragon Engine?

A: Transguild Courier is all colors in all zones. (While it no longer has its nifty characteristic-defining ability, it does have a cool new five color color indicator in its Oracle text. I, for one, hope that it will be reprinted some day so that we can revel in that beach ball color indicator's glory.) Ramos sees Transguild Courier as all five colors and will get five +1/+1 counters when its trigger resolves.



Q: Does Licia, Sanguine Tribune's cost reduction ability reduce her "commander tax" if I've gained enough life?

A: Yes. When you determine the cost to cast a spell, you first take that spell's mana cost (or alternate cost) and apply any cost increases (e.g. commander tax) before applying any cost reductions. (And then you apply Trinisphere's effect, if there's one around, because Trinisphere always wins.)
For example, if you've previously cast Licia twice from your command zone this game and you've gained 8 life this turn, then Licia will cost to cast. ( + - = )



Q: Is there any way to cast multiple spells from my graveyard in the same turn using Kess, Dissident Mage's ability? Would Strionic Resonator work?

A: Kess's ability isn't a triggered ability, so Strionic Resonator doesn't do anything here. It's not an activated ability either, so forget about Illusionist's Bracers too. Kess's ability is just a static ability that gives you permission once each turn to cast a instant or sorcery card from your graveyard.
There are only two ways to do this more than once: The first way is to have another creature with the ability, e.g. Sakashima the Impostor. (A normal Clone would work as well as long as you cast your spell with Kess first, then kept the clone when the legend rule makes you put one of them in the graveyard.) The second way is by having Kess leave and return to the battlefield, e.g. [Ghostly Flicker]. When she returns to the battlefield, she's a new object granting you a new permission to cast from your graveyard.



Q: How does New Blood work with Adaptive Automaton or other similar cards that have you choose a creature type?

A: Not very well. Automatons don't exactly have a lot of blood.

Seriously though, since New Blood is changing the card's text, it can only interact with printed creature types and thus can't change the chosen type for Adaptive Automaton and other similar cards.

If you do cast New Blood on Adaptive Automaton, the only creature type there to change is Construct and if you change that, you'll end up with an Adaptive Automaton that's a Vampire and whatever its chosen type is. It still only gives creatures of the chosen type +1/+1.



Q: I have a feeling the answer is no, but if I were to use New Blood on Homing Sliver, would the instance of "slivercycling" in its text become "vampirecycling"?

A: Actually, the answer is yes!

Creature types in the names of abilities are the same as land types in the names of abilities such as mountainwalk, and as such the rules for changing text in these cases are the same. The type word is picked out and replaced as desired.

Have fun Vampirecycling!



Q: If I use New Blood to steal someone's Pack Rat and then use Pack Rat's ability to create a token copy of itself, will the copies have the same modified rules text that New Blood gave the stolen Pack Rat, or will the copies have the original rules text?

A: The changed text isn't a part of Pack Rat's copiable characteristic. (Only changes in Layer 1 are copied, and text changes happen in Layer 3.) Any token copies of Pack Rat you create will just be normal Pack Rats, which are rats and not vampires.



Q: The Locust God and Kindred Discovery naming Insect. Good idea or bad idea?

A: Well...
The relevant triggered abilities of both The Locust God and Kindred Discovery are both mandatory, so drawing a card will plunge you deep into a never-ending loop of creating an insect token, which draws you a card, which creates an insect, which draws you a card, etc. This loop will repeat until you draw your deck and then lose from trying to draw again from an empty library. I think that makes this a bad idea.
The only ways to break the loop is to remove either The Locust God or Kindred Discovery from the battlefield or to counter one of the triggered abilities.



Q: Would Mairsil, the Pretender gain any ability from exiling a Sliver that grants an activated ability to Slivers, such as Barbed Sliver?

A: No.
Barbed Sliver's ability is a static ability that grants an activated ability to Slivers creatures on the battlefield. Since it's not an activated ability in and of itself, it's not copied by Mairsil.



Q: Can Mairsil, the Pretender use abilities of caged cards in exile when it's in other zones? For example, if I caged a Reassembling Skeleton, would Mairsil have its ability when Mairsil is in the graveyard?


A: Mairsil only ever has the activated abilities of cards you in exile with cage counters on them when he's on the battlefield. You can tell that this is the case because there's no explicit mention of his ability-gaining ability functioning in any other zone and thus it only functions while Mairsil is on the battlefield.




He's not pretending when he claims to be
a complicated card.

Q: Mairsil, the Pretender is my commander. When he first enters the battlefield I exile Crook of Condemnation, then I blink him and exile Izzet Chemister. I use the Crook's first ability to exile a creature from the graveyard. The Chemister's second ability on Mairsil allows me to cast it, right?

A: No, this doesn't work.

Izzet Chemister's abilities are linked and the second ability can only ever access cards that were exiled by its first ability. When Mairsil gains these abilities, the same rules apply to him as did to the Chemister. You'll only ever be able to cast cards exiled by Izzet Chemister's first ability and only ones you've exiled during Mairsil's current stint on the battlefield.

Look at the difference in the wording between Mairsil's second ability and Izzet Chemister's sacrifice ability. Mairsil's ability specifically calls out cards in exile with a specific kind of counter, not cards exiled by Mairsil. This makes its two abilities not linked and thus able to work across all of Mairsil's many lives on the battlefield.



Q: How does Mairsil, the Pretender work with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy? if I have more than 5 cards in my graveyard will it effectively flicker him?

A: All you're going to do here is strand Mairsil in exile, which is, flavor-wise, giving him a taste of his own medicine but not exactly what you were going for.

When Jace's loot ability resolves, Mairsil exiles himself and then stays exiled because it can't return to the battlefield transformed and so it doesn't return to the battlefield at all.

Rule 711.8a covers this particular interaction. It states "If a player is instructed to put a card that isn't a double-faced card onto the battlefield transformed, that card stays in its current zone."



Q: I control both Patron of the Vein and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. When a creature an opponent controls dies, are there rules for determining which effect happens, or can I choose?

A: Kalitas wins here. His ability is a replacement effect whereas Patron of the Vein's third ability is a triggered ability.
When a creature an opponent controls would die, Kalitas's ability replaces that creature dying with it being exiled and creating a zombie token instead. The creature doesn't actually die, so Patron of the Vein doesn't trigger here.
Shame on you, Kalitas. Hoarding all that blood for yourself while all the other vampires go hungry? Rude.




Q: Do eminence abilities stack? Like if I have The Ur-Dragon in the command done and a copy on the battlefield do dragons cost 2 less?

A: Yes, both cost reduction abilities will apply to any dragon spells you cast.

I don't think that the Ur-Dragon will too happy about being impersonated, though. Especially when doing so probably involved you choosing its impersonator over the genuine essence of dragon-ness. I hope it was worth it for a slightly cheaper dragon spell or two...



Q: My Mairsil, the Pretender has exiled Mirage Mirror. I use the Mirror's ability to turn Mairsil into a copy of itself. Can Mairsil use any gained abilities he's already used this turn an extra time now?

A: Yes, this works. When Mairsil becomes a copy of himself, his abilities are overwritten by the copy effect with a new copy of those same abilities. Since those new abilities haven't been activated yet this turn, you can use them all again.



Q: What if Mairsil, the Pretender uses Quicksilver Elemental's ability targeting itself? Is this different than Mairsil becoming a copy of himself?

A: This is pretty much functionally the same, even if Mairsil isn't copying itself. Mairsil gains new copies of its own abilities. These abilities also have the once-per-turn limitation, but since Mairsil also gained an extra copy of the Quicksilver Elemental ability, you can add more and more copies of the abilities as long as you can pay .



Q: I cast Teferi's Protection while I control...

A: Huh?
What's that?
I have to go now?
But I was just about to answer a question about...

Seriously though, Teferi's Protection has twenty-four (24!) rulings on Gatherer which thoroughly cover what it does. Read those and get back to us if you still don't understand something about this card.



Charlotte was unavailable to write a sign-off for this week's column. She seems to have phased out.


 
misterslim
Is there more detail somewhere on how the changes to triggers with "defending player" work? The release notes covered triggers with targets, but nothing more.
#1 • Date: 2017-08-21 • Time: 11:01:20 •
bbbbbbbbba
@misterslim: Yawgatog (specifically https://yawgatog.com/resources/rules-changes/hou-c17/) is your friend.

The relevant change is:

Old rule 508.4:
If an ability of an attacking creature refers to a defending player, or a spell or ability refers to both an attacking creature and a defending player, then unless otherwise specified, the defending player it's referring to is the player that creature was attacking at the time it became an attacking creature that combat, or the controller of the planeswalker that creature was attacking at the time it became an attacking creature that combat.

New rule 508.5:
If an ability of an attacking creature refers to a defending player, or a spell or ability refers to both an attacking creature and a defending player, then unless otherwise specified, the defending player it's referring to is the player that creature is attacking, or the controller of the planeswalker that creature is attacking. If that creature is no longer attacking, the defending player it's referring to is the player that creature was attacking before it was removed from combat or the controller of the planeswalker that creature was attacking before it was removed from combat.

As you can see, before the rules change, such abilities referred to the defending player that creature originally attacked, in order to deal with the creature being removed from combat. However, that would give unintuitive results when the attack is redirected, so now they instead use some sort of "last known information", except it's not about changing zones, but about being removed from combat.
#2 • Date: 2017-08-21 • Time: 12:38:04 •
Thrawcheld
Does a New Blood Pack Rat become Pack Vampire, or does "changing the text" leave names alone? (I suspect the latter.)
#3 • Date: 2017-08-21 • Time: 17:57:27 •
Lthaze7
Can you please clarify why, if Mairsil, the Pretender is on the battlefield and currently has the Crook of Condemnation's abilities, and Izzet Chemister's abilities, you then exile a creature card from your graveyard with the Mairsil's Crook's first ability, untap it somehow, then activate Mairsil's Izzet Chemister's second ability, you wouldn't be to cast the exiled creature card with that ability? Izzet Chemister's Gatherer ruling states: "The last ability of Izzet Chemister only lets you cast cards exiled by that card. If Izzet Chemister leaves the battlefield before you activate that ability, the exiled cards are lost forever."

It doesn't state that the second ability is linked to the first, it just states that it has to be a card exiled by "that card". Whereas in this case, "that card" would be Mairsil.

This is really confusing me, are there any rules you can cite that cover this?
#4 • Date: 2017-08-22 • Time: 12:01:47 •
Natedogg
Quote (Thrawcheld):
Does a New Blood Pack Rat become Pack Vampire, or does "changing the text" leave names alone? (I suspect the latter.)


Nope, it will not affect the creature type if used in the name of the card.

612.2. A text-changing effect changes only those words that are used in the correct way (for example, a Magic color word being used as a color word, a land type word used as a land type, or a creature type word used as a creature type). An effect that changes a color word or a subtype can't change a card name, even if that name contains a word or a series of letters that is the same as a Magic color word, basic land type, or creature type.

Quote:
Can you please clarify why, if Mairsil, the Pretender is on the battlefield and currently has the Crook of Condemnation's abilities, and Izzet Chemister's abilities, you then exile a creature card from your graveyard with the Mairsil's Crook's first ability, untap it somehow, then activate Mairsil's Izzet Chemister's second ability, you wouldn't be to cast the exiled creature card with that ability?


It comes down to linked abilities. The Chemister's activated abilities are linked: the second ability of the Chemister only has access to cards exiled by the Chemister's first ability, not cards exiled by the card for any other reason. The second ability gained from the Chemister will only have access to cards exiled by the first ability gained from the Chemister: it won't have access to any cards exiled by Mairsil for any other reason.

607.2a If an object has an activated or triggered ability printed on it that instructs a player to exile one or more cards and an ability printed on it that refers either to "the exiled cards" or to cards "exiled with [this object]," these abilities are linked. The second ability refers only to cards in the exile zone that were put there as a result of an instruction to exile them in the first ability.
#5 • Date: 2017-08-22 • Time: 21:44:49 •
Lthaze7
That is exactly the type of clarification I was looking for, thanks Natedogg!
#6 • Date: 2017-08-23 • Time: 10:55:13 •
 

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