Daily ruling for July 1, 2021 - Rain of Gore + Lifelink and Words of Worship Support Judging FtW on Patreon at / judgingftw Tags: Resolving a Spell, Replacement Effects
well if you think about it, otherwise it would create an infinite loop. You gain life from the attack, rain of gore makes the creature let you lose life instead, ,so the creasture damages you, which would gain you life etc.
@@daftwulli6145 Loss of life != damage. "Damage" causes "loss of life", but "loss of life" is not "damage", so it wouldn't go infinite either way. To see the difference: Consider you have Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, and you gave all your creatures lifelink. Now a creature you control deals damage, causing you to gain life -> Vito triggers and causes your opponent to lose that much life BUT you don't gain life from this even tho Vito himself has lifelink. That is because Vito does not deal damage with his triggered ability, he simply causes loss of life
My two cents: Either the rules should be adjusted (so that the definition of "" Lifelink" matches the text on the Spirit Link card, or the Spirit Link card should be receive errata so that it grants lifelink. I'm pretty sure R&D intended Spirit Link to work exactly the same way as Lifelink (as it does in the vast majority of cases), so they should be consistent.
Lifelink is an ability that CHANGES THE RULES for enchanted creature's damage. Spirit Link is an ability that CREATES A RULE that triggers from enchanted creature's damage. Thinking of it in this context helped me.
i stumbled randomly across this vid while i was building a najeela forced combat edh deck, the whole point of this deck was to play cards like rain of gore, goad all the enemy creatures and give them extra combats with lifelink. back to the drawing board i guess
Rain of Gore was probably always crap, but ok against old lifelink, which was just a triggered ability like the one in the aura depicted in the video. So the actual lifelink mechanic made it completely unplayable.
It seems like one of those cards that is great if you know what your opponent is bringing. In which case they probably know what your bringing too. So would not bring a life gain deck vs your rain of gore. Nullifying it's existence lol.
I've seen this question in Reddit a couple of years ago, and I remember not fully understanding it. Your explanation was really good. Thanks for the video
Reminds me of the now-fixed interaction of Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and Annointed Procession. Not the exact same mechanics at play (the definition of "effect" was important) but it similarly had the issue of replacement effects "inheriting" the type of thing they're replacing. Before it was fixed, you'd get two tokens for killing something with Doom Blade, but only one token for killing with Lightning Bolt.
my thought process was: "I think that lifelink would work by modifying the damage, so it technically isn't an ability gaining you life, but surely one of the Magic gods would've seen this unintuitive interaction and put in some small footer that fixed this issue." I was sadly mistaken.
This channel is an absolute win! Deserves a lot more appreciation. Thanks for an incredible wealth of information presented in clear and concise terms!
So Rain of Gore cares about the event causing you to gain life. If you cast a spell or control an ability that directly gives life for whatever reason, Rain of Gore triggers. If the event is not a spell or an ability, it doesn't care. The ruling on this card and Lifelink was already given in 2013, but understanding WHY it works that way is helpful to understanding other situations, such as the Words of Worship or draw-for-turn examples given here. Teach a man to fish and all that. Thank you for the explanation!
Since I saw the two cards in the context of being a judge question, that reminded me that it doesn't work the way most people expect. If I saw the interaction out in the wild, I don't know if that would occur to me.
And this is why MTG is the greatest TCG of all time. The comprehensive rules make the game go so so much deeper for those who want it, but you really don't need a deep dive into them to just play and have fun.
This seems like a case of triggered/activated abilities or spells that go on the stack (Gitaxian Probe) vs inherent game mechanics / turn-based actions like drawing cards on upkeep or static abilities like lifelink.
I think part of the problem is that lifelink actually did used to work differently. People who got used to the old way are probably less likely to be tolerant of weird stuff that happens because of the new wording.
In my opinion, either the rules should allow this interaction, or the explanation text for lifelink should be changed. In its current state this is far too unintuitive
If i brought up this ruling in a commander game, no way my playgroup would believe me. What should we do if a ruling is so unintuitive, no one in the playgroup believes us. 😒
You bust out the rules. The CR is the ultimate answer, but often times you don't need to go quite that far. Luckily, Rain of Gore is a good example here. Just check out the card's rulings. There's only one here.
@@namename8004 lol i forgot about literally pulling out the rules. But i could see it being hard to convince the playgroup of this rule with the rule book itself, but the gatherer would help for sure.
i was curious and looked up Rain of Gore on Gatherer and it has this ruling underneath it: "This does not apply to life gain caused by combat damage from a creature with lifelink. 4/15/2013" i know this card is old and not massively relevant but that's so unhelpful. couldn't they just say why it doesn't apply? 😭
I feel exactly the same way. I think the reason is that they think people only care about the answer, not the reasoning behind it, especially if that reasoning is quite technical. But for people like me, understanding the reasoning is at least as important as just knowing the answer, so I wish there was something intended for people like that. That's the kind of resource I'm trying to be.
Wait, so if you have a creature with Lifelink and an ability like "Tap: This creature deals 1 damage to any target", would that create an interaction with Rain of Gore since an ability is dealing damage which in turn causes you to gain life?
So all the keywords are basically "empty" abilities with no text but have a dedicated rule in the comprehensive rules? Does that mean a card that says "If this card would be destroyed by an ability it is not destroyed instead" wouldn't protect from deathtouch? Wild!
Not all of them, but the most common ones like flying, trample, first strike, yes. Abilities like flanking, madness and upkeep are triggered abilities are work just like other triggered abilities that are written in full. And you are correct about deathtouch, the creature would be destroyed by a SBA, not by an ability.
Kind of like, but not exactly. A notable difference is that multiple instances of a replacement effect all apply, multiple instances of lifelink don't. Techncially all lifelink does is give the creature (or spell) lifelink, it doesn't replace or trigger. It is the game rules that then have you do something different whenever a source with lifelink deals damage, just like they have you do something different whenever a source with wither or infect deals damage to a creature, all of which is described in CR120.3.
@@Tharkon If by "they all apply" you mean they all happen in turn until just 1 remains to actually "happen" then, okay, but as I understand it, if multiple replacement effects want to replace the same thing, in the end, only 1 thing can be in place to happen.
@@DankAudioStash24 Let's try our hypothetical lifelink replacement effect. It would say: "If this creature deals damage instead it deals that much damage and its controller gains that much life." Now a creature with two instances of that ability deals 1 damage. That gets replaced by "It deals 1 damage and its controller gains 1 life." Then that gets replaced by "It deals 1 damage and its controller gains 1 life and its controller gains 1 life." So both got to replace (part of) the event.
@@Tharkon I don't think replacement effects cause themselves to "trigger" again, otherwise they wouldn't really work properly, I think, but I don't have a rules quote ready either.
@@DankAudioStash24 They don't "trigger" again. But if you have multiple replacement effects each does "trigger" once. Example: multiple Academy Manufactors. The first one modifies the event, the second one modifies it further so you'd get 9 tokens.
How would this work with kaervek, the merciless and basilisk collar? When the opponent casts a spell, would the life be lost because the lifeline is connected to his ability and not combat damage?
I remember looking up the interaction of Languish/Toxic Deluge/Black Sun's Zenith and devotion gods, i.e. whether the state-based-action that kills the other creatures would turn off devotion before the god dies or after. If I control a Thassa, God of the Sea and 3 Lord of Atlantis, and my opponent fires off a Toxic Deluge for, say, 10, what happens? As far as I understand it now, state based actions all happen at once, so the creatures affected by Toxic Deluge are all checked for 0 toughness at once and all die including Thassa, and there's no point where Thassa is on the board and able to have its ability's condition NOT met because the same SBA check finds her AND the Lords to be below 0 toughness.
I agree, the Thassa would die in this case. How about this one: let's say you have Thassa, 10 blue devotion, and humility in play. While humility is still in play, your devotion goes back down to 2. What are the characteristics now of Thassa?
@@FrizzlenillCAN I'm not sure why, but the gatherer says that the ability "this card is not a creature if your devotion to X is less than Y." Still applies even if the card has lost all it's abilities for some reason. I think the reason is related to layers, but maybe also characteristic defining abilities. We must study more. 🧐
@@SpitefulAZ I believe the "this card is not a creature" would be a characteristic defining ability and get precedence above any of that other stuff, but I'm not sure and would love to see the explanation.
The devotion abilities of Theros Gods are not characteristic defining abilities. They do not apply outside of the battlefield. An Erebos "card" is always a creature "card" regardless of devotion as the ability only applies while it's in play. If a Mutilate or any similar effect would kill both a God and enough creatures to reduce your devotion below the threshold necessary for it to remain a creature, the God will still die. This is because type changing effects(such as a Theros God's devotion ability) applies in layer 4, before power and toughness changing effects are applied in layer 7. In the scenario, involving Humility, Thassa becomes a noncreature enchantment with it's normal text/abilities. As I previously said, type changing effects apply in layer 4. Ability removing effects don't apply until layer 6. So Thassa will already no longer be a creature by the time Humility's effect gets applied.
So, basically, if there is a state based action, turn based action, static ability, etc causing you to gain life Rain of Gore doesn't apply because it has to replace an spell or ability that is put on the stack? Idk if I'm getting this wrong.
So is a good way to look at it that: Replacement Effects do not directly do or cause something to happen, but rather change WHAT does or causes that thing to happen?
@@Uucyfer I was wrong and looked into more explanations, Rain of Gore would def trigger with fight spells, but not regular combat damage. I guess it's because I misinterpreted how a fight spell 'causing' damage works within the game rules
@@jreyes9005 The problem is that firesong and sunspeaker does see that as the spell causing the life gain, so this should as well with that logic. "A spell causes you to gain life if its cost or effect instructs you to gain life or if an instruction in its cost or effect is modified by a replacement effect and the modified event includes you gaining life. If a spell’s cost or effect instructs a source with lifelink you control to deal damage, that spell causes that life gain as well."
This only goes for rain of gore because it specifies that a "spell or ability" needs to cause the life gain, right? If instead you have tainted remedy or plague drone, lifelink would absolutely cause the player "lifegaining" to lose instead right? Because these ones wouldnt check for the reason why the life would be gained, but just for the mere fact if life would be gained, right?
@@Greg501-From the rulings on Firesong and Sunspeaker: "A spell causes you to gain life if its cost or effect instructs you to gain life or if an instruction in its cost or effect is modified by a replacement effect and the modified event includes you gaining life. If a spell’s cost or effect instructs a source with lifelink you control to deal damage, that spell causes that life gain as well." If Firesong sees it as the spell causing the life gain, I don't see why this wouldn't.
follow up question: what happens if Amy has a [Cleric Class] in play during all of this. does the replacement effect change anything about this interaction?
My understanding, (someone) correct me if I’m wrong: If Amy has Cleric Class and Nick has Rain of Gore, and Amy casts a spell that says “you gain 1 life”. Amy will get to choose to apply either replacement effect (as both are applicable). If she chooses Cleric Class, she’ll be gaining 1+1 (2) life. Because after this she’s still gaining life, Rain of Gore will replace it with lose 2 life. If instead she chose Rain of Gore, she’d be losing 1 life. She’s no longer gaining life so Cleric Class won’t be applicable. She’ll just lose 1 life. Having multiple applicable replacement effects is advantageous.
Question for you Dave! Amy controls Ruxa, Patient Professor and attacks with her lifelink Grizzly Bears. May she have her Grizzly Bears go unblocked. How exactly does the game define an "ability".
Basically any text in a card's text box is an ability (other than stuff like flavor text and reminder text that doesn't affect the game). Refer to CR 113.1a for a more technical description. So yes, lifelink would count as an ability. Relevant to this question, though, lifelink is not "causing a player to gain life". It's enabling the game rules to cause a player to gain life. Which is similar, but different enough that it changes the answer to this question.
I believe in this case it would, similar to how a fight spell targetting a creature with lifelink causes loss of life. Firesong and Sunspeaker change the rules of the game so that the spell is causing life gain, which is replaced by Rain of Gore.
If there are multiple replacement effects looking to modify a single event, they do so in the order of the controller of the event's choosing. So Amy can either choose to have Honor Troll apply first, it becomes "gain 4" then Rain of Gore would modify that to "lose 4" or have Rain of Gore apply first and it would become "lose 3" then Honor Troll's replacement effect would no longer be able to apply as the effect isn't causing any life gain.
I cast Lightning Helix in Commander. With Lightning Helix on the stack an opponent casts Lightning Bolt targeting me. I have 3 life left, so I die, then my Helix goes off.
No, Tainted Remedy is much simpler. It's replacement effect isn't limited to only spells and abilities. Anything that would cause an opponent's life to increase is instead replaced by a decrease of the equivalent amount.
This...is such an obtuse and counterintuitive ruling. "If a spell or ability would cause its controller to gain life, that player loses that much instead. Lifelink is an ability that makes you gain life. But it is because the damage cleanup step now includes "gain life equal to damage done" so it doesn't count" Nick and Amy: Hey let's uhh...let's just not ask the judge.
"702.15b Damage dealt by a source with lifelink causes that source’s controller, or its owner if it has no controller, to gain that much life (in addition to any other results that damage causes). See rule 120.3." damage causes life gain, not lifelink
Like I understand the ruling and why it works the way it does but at the same time it also just kind of feels like rules like this only exist to make a complicated game more complicated. There's like...no reason behind it lol.
A big part of this issue is that Magic adds new cards every year and they need to make the new cards work with the old cards, but they obviously don't know every future card that's going to be printed when a card comes out. Lifelink as an ability didn't exist when Rain of Gore was originally printed. If it did, I'm sure Rain of Gore would have been worded so that it worked more intuitively with Lifelink. Unfortunately, they made a choice, and they can't really take it back now.
@@JudgingFtW Lifelink wasn't a named ability, but the Lifelink effect did exist going all the way back to El-Hajjaj in Arabian Nights (though his and Spirit Link's version are a bit not the same). Paladin of Prahv was in the same set as Rain of Gore's original printing and also had the as-of-yet-unnamed Lifelink. But that leads to the second part of this: Rules changes. When Lifelink became a keyword, it was a Triggered ability. IIRC, it was changed to a Static ability in its current form with the big rules changes that accompanied the released of Magic 2010 Core Set.
It's amazing how bad these ruling are. Words of Worship has an ability. That ability results in gaining life. MTG rules speak a different language than English, it just uses English-looking words.
Words of worship has an activated ability that causes a replacement effect The rules actually make a lot of sense, issues arise from older cards before they got better at designing cards that are more intuitive Tainted Remedy is a modern version of Rain of Gore and avoids any unintuitive interactions by having better wording.
If you want an answer for a rules interaction, you'll need to be more specific. Give an exact scenario involving the two cards and I could tell you what happens. Otherwise, I have no idea what you're confused about.
@@namename8004 Hey i control a Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and have a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle in play and valakut trigger on the stack but no regular mountains in play. my opponent reacts with a merfolk trickster and takes all abilities from the dryad. i know i get my trigger because of the layers but i don't know exactly why
So continuous effects are applied in order depending on the type of effect they are, starting from layer 1 and ending with layer 7(with a few sub-layers here and there, noted by a lower-case letter, but not relevant for this situation). Effects that change a permanent's type apply in layer 4 and effects that remove abilities apply in layer 6. So by the time the Dryad loses all abilities, it has already made all your lands all basic land types already.
Magic rulings are the epitome of "it's not the fall that kills you, it's the stop."
Me who didn't realize there were star ratings in the thumbnails: 👁👄👁
This is so unintuitive I guarantee that EVERYONE who had this interaction just assumed it worked the other way
well if you think about it, otherwise it would create an infinite loop. You gain life from the attack, rain of gore makes the creature let you lose life instead, ,so the creasture damages you, which would gain you life etc.
@@daftwulli6145 Loss of life != damage. "Damage" causes "loss of life", but "loss of life" is not "damage", so it wouldn't go infinite either way. To see the difference: Consider you have Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, and you gave all your creatures lifelink. Now a creature you control deals damage, causing you to gain life -> Vito triggers and causes your opponent to lose that much life BUT you don't gain life from this even tho Vito himself has lifelink. That is because Vito does not deal damage with his triggered ability, he simply causes loss of life
My two cents: Either the rules should be adjusted (so that the definition of "" Lifelink" matches the text on the Spirit Link card, or the Spirit Link card should be receive errata so that it grants lifelink. I'm pretty sure R&D intended Spirit Link to work exactly the same way as Lifelink (as it does in the vast majority of cases), so they should be consistent.
@@jmr5125 Rain of Gore should have reminder text of (that uses the stack), since apparently things that don't use it are unaffected by Rain
@@jmr5125 The thing is that spirit link doesn't match up with granting lifelink. Consider what happens if you play it on an opponent's creature.
Lifelink is an ability that CHANGES THE RULES for enchanted creature's damage.
Spirit Link is an ability that CREATES A RULE that triggers from enchanted creature's damage.
Thinking of it in this context helped me.
Also, blame Rain of Gore
i stumbled randomly across this vid while i was building a najeela forced combat edh deck, the whole point of this deck was to play cards like rain of gore, goad all the enemy creatures and give them extra combats with lifelink. back to the drawing board i guess
Lol, just put it in anyway, no one is going to know this rules interaction
i'm not going to lie. once you explained the weird thing with how lifelink works the words of worship ones were easy to wrap my head around.
My mind has melted, my brain fried, my world rocked.
you just need to know that there are meaningful differences between Actions, Effects, Spells and Abilities . and have some water .
Long and short: don't play rain of gore
Just play Tainted Remedy instead
@@dyciefisk2535 porque no los dos
Or play rain of gore in a lifelink deck
Rain of Gore was probably always crap, but ok against old lifelink, which was just a triggered ability like the one in the aura depicted in the video. So the actual lifelink mechanic made it completely unplayable.
It seems like one of those cards that is great if you know what your opponent is bringing.
In which case they probably know what your bringing too. So would not bring a life gain deck vs your rain of gore. Nullifying it's existence lol.
It’s really good against drain decks in EDH but yeah very situational at best so not something you’d stick in a deck for the sake of having it.
I've seen this question in Reddit a couple of years ago, and I remember not fully understanding it. Your explanation was really good. Thanks for the video
Reminds me of the now-fixed interaction of Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and Annointed Procession. Not the exact same mechanics at play (the definition of "effect" was important) but it similarly had the issue of replacement effects "inheriting" the type of thing they're replacing. Before it was fixed, you'd get two tokens for killing something with Doom Blade, but only one token for killing with Lightning Bolt.
my thought process was: "I think that lifelink would work by modifying the damage, so it technically isn't an ability gaining you life, but surely one of the Magic gods would've seen this unintuitive interaction and put in some small footer that fixed this issue." I was sadly mistaken.
Lifelink could be a replacement affect if this creature would deal damage instead it deals damage and you gain life equal to the damage dealt.
Amazing episode, the different scenarios and interactions you explain really helped me understand replacement effects better
This channel is an absolute win! Deserves a lot more appreciation. Thanks for an incredible wealth of information presented in clear and concise terms!
watching all of your videos. need to know all these weird interactions to piss off my friends lol. love the content btw Judge Dave FTW
So Rain of Gore cares about the event causing you to gain life. If you cast a spell or control an ability that directly gives life for whatever reason, Rain of Gore triggers. If the event is not a spell or an ability, it doesn't care.
The ruling on this card and Lifelink was already given in 2013, but understanding WHY it works that way is helpful to understanding other situations, such as the Words of Worship or draw-for-turn examples given here. Teach a man to fish and all that. Thank you for the explanation!
Since I saw the two cards in the context of being a judge question, that reminded me that it doesn't work the way most people expect.
If I saw the interaction out in the wild, I don't know if that would occur to me.
And this is why MTG is the greatest TCG of all time. The comprehensive rules make the game go so so much deeper for those who want it, but you really don't need a deep dive into them to just play and have fun.
This seems like a case of triggered/activated abilities or spells that go on the stack (Gitaxian Probe) vs inherent game mechanics / turn-based actions like drawing cards on upkeep or static abilities like lifelink.
I actually found this to be pretty straight forward. Ridiculous how some people suggest changing the way lifelink works.
I think part of the problem is that lifelink actually did used to work differently. People who got used to the old way are probably less likely to be tolerant of weird stuff that happens because of the new wording.
@@JudgingFtW Can't remember. When did it work differently? Did it go on the stack?
In my opinion, either the rules should allow this interaction, or the explanation text for lifelink should be changed. In its current state this is far too unintuitive
woow, this was indeed a 4-star case
This one was really interesting! Help me understand so many different rules and interactions
I'm kinda proud of myself for figuring this one out by myself :)
If i brought up this ruling in a commander game, no way my playgroup would believe me. What should we do if a ruling is so unintuitive, no one in the playgroup believes us. 😒
You bust out the rules. The CR is the ultimate answer, but often times you don't need to go quite that far. Luckily, Rain of Gore is a good example here. Just check out the card's rulings. There's only one here.
@@namename8004 lol i forgot about literally pulling out the rules. But i could see it being hard to convince the playgroup of this rule with the rule book itself, but the gatherer would help for sure.
i was curious and looked up Rain of Gore on Gatherer and it has this ruling underneath it:
"This does not apply to life gain caused by combat damage from a creature with lifelink. 4/15/2013"
i know this card is old and not massively relevant but that's so unhelpful. couldn't they just say why it doesn't apply? 😭
I feel exactly the same way. I think the reason is that they think people only care about the answer, not the reasoning behind it, especially if that reasoning is quite technical. But for people like me, understanding the reasoning is at least as important as just knowing the answer, so I wish there was something intended for people like that. That's the kind of resource I'm trying to be.
Wait, so if you have a creature with Lifelink and an ability like "Tap: This creature deals 1 damage to any target", would that create an interaction with Rain of Gore since an ability is dealing damage which in turn causes you to gain life?
Yes, ability would cause lifegain here so rain of gore steps in.
Cool usage of the word immaterial.
So all the keywords are basically "empty" abilities with no text but have a dedicated rule in the comprehensive rules? Does that mean a card that says "If this card would be destroyed by an ability it is not destroyed instead" wouldn't protect from deathtouch? Wild!
Not all of them, but the most common ones like flying, trample, first strike, yes. Abilities like flanking, madness and upkeep are triggered abilities are work just like other triggered abilities that are written in full. And you are correct about deathtouch, the creature would be destroyed by a SBA, not by an ability.
Hi Dave, can you make a video example where the rules are ambiguous and the judging is resolved by flipping a coin??
This ruling is horrible or this card is worded horribly. All these seem like they go against what the designers intended
I expected it to prevent the attacked opponent to lose life as well...
Also, so lifelink kind of is like a replacement effect.
Kind of like, but not exactly. A notable difference is that multiple instances of a replacement effect all apply, multiple instances of lifelink don't. Techncially all lifelink does is give the creature (or spell) lifelink, it doesn't replace or trigger. It is the game rules that then have you do something different whenever a source with lifelink deals damage, just like they have you do something different whenever a source with wither or infect deals damage to a creature, all of which is described in CR120.3.
@@Tharkon If by "they all apply" you mean they all happen in turn until just 1 remains to actually "happen" then, okay, but as I understand it, if multiple replacement effects want to replace the same thing, in the end, only 1 thing can be in place to happen.
@@DankAudioStash24 Let's try our hypothetical lifelink replacement effect. It would say: "If this creature deals damage instead it deals that much damage and its controller gains that much life." Now a creature with two instances of that ability deals 1 damage. That gets replaced by "It deals 1 damage and its controller gains 1 life." Then that gets replaced by "It deals 1 damage and its controller gains 1 life and its controller gains 1 life." So both got to replace (part of) the event.
@@Tharkon I don't think replacement effects cause themselves to "trigger" again, otherwise they wouldn't really work properly, I think, but I don't have a rules quote ready either.
@@DankAudioStash24 They don't "trigger" again. But if you have multiple replacement effects each does "trigger" once. Example: multiple Academy Manufactors. The first one modifies the event, the second one modifies it further so you'd get 9 tokens.
Words of Worship vs. deck out vs. Insanity deck out win con guy vs. bolt
How would this work with kaervek, the merciless and basilisk collar? When the opponent casts a spell, would the life be lost because the lifeline is connected to his ability and not combat damage?
I remember looking up the interaction of Languish/Toxic Deluge/Black Sun's Zenith and devotion gods, i.e. whether the state-based-action that kills the other creatures would turn off devotion before the god dies or after.
If I control a Thassa, God of the Sea and 3 Lord of Atlantis, and my opponent fires off a Toxic Deluge for, say, 10, what happens?
As far as I understand it now, state based actions all happen at once, so the creatures affected by Toxic Deluge are all checked for 0 toughness at once and all die including Thassa, and there's no point where Thassa is on the board and able to have its ability's condition NOT met because the same SBA check finds her AND the Lords to be below 0 toughness.
I agree, the Thassa would die in this case.
How about this one: let's say you have Thassa, 10 blue devotion, and humility in play.
While humility is still in play, your devotion goes back down to 2. What are the characteristics now of Thassa?
@@SpitefulAZ That NEEDS a video! Perhaps it's timestamps, because type-setting abilities are on the same layer?
@@FrizzlenillCAN I'm not sure why, but the gatherer says that the ability "this card is not a creature if your devotion to X is less than Y." Still applies even if the card has lost all it's abilities for some reason. I think the reason is related to layers, but maybe also characteristic defining abilities. We must study more. 🧐
@@SpitefulAZ I believe the "this card is not a creature" would be a characteristic defining ability and get precedence above any of that other stuff, but I'm not sure and would love to see the explanation.
The devotion abilities of Theros Gods are not characteristic defining abilities. They do not apply outside of the battlefield. An Erebos "card" is always a creature "card" regardless of devotion as the ability only applies while it's in play.
If a Mutilate or any similar effect would kill both a God and enough creatures to reduce your devotion below the threshold necessary for it to remain a creature, the God will still die. This is because type changing effects(such as a Theros God's devotion ability) applies in layer 4, before power and toughness changing effects are applied in layer 7.
In the scenario, involving Humility, Thassa becomes a noncreature enchantment with it's normal text/abilities. As I previously said, type changing effects apply in layer 4. Ability removing effects don't apply until layer 6. So Thassa will already no longer be a creature by the time Humility's effect gets applied.
My head hurts…
Daiummm this was a good one!
Wow. Good one.
I still strongly feel wizards need to find a way to put what level layer a card has on the card so it doesn’t all seem so confusing
That seems like a good idea until WotC changes how the card works or how the layers work, and then it becomes much more confusing.
I hate SO MUCH that Spirit Link doesn't just give Lifelink. Wizards loves to make the game more complicated by doing this sort of thing.
The reason for this is that they are extremely loathe to change wording if it results in functional changes, which this one would.
Good one thanks Dave
So, basically, if there is a state based action, turn based action, static ability, etc causing you to gain life Rain of Gore doesn't apply because it has to replace an spell or ability that is put on the stack? Idk if I'm getting this wrong.
Sounds like you get it. Rain of Gore's replacement effect can only modify spells and abilities.
I got this one right.
That was easy, and the last example applies to things IRL if wizards etc existed.
Time to make a lifelink deck I suppose...
So is a good way to look at it that: Replacement Effects do not directly do or cause something to happen, but rather change WHAT does or causes that thing to happen?
In general, yeah. That's a good way to summarize it.
Thanks!
good stuff
Does rain of gore apply if you use a fight spell on a lifelinker?
Yes, because the thing causing the damage is a spell. At least that's what I'm under standing.
I would say no -- seems the same as a lifelink creature dealing combat damage
@@Uucyfer I was wrong and looked into more explanations, Rain of Gore would def trigger with fight spells, but not regular combat damage. I guess it's because I misinterpreted how a fight spell 'causing' damage works within the game rules
@@jreyes9005 Ahh, that actually makes more sense.
@@jreyes9005 The problem is that firesong and sunspeaker does see that as the spell causing the life gain, so this should as well with that logic.
"A spell causes you to gain life if its cost or effect instructs you to gain life or if an instruction in its cost or effect is modified by a replacement effect and the modified event includes you gaining life. If a spell’s cost or effect instructs a source with lifelink you control to deal damage, that spell causes that life gain as well."
This only goes for rain of gore because it specifies that a "spell or ability" needs to cause the life gain, right?
If instead you have tainted remedy or plague drone, lifelink would absolutely cause the player "lifegaining" to lose instead right? Because these ones wouldnt check for the reason why the life would be gained, but just for the mere fact if life would be gained, right?
Yes
I'm kind of surprised you didn't mention lifelink in combination with a fight spell.
Fight is really just direct damage, It is not something that would have you gain life, so Rain doesn't care
@@Greg501-From the rulings on Firesong and Sunspeaker:
"A spell causes you to gain life if its cost or effect instructs you to gain life or if an instruction in its cost or effect is modified by a replacement effect and the modified event includes you gaining life. If a spell’s cost or effect instructs a source with lifelink you control to deal damage, that spell causes that life gain as well."
If Firesong sees it as the spell causing the life gain, I don't see why this wouldn't.
oh my, that was confusing. thanks
follow up question: what happens if Amy has a [Cleric Class] in play during all of this. does the replacement effect change anything about this interaction?
My understanding, (someone) correct me if I’m wrong:
If Amy has Cleric Class and Nick has Rain of Gore, and Amy casts a spell that says “you gain 1 life”. Amy will get to choose to apply either replacement effect (as both are applicable).
If she chooses Cleric Class, she’ll be gaining 1+1 (2) life. Because after this she’s still gaining life, Rain of Gore will replace it with lose 2 life.
If instead she chose Rain of Gore, she’d be losing 1 life. She’s no longer gaining life so Cleric Class won’t be applicable. She’ll just lose 1 life.
Having multiple applicable replacement effects is advantageous.
Question for you Dave!
Amy controls Ruxa, Patient Professor and attacks with her lifelink Grizzly Bears. May she have her Grizzly Bears go unblocked.
How exactly does the game define an "ability".
Basically any text in a card's text box is an ability (other than stuff like flavor text and reminder text that doesn't affect the game). Refer to CR 113.1a for a more technical description. So yes, lifelink would count as an ability. Relevant to this question, though, lifelink is not "causing a player to gain life". It's enabling the game rules to cause a player to gain life. Which is similar, but different enough that it changes the answer to this question.
So Rain of Gore does not block the lifelink from a Lightning Bolt affected by Firesong and Sunspeaker?
I believe in this case it would, similar to how a fight spell targetting a creature with lifelink causes loss of life. Firesong and Sunspeaker change the rules of the game so that the spell is causing life gain, which is replaced by Rain of Gore.
What if Amy has an Honor Troll in play, and Nick has a Rain of Gore in play. Amy casts revitalize. How do the 2 replacement effects work here?
If there are multiple replacement effects looking to modify a single event, they do so in the order of the controller of the event's choosing. So Amy can either choose to have Honor Troll apply first, it becomes "gain 4" then Rain of Gore would modify that to "lose 4" or have Rain of Gore apply first and it would become "lose 3" then Honor Troll's replacement effect would no longer be able to apply as the effect isn't causing any life gain.
2:00 In what scenario could a source of damage have no controller?
I cast Lightning Helix in Commander. With Lightning Helix on the stack an opponent casts Lightning Bolt targeting me. I have 3 life left, so I die, then my Helix goes off.
@@gmfreeman4211 Lightning Helix would be exiled from the stack when you die.
@@Timorio Oh, thanks.
Not to mention, if you're the sort of person who uses the Planechase deck, that also lacks a controller
I’m mad now
Would Tainted Remedy work the same way as rain of gore?
No, Tainted Remedy is much simpler. It's replacement effect isn't limited to only spells and abilities. Anything that would cause an opponent's life to increase is instead replaced by a decrease of the equivalent amount.
so does that mean lifelink is a replacement effect?
Nop, i's already included in the rules and cards.
This...is such an obtuse and counterintuitive ruling.
"If a spell or ability would cause its controller to gain life, that player loses that much instead. Lifelink is an ability that makes you gain life. But it is because the damage cleanup step now includes "gain life equal to damage done" so it doesn't count"
Nick and Amy: Hey let's uhh...let's just not ask the judge.
"702.15b Damage dealt by a source with lifelink causes that source’s controller, or its owner if it has no controller, to gain that much life (in addition to any other results that damage causes). See rule 120.3." damage causes life gain, not lifelink
Wow...
Like I understand the ruling and why it works the way it does but at the same time it also just kind of feels like rules like this only exist to make a complicated game more complicated. There's like...no reason behind it lol.
A big part of this issue is that Magic adds new cards every year and they need to make the new cards work with the old cards, but they obviously don't know every future card that's going to be printed when a card comes out. Lifelink as an ability didn't exist when Rain of Gore was originally printed. If it did, I'm sure Rain of Gore would have been worded so that it worked more intuitively with Lifelink. Unfortunately, they made a choice, and they can't really take it back now.
@@JudgingFtW Lifelink wasn't a named ability, but the Lifelink effect did exist going all the way back to El-Hajjaj in Arabian Nights (though his and Spirit Link's version are a bit not the same). Paladin of Prahv was in the same set as Rain of Gore's original printing and also had the as-of-yet-unnamed Lifelink.
But that leads to the second part of this: Rules changes. When Lifelink became a keyword, it was a Triggered ability. IIRC, it was changed to a Static ability in its current form with the big rules changes that accompanied the released of Magic 2010 Core Set.
It's amazing how bad these ruling are. Words of Worship has an ability. That ability results in gaining life.
MTG rules speak a different language than English, it just uses English-looking words.
Words of worship has an activated ability that causes a replacement effect
The rules actually make a lot of sense, issues arise from older cards before they got better at designing cards that are more intuitive
Tainted Remedy is a modern version of Rain of Gore and avoids any unintuitive interactions by having better wording.
could you please explane the rules for dryad of the elysian growth and merfolk trikster?
If you want an answer for a rules interaction, you'll need to be more specific. Give an exact scenario involving the two cards and I could tell you what happens. Otherwise, I have no idea what you're confused about.
@@namename8004 Hey i control a Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and have a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle in play and valakut trigger on the stack but no regular mountains in play. my opponent reacts with a merfolk trickster and takes all abilities from the dryad. i know i get my trigger because of the layers but i don't know exactly why
So continuous effects are applied in order depending on the type of effect they are, starting from layer 1 and ending with layer 7(with a few sub-layers here and there, noted by a lower-case letter, but not relevant for this situation). Effects that change a permanent's type apply in layer 4 and effects that remove abilities apply in layer 6. So by the time the Dryad loses all abilities, it has already made all your lands all basic land types already.
Firesong and Sunspeaker?
That is a lot of unintuitive here.
This is so stupid. Magic rules are stupid. This makes no sense, just like layers
I love you for this kind of vid ❤