Not exactly a ruling nightmare, but I love that Wizards released a new Emrakul in Eldritch Moon with the ability to control your oponent's actions for 1 turn, and a little later released an errata saying that no, forcing your oponent to surrender while controlling them is not a valid move
That was a ruling as soon as mindslaver was printed in the OG mirrodin since no one had ever seen that effect before of controlling another player. The weird ruling with it that came up later was whether you could check their sideboard while you had them emrakuled or mindslavered. IIRC you can check their sideboard to see their tech for you or how they boarded.
@@dark_rit You are not allowed to look at your opponent's sideboard when controlling them. Not even if you play an effect that interacts with cards "outside the game". So cards like Burning Wish wouldn't work at all, because you can't prove that the card you choose has the required characteristics.
@@nielsmarckmann3897 you shouldn’t have to be able to prove it, you should be able to take the risk, and if it was illegal, lose the game. The current ruling makes no sense and only exists because cry babies didn’t like people seeing their sideboard.
@@WRanger87 wait, they changed that? I remember doing that in a tourney when it was still a thing. My opponent was so confused, lmao. It was a cool interaction, sad they got rid of it
One of my favorite weird rules interactions is in Commander, using a commander with mutate and the spell Leadership Vacuum. If your commander is mutated onto a creature, then Leadership Vacuum is cast on your commander, the creature your commander is mutated onto is brought into the Command Zone with your commander. Furthermore, you can't cast cards other than your commander from the command zone, so any other cards brought there are stuck permanently. Someone actually managed to figure out a combo using this and manifest to put their entire deck into the command zone.
>Furthermore, you can't cast cards other than your commander from the command zone, so any other cards brought there are stuck permanently. (Wall of text incoming. Look away if you don't like really dumb interactions) Not entirely true! While you can't cast them by any method (as far as I know!), they aren't always stuck there permanently. If you have Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow in your 99 and somehow mutate on top of her (perhaps using Amoeboid Changeling to remove Yuriko's creature type) and she's in a mutate stack with your commander (easily possible if your commander has mutate) when the stack gets Leadership Vaccuum'd, then you can still use her Commander Ninjutsu ability to get her back onto the battlefield. Her ability is NOT based on her being your commander. Likewise, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician can get itself out of the command zone pretty easily if it got commander mutated/Leadership Vacuum'd. The aura Next of Kin can also get any creature card from the command zone, even if it isn't your commander. So you can bring back any of the other creatures -- but only creature cards! If you used your commander to mutate on top of Sarkhan the Masterless or Gideon, the Oathsworn while they were creatures and the stack got Leadership Vacuum'd, then they're stuck in there (again, as far as I know -- would be happy to be shown otherwise!) Related: while they're still stuck in the command zone, any card with Eminence or similar such (like Oloro, Ageless Ascetic) still trigger from the command zone even though they're not you're commander. Which is a neat little thing. Done any of this have any practical implications, besides pulling off dumb tricks to showboat? Not really! But Magic: the Gathering can be surprisingly similar to something like speedrunning. Somebody finds a weird interaction, it's an obscure little niche that never comes up, and then all of a sudden it becomes a vital part of the meta because of something new or another discovered interaction. So, who knows! Maybe one day getting your own creatures into your command zone will be a legit strategy -- and won't that be weird?
@@DeadlyGrim I've always thought that some janky way of turning a land into a creature after you have enough on the battlefield, and then exiling from your deck all creatures with the same name as your land creature would be a cool way of trimming your deck to only juice at that point. No more drawing land for five turns straight. But then, if you pulled off this janky combo you probably could have won with some other janky combo already.
The interaction that taught me about how casting spells actually works is Emry, Lurker of the Loch, and Lotus Petal. Emry is a creature that costs 2u, and costs 1 less for each artifact you control, while Lotus Petal is a 0 mana artifact that you can tap and sacrifice to make one mana of any color. So, on your first turn, you can play a land and the petal. With just that, you'd think that you wouldn't be able to cast Emry, as if you sacrifice the petal to make the second mana to cast her, she loses the cost reduction from having the petal in play. However, because you can activate mana abilities to pay for a spell after you declare intent to cast it, you are able to cast Emry this turn. You declare intent to cast Emry, apply cost reductions, and then activate mana abilities to pay for her. So it sees that you control 1 artifact, making her cost 1u, then tap the land to cover the generic cost, and the lotus petal to cover the blue mana in her cost, successfully casting her.
Ah, yes, I remember this interaction because of Affinity for Artifacts and KCI (Krark Clan Ironworks). Declare you're casting something with an affinity for artifacts, apply the affinity cost reduction, and then sacrifice the artifacts in question to KCI.
Also important if you use Ironworks and the various artifacts that give discount on artifact spells, or either Altar and the various creatures that give you discount on whatever else you are playing.
I actually used that timing rule in standard with Emry and a golden egg or guild globe. Sometimes I'd want to cast her for just 1 or 2 mana with my artifacts out, but didn't have any blue. So I'd declare I was casting her and then sac the artifact for the color, even though if I had sacced the artifact earlier it would've increased her cost.
Only reason I know this is because I have a judge friend who went into the mechanics of how to put a spell onto the stack. Of course it seems like you paid costs immediately, but that was step 3 or 4 IIRC it's been a while. You have to first announce the spell, specify mode(s) if it's a spell like cryptic command where you can choose, then choose targets, then finally pay the mana. I want to say KCI was banned in modern for power level reasons, but I can't recall that either since I played legacy and not modern and KCI in legacy wasn't played AFAIK.
Didn't realize the morph flipping face up was a special action. I usually just look at rules to find goofy and funny rules like with Void Winnower's rules saying "Yes, we know. Your opponents can't even." referring to its effects
They made morph a special action so you couldn't have someone pay the cost then have a -2/-2 effect put on it. It isn't a great reason, but it is a reason.
I remember morph is a special action because of time spiral standard. You had to know you can't prevent a brine elemental from flipping face up, and that you can respond to sudden death by unmorphing willbender to redirect the spell. Certain formats can really drive in certain ruling oddities. Innistrad standard is a key reason why I know AP NAP(active player non active player).
@@vivecanada1 To emphasize the part of the reason, it's so that your opponent doesn't get to see what cost you paid (so they can figure out what the morph is before it flips) and respond with that knowledge. Given how bad casting a 3-mana 2/2 is, the buff to morph is warranted. The only other fix would give every morph an ability to flip once per stack if a reflexive trigger is paid. (Rulings tech that didn't exist at the time, and would add more words to an already wordy ability)
My personal favorite Blood Moon interaction is with Zoetic Cavern. If you have a Zoetic Cavern as a face-down 2/2 from its Morph ability and then attempt to flip it up face-up... you cannot. The first step of Morphing a card face-up is to turn it up and reveal its Morph cost so that it can be properly paid. However, when the Zoetic Cavern is turned up, the game sees it as a Mountain with no Morph ability to pay... so you go 'Oops, I guess this doesn't have morph after all' and turn it face-down again. This ruling is more intuitive, perhaps, with Humility and a regular morph creature (which works is precisely the same manner).
@@johngleeman8347Morph cards don't actually have the morph ability when face down, only when in your hand and while turning face up. You could technically attempt to turn *any* face down card face up but knowingly doing so on a card without morph is cheating.
For anyone interested in more "ruling nightmares", there's a channel called JudgingFTW, run by an actual MtG judge. Every day, he posts a video where he presents a judging scenario (including many of the ones listed here, or very similar ones), explains the exact rules, and solves the question.
Panglacial Wurm is truly a can of wurms you don't want to open, but I love theorycrafting BS with it. It's one of the few cards (if not the only one) that allows for nonsense scenarios, such as searching your library while searching your library (yo dawg), winning through an alternative win condition for which you don't meet the conditions, winning while having an illegal board, a half-cast spell and a game state that says you lose in like 3 different ways, casting a spell at a time no player receives priority... the setups for these can't be done by accident, so if you somehow manage to do that at an event and a judge is called, you shall get the bonk. If anyone's interested in those setups, I can explain them in more details. Some are basic, but others are so ridiculous you could win multiple times with those resources.
Yeah, I really think people miss the significance of the Wurm's unique ability. No other card really allows you to do a bunch of stuff WHILE in the middle of actions that could cause huge problems. Probably 80% of the rulings on Panglacial Wurm are literally just to prevent you from reaching a completely unrecoverable game state. Even then, it still allows for some really, really insanely dumb interactions. Probably the first card that I would support them just banning because it was just too fugged to make it fit within the rules. Kinda like when they banned Sensei's Divining Top - yeah it was a very strong card... but probably half or more of the reason it was banned was just that it being really good meant a ton of decks ran it... and it made games take FOREVER.
Alright, it's going to be long so here's the TL;DR: replacement effects apply at all times, "exile until" is checked immediately without waiting for SBAs, and mana abilities can be jank. I know many here are YuGiOh players, so I'll try to explain so anyone can follow. Searching your library while searching your library: As shown in the video, Selvala is a creature who has a particuliar mana ability which lets you draw a card as well. Archmage Ascension is an enchantment which, once its requirements are met, replaces every draw by letting you search for any card instead. So, if you're searching your library, you can cast Panglacial Wurm. To pay for it, tap Selvala for mana. She's supposed to make you draw, which instead makes you search your library. While casting a spell. While already searching your library. And this can go on. Losing the game by deck out, despite having cards in your deck. As you search your library, it must only have 1 card and that card must be Panglacial Wurm. Choose to cast it. The first step of casting a spell is to move it from its current zone to temporary zone called the stack. Then you pay the costs. To do so, activate Selvala's mana ability and draw a card. Since Wurm was your only card, and it moved to the stack, you're trying to draw from an empty deck - but you don't lose yet. Realize you can't cast wurm, put it back and finish the search. When the search ends, State Based Actions (SBAs) are checked. These are rules that are checked at pretty much all times, except during the resolution of effects, that handle things like "you have 0 life, you lose; this creature took that much damage, it dies" etc. One of those SBAs is "if a player attempted to draw from an empty library since the last check, that player loses". Therefore, even though you still have Wurm in your deck, you lose the game by deck out. Casting spells at a time no one receives priority Priority is quite simple. If you have it, you can play cards, activate abilities or give the priority to your opponent. If both players pass priority in a row, the next spell/ability on the stack resolves. If the stack is empty, the turn goes to the next phase. It's given a bit differently during battle, but you get the point: players alternate getting priority, if they have it they can play, if they don't have it they must wait for it. The untap step, which is when the turn player untaps all their card to start their turn, is a step where no one receives priority. If anything should happen there, it waits until the upkeep - the next time a player receives priority - to be put onto the stack. HOWEVER, there's a land called Undiscovered Paradise whose drawback causes it to return to the hand at the beginning of your next untap. This doesn't use the stack, it just returns to the hand. Now for the setup: let's say say you have 2 life; in play you have Archmage Ascension ready (replaces draws with searches), Nefarious Lich (if you would gain life, you draw that many cards instead) and Enduring Angel (if your life total would be reduced to 0 or less, instead it becomes 3). You also have Glorious Protector, a card that lets you exile your other creatures until it leaves the field, exiling Watery Grave (it's a land, but you can turn it into a creature beforehand). Turn your Undiscovered Paradise into a creature, then use another card to turn Glorious Protector into a copy of Undiscovered Paradise and activate its mana ability. Part of that ability include the effect to return to hand during your next untap. During your next untap, Glorious Protector returns to your hand. This causes the Watery Grave it had exiled to immediately return into play. Watery Grave has an effect where it enters tapped, unless you pay 2 life. Since you have 2 life, you can exactly do that. But that would reduce your life to 0, so Enduring Angel replaces that so your life becomes 3 instead. But since you had 2 life, this counts as gaining life, so Nefarious Lich replaces that life gain with card draw, which Archmage Ascension turns into searching your library. Now you're searching your library, you are allowed to cast Panglacial Wurm from your library. Despite no one having priority, just through replacement effects. It'll probably have to wait in limbo until the upkeep to resolve though, but no one is sure - don't ask a judge they'll just bonk you.
Panglacial Wurm is one of the few cards that was probably just straight up a bad idea. I love it, but if they banned it in all formats and instead released a fixed version that could exile itself after you search the library and then you could cast it later (or whatever would make it work) I'd be all for it.
Nah, Panglacial Wurm is fine. The issue is the Mana Ability rules. Mana abilities should be any mana-producing ability that can be rolled back. Instead it's an arbitrary patchwork of characteristics. There is already tech in the rules to define what makes an ability eligible for rollback or not, it's just that the current rule that decides what's a mana ability and what isn't does not take that into account, leading to some mana abilities that aren't "rollbackable". This is super dumb imho because the only reason mana abilities need to be their own thing in the first place is that you have to be able to use them when paying costs, which by its own nature is an action that can be at risk of requiring a rollback.
@@tubebrocoli As much as it would clean up the rules a bit, I think the current implementation actually serves the players a lot. Nobody wants to be caught with a Selvala that can't pay for a Mana Leak, a Pact, or something like that, just because you let it resolve, in a tournament. Non-reversible mana abilities cause very few issues in an average game compared to someone not knowing which mana abilities can or cannot be activated while prompted to pay and the punishment they would get out of it.
@@tubebrocoli The rules do include multiple types of mana abilities that can't be used for panglacial worm. For example, Deathrite Shaman. Because it's mana ability can affect your opponents graveyard, it must be activated at instant speed. That is also why you cannot use a DRS to pay for propaganda.
@@benplocica3790 Is it even that hard to understand? "If pole position would cause an infinite loop, destroy it" seems to be the common special ruling for the many pole position issues.
@@thomaswood8405 That's a recent (like, a couple years ago) development. Look up "judge call ftk / pole position ftk" for how it worked before then. The TL;DR of that is: It was possible to manipulate the gamestate in such a way that pole position was valid but only because the number of cards on the field was exactly the number already on there, and that stability broke the moment another card was placed on the field for any reason... such as your opponent doing anything. Since it would cause an infinite loop if your opponent placed a card on the field, your opponent couldn't place a card on the field.
@@thomaswood8405 IIRC the issue is that the rule is actually "destroy what is causing the loop". Pole position had it's special ruling that makes it always be considered the cause of a loop it's involved in added in after the fact. That resolves the ambiguity of the rule. Humility and Pole Position cause the same problem in their respective games, a logic loop. The difference is in how the game solves the logic loop.
A few others that I personally find hilarious: Lich's Mirror (multiple rulings): (Effect: If you would lose the game, instead shuffle your hand, graveyard, and all permanents you own into your library, then draw 7 cards and your life becomes 20). A: If a state-based action causes you to lose the game , unless the actions of Lich's Mirror removes that state you still lose the game. Some examples include... poison counters, if you have 10 or more of them you lose the game. LM doesn't remove poison counters, so you still lose. Another are life gain replacement effects, if you lose due to having 0 life, and either you cannot gain life or take damage instead of gaining life (i.e. Rain of Gore), you still lose the game. B: If you control but do not own (as in it was originally your opponent's but took control of it) LM, Lich's Mirror will stay on the board and gain its effect each time you would lose the game until removed from the board. (Another quirk is that if the owner of LM surrenders, the controller would automatically lose) C: If, during a check of state-based actions, you would lose in multiple conditions simultaneously (e.g. Drawing a card with an effect that also deals damage, and you both draw enough cards to deck out and go to 0 life), LM triggers as a replacement effect for all loss actions simultaneously. Genju of the Fields: (Effect: Enchant Plains. 2: Until end of turn, enchanted Plains becomes a 2/5 white Spirit creature with "Whenever this creature deals damage, its controller gains that much life." It is still a land. When enchanted Plains is put into a graveyard, you may return Genju of the Fields from your graveyard to your hand.) Ruling: If activated ability is used multiple times, it will have the triggered ability multiple times. While this will not make the land multiple 2/5 creatures, it will have multiple instances of the damage trigger. Chaos Orb (multiple rulings): (Effect: 1T: If Chaos Orb is on the battlefield, flip CO onto the battlefield from a height of at least one foot. If CO turns over completely at least once during the flip, destroy all nonland permanents it touches, then destroy CO) A: You can arrange your cards in any order you choose before CO is placed onto the battlefield, but not after. You should not move your cards or arrange them in such a way that your opponent can't read their names or count them. B: It must turn at least 360 degrees in the air to destroy cards. Turning in your hand does not count. C: If you have sleeves or other protectors on your cards, they count as the cards themselves. D: No player can physically interfere with the activation of this card (no swatting out of the air or blowing on it as it falls onto the table) Last one, I promise... Goblin Test Pilot: (Effect: T: GTP deals two damage to any target chosen at random) Ruling: If a static ability causes its tap effect to gain a mana cost, the random target is chosen before costs are paid. So, if you end up not liking the target (say its GTP itself, or something else you control, or even you end up as the target), you can choose to decline to pay the mana needed to tap GTP in the first place... meaning it untaps, and you'd have the chance to do so again.
Here's another: Miracle is a triggered ability that must resolve before the spell is cast. While that ability is on the stack, the Miracle card is still in the player's hand, meaning you can use Vendilion Clique to deny a Miracle spell
Wow, that Goblin Test Pilot interaction is very anti-intuitive. I don't know of any other situation in Magic where you can just "take back" something for benefit.
The Cleanup Step itself has sub steps. So: If you turn your Mirage Mirror into a reliquary tower and have 9 cards in hand. The check for hand size occurs first. And then you remove all "until end of turn effects." Leaving you with 9 cards in hand, and no Reliquary Tower. However, if something still triggered in the cleanup step, then a second full cleanup step will happen, and you'll need to discard.
And for more "fun," the last ruling regarding that interaction begins with the worryingly specific line, "This is the *current* interaction between Humility and Opalescence" (emphasis mine).
Blood Moon is the worst for me, because its actual effect is defined in the rulebook, not on the card, even though there's *more* than enough space to define it. To know how blood moon works, you need to know at least two bits of specific, obscure rules text - that when lands "become" other land types, they lose their existing types and all other abilities, and second that gaining a basic land type also causes a card to gain that type's inherent mana ability. Neither of these things are intuitive, especially if you're coming from another game where card types don't have inherent meaning. Bare minimum, Blood Moon should say "Non-basic lands are mountains with 'T: Add R', and lose all other land types and abilities".
Wouldn't need the "T: add R to your mana pool", but otherwise, yeah, it Should say "And loses all other land types and abilities". Same for Song of the Dryads.
@@calemr No, recent wordings like any new Sol Ring from the past 2-4 years don’t specify the mana pool. This has been a thing since Core Set 2019 I think
@@brittanynguyen3794 I'm saying that because it has the type "Mountain", it doesn't need to tell you that you can tap it for red. It could have it as reminder text, but it's not needed as rules text.
@@calemr It's poor game design to require the player to (theoretically) look up another card to know how it now works. Even if it's as basic as what a Mountain does.
@@Skasaha_ So is the Mountain card itself bad? It doesn't have "{T}: Add {R} to your mana pool" any more. Knowing what a basic land does is part of the core rules, you don't need to print "This is how much you need to pay" next to every card's mana cost.
One important thing about the krark clan interaction is that you can cast a spell that cost less than four mana as well. You can activate more Mana abillities than is strictly required.
A fun weird rulling would be for lingering souls and any other flashback card. If your opponent has a scavenging ooze you can cast lingering souls, hold priority after the spell resolves, then activate flash back without your opponent being able to eat the card in the graveyard. This is due to flash back being an ability that moves lingering souls from the graveyard to the stack, as well as the whole priority situation if you are casting it during your own turn. This got me a win in a GP years ago in modern against a jund player who sat on 1 green mana to activate his ooze, he couldn't beat 4 fliers.as well as the other creatures I had on board. Also priority is a super weird rule in general but a necessary one.
Some of my favorite complicated rules interactions are Modal Double Faced cards (and Adventure cards, for which much of the same rulings apply). MDFs are double faced cards, for which each side can be cast. Unlike split cards, which combine the characteristics of both spells, only their front face is considered for characteristics when not being played as the back side. For example, there's a series of MDF cards that are a land on the back side, and a spell on the front. These MDF lands interact pretty differently with certain effects that are otherwise considered pretty interchangeable. For example, Crucible of Worlds is an artifact that lets you play lands from your graveyard, while Wrenn and Six is a planeswalker that lets you return a land from your graveyard to your hand each turn. Wrenn doesn't work with the MDF lands, as it only sees a spell, and can't target the land. Crucible does work, however. Crucible is effectively just a permission change, saying that now it is a valid action to play lands from your graveyard, so by the same rules interactions that let you cast the land side of the MDF from your hand works there as well. Additionally, there's cards like Courser of Kruphix, which reveals the top card of your library, and lets you play lands from the top of your library. Again, its a permission change. A similar effect, Coiling Oracle, reveals the top card of your library, and then puts it into play if its a land or into your hand if its not, will always put the MDF land into your hand, as it fails the "if its a land" check. Other MDF cards are spells on both sides, and in the case of Valki, God of Lies, a very cheap creature on the front, and a very expensive planeswalker on the back. This card singlehandedly led to a rules change on how cascade works. Previously, cascade had you reveal cards until you revealed a nonland card with a lower mana value than the cascading card, then let you cast that card for free. This meant you could cascade into Valki, and since it just let you cast that card for free, you could decide to cast the back side instead. This rule was changed to instead allow you to cast that spell for free if it is cheaper than the cascading spell. This double check finding a cheaper spell, then casting it if it is cheaper sounds extremely strange, but it prevents this exact interaction. There is one card that continues to work with Valki called Bring to Light. It lets you search for a creature, instant or sorcery with mana value less than or equal to the number of colors used to cast Bring to Light, and then cast that card for free. Bring to Light is especially interesting, because it doesn't even allow you to get planeswalkers, but because of that single check, it doesn't matter. Valki passes the check when it is first found, and then Bring to Light doesn't care what happens when you go to cast the chosen spell. Another particularly interesting case are adventures with Kess, Dissident Mage. Adventures are an instant or sorcery within a creature (or artifact, more recently). You can cast the adventure side, at which has a special replacement effect, exiling the creature on an adventure, which lets you cast that creature from exile later. Kess says that once a turn, you may cast an instant or sorcery from your graveyard, and if you do exile it instead of putting it anywhere else. Even though Kess's can only be used once per turn, it's just a blanket permission change, rather than something that targets. Additionally, the adventure clause letting you cast the creature from exile means that you can actually get the cards cast with Kess back as their creature half. It's also notable that like Crucible and Wrenn for the MDF lands scenario, there are many cards similar to Kess that don't work with adventures. Snapcaster Mage needs to target an instant or sorcery in the graveyard. Past in Flames gives an ability to instants and sorceries allowing them to be cast, but adventures are considered creatures and don't receive the ability. Lurrus functions similar to Kess, but with permanents, and since its a permission change, it only lets you cast the creature side of adventure cards, not the adventure itself. I love MDFs and adventures for being high flexibility cards with some powerful interactions, but they definitely have a lot of cases where two abilities players consider interchangeable actually interact differently when it comes to MDFs/adventures.
Maybe not that much of a nightmare, but one of my favorite rules oddities is the card "Riding the Dilu Horse", which is a sorcery that gives a creature +2/+2 and horsemanship. However, they forgot to write "until end of turn" on the card, so this effect just lasts indefinitely and you must keep track of it somehow.
@@williamdrum9899 Ah, but those add counters. a permanent 'object', if you will, within the game itself. they can be removed by effects, have copies of them put on by effects such as proliferate and count towards card effects that count the number of counters on creatures. You cannot interact with the effects of Riding the Dilu Horse once it has resolved, it basically erratas the target
@@kisukebomb3750 Fair enough. There was a spell from the original Theros block that did this too, it brought a creature back from the graveyard and made it indestructible.
What I love about MDFC’s is that they don’t work with transforming double faced cards (moonmist)... and Kamigawa’s flip cards introduce another axis... and that face down dual sided cards can exist only if they entered that way (see manifest rulings)... which all means that in theory, Wizards could make a card that has all 4 mechanics. It’d be a rules nightmare, impossible to represent on a real piece of cardboard, and probably never see the light of day, but you could have a card with 9 sides. Two castable sides, each with 2 transform states, each with two flip orientations, as well as being playable as a 2/2 “facedown” creature. Future unset potential?
Arena only unset, bonus points if each combination of states was different but probably impossible to do without driving the devs insane (coders AND card designers), and the flavor text of "...please...kill...me.."
Honorable mention has to go to four horsemen. It doesn't really break any game rules or cause any issues but rather it all becomes a judgmental call simply because you fail to show a progression in the game state yet at the same time still progressing to your wincon. Very similar to YGO's pole position lock.
I feel like Goblin Test Pilot should have been on this list. The interaction with Suppression Field is bizarre. Honorable mention to Lazav and flipped cards, as well as Brainstorm/Sylvan Library. I think there’s definitely enough to make a part 2
Yeah like anvil of bogardan + chains of mephistopheles is a weird rules interaction. Sylvan library sounds simple, but then you read the full effect carefully and realize it's any card you've drawn this turn can be put back, not just cards that it drew you. So if you somehow drew like 20 cards in your upkeep or something, then resolved the effect of sylvan library you can put any of those cards you drew that turn back.
@@dark_rit Until you realize that Library say also "If you do", which means any replacement effect actually makes it so you never drew with Library and get to keep them all, no life or strings attatched. Library and Teferi's Ageless Insight is a fun rules explanation.
Amazing video. I enjoy top 10 lists that teach me something more than those that just list boring performance stats. Thank you very much hope to see more lists in this style in the future.
One that I recently learned: Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor says that "target land becomes an X/X Elemental creature with trample and haste." My opponent used Needle Spire, making Needle Spire into a 2/1 Elemental with double strike. They then used Obuun to make it an X/X Elemental with trample, haste, and double strike. I attempted to correct it, assuming it worked like other polymorphs like Darksteel Mutation, but nope, after looking at rulings, it does actually keep the double strike. Darksteel specifically says it removes all abilities, where Obuun doesn't. As a Hearthstone player, I was used to the fact that changing a creature into another creature gets rid of everything, and given that's how MOST polymorphs in Magic also work, you can imagine my confusion when learning that
Both abilites have the all-important reminder, "It's still a land." It may be part creature now, but as long as the target is a land, it takes into account any other abilities the land had, like Cascading Cataracts having Indestructible. Especially powerful with card like Inkmoth Nexus, which can become an X/X with Haste, Trample, Flying, and Infect.
You know I've watched a few videos like this and I've always been like "nah, that's not that bad, that's stuff you just pick up after a while." But no, this list is mostly stuff that I didn't know and couldn't have sussed out. Nice video!
Finally, a video about complicated rulings that are actually complicated!! The only one I knew about was the humility ruling and thats because my friend recently got himself a humility and then asked the question about it getting turned into a creature. This video is a must watch for newer and older players alike!
Some true rules nightmares are: -Equinox, for requering future vision -Season of the Witch+Silent Arbiter, because nobody known how many creatures should be destroyed
Season of the Witch + Silent Arbiter kills everything that didn't attack. Silent Arbiter doesn't prevent creatures from being declared as attackers, it just prevents you from choosing how many attackers are declared.
This was superb. Thank you. The ruling that I instantly thought of was Merfolk Trickster vs. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove. I still struggle to understand layers.
MtG Video idea: Top 10 Funny Gatherer Rulings. Things like: Void Winnower "Yes, your opponent can't even. We know." Queen Marchesa several "(long may she reign)" Sleeper Agent "This card is a bit weird." Falling Star "It must flip like a coin and not like a Frisbee." Candles of Leng "Unless something weird happens..." Arni Brokenbrow "Arni strenuously objects to this course of action." Jadelight Ranger "...If you don’t pretend to be surprised, you’ll hurt Jadelight Ranger’s feelings." Revel in Riches "If the second ability of Revel in Riches causes you to win the game, please refrain from throwing your Treasure tokens into the air as this may distract or injure other players." Harmless Offering "Your opponent can’t refuse your generous donation." Mairsil the Pretender "If Mairsil has an equip ability, activating it won’t cause anything to happen. Mairsil doesn’t become attached to a creature. They may remain friends." Professor Onyx "If Professor Onyx seems familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen this Type of planeswalker before." and my personal pet favorite card ever Throes of Chaos "Throes of Chaos does nothing as it resolves. All of its chaos happens before it resolves."
Rankle, Master of Pranks: "If you really want, you may choose zero modes for Rankle's triggered ability, but carefully consider the hidden costs in not entertaining someone titled Master of Pranks" Search for Blex: "While resolving Search for Blex, you may put any number of the cards into your hand, even if you don't have enough life to cover it. We'll assume you have a plan that's better than "and then I'll lose the game." The Meathook Massacre: "If The Meathook Massacre enters the battlefield and it wasn't cast (or it was cast without paying the mana cost), X will be 0. The first ability will trigger, but it won't be much of a massacre" Ledger Shredder: "Don't play with this card near any important paperwork. We can't take responsibility for what happens." Tovolar, Dire Overlord: "The second ability of Tovolar, Dire Overlord seems a little strange because Tovolar and other Human Werewolf creatures in this set transform when it becomes night anyway. Tovolar, however, isn't content to transform Werewolf creatures from just one set. This ability will allow you to transform Human Werewolf creatures from previous visits to Innistrad as well."
Regarding the Wandering Fumarole and any pumping spells, you have to use the stack to determine the values, not the timestamps. If you turn it to a creature, this ability goes on the stack, then it resolves. You can only flip the P/T if it is a creature with the ability, and therefore already a 1/4. If you then try to pump it with a spell BEFORE swaping the P/T with Sure Strike, the instant will resolve and the creature will be a 4/4, and so it will be if you respond to the swaping. However, if you first swap, resolve and then pump the creature, it will be a 7/1. Layers and timestamps only apply to continous effects from permanents, because the stack prevents the overlaping. Also, if a preceeding effect had an earlier timestamp that has negative effects, such as Elesh Norn and you turn to creature and flip it, it will die before you can apply the bonus stats from Sure Strike.
This is not true. The layers were explained in the video. Effects that swap power and toughness always apply after every other increase or decrease, regardless of the order in which the effects happened. It *used* to be how you said it was but that hasn't been the case anymore for years now.
@@fernandobanda5734 are you serious? So if I turn wandering fumarole into a 1/4 creature on first main phase, switch it to a 4/1 until end of turn, go through combat, then on my second main phase, cast sure strike on it, I get a 4/4? That's absolutely asinine if true.
@@anthonyjs8048 Yes. The logic is that remembering what effects apply and then switching them in the end is much simpler than having to remember if each individual pump was made before or after the swap, especially for things like Fumarole that can swap multiple times.
@@fernandobanda5734 well thank you for responding! Yea I remember further back when damage used the stack, morphing shenanigans could be painful to keep track of haha.
This is interesting because sometimes reach is described "(...) can block as though it had flying" so saying a creature can only be blocked by creatures with flying would indeed include creatures with reach. Though I don't see any cards with this specific reminder text so I don't know where this comes from (perhaps it was simplified to remove complexity in understanding?)
@@SilveraLordzFlying is an older mechanic than reach. When they introduce a new mechanic they always add a description of what it does. Latter on, once people have gotten used to it, they just put the keyword. Reach acts like flying only when blocking, but at no other times.
One of my favorite interactions is magus of the moon being imprisoned into the moon. It turns into a colorless land, then turns itself into a mountain (losing its own ability in the process) then loses the ability to tap for red (and can tap for colorless). And I think its ability, while removed, still affects other lands.
great video, there was some points i didnt even know about myself with over 10 years play expirience :D i love to learn ruling stuff like this! hope i see more of this ^^
Honestly, there could several videos like these! Y'all ever read Illusionary Mask? One of the cases in MTG where the updated rules text only serves to make it even harder to understand. Or Dead Ringers. Dead Ringers is always fun.
When you bounce a creature token with Recoil, the token actually goes to the player's hand, because a token ceasing to exist is a state-based effect (and cannot happen while Recoil resolves). However! The player cannot discard the token, because the token is not a card, and recoil specifies that the player has to discard a card.
My favorite weird ruling is if you have a magus of the moon out and someone casts oko thief of crowns and uses his second ability to “elk” the magus turning it into a 2/2 and losing all its abilities you’d think the magus would no longer be making all the non basics into mountains but due to ✨layers✨ the magus’ ability will actually still be in effect turning all nonbasics into mountains. It’s super weird and looks like you’re cheating but it’s true
You need to do a part 2. 1. Cloning a creature with Frog spell with a characteristic ability makes a 1/1 and doesn't gain it's characteristic p/t. 2. casting Snap, in response you shroud the target, you don't draw a card. BUT Mangara + Karakas works fine. 3. Dryad Arbor 4. Gitrog Monster + Cleanup step + 8 cards in hand 5. worldgorger dragon + animate dead / 3 O-rings 6. Hellbent + lions eye diamond 7. opalessence + paralax wave/tide 8. Casting Vision Skeins to make an opponent draw their last card in their library ONLY if it was Emrakul after casting 1 billion copies of Brain Freeze. 9. Illusory mask/ice cauldron (trust system) There are plenty more too.
1. Does it? Copy effects normally only copy original stats and copiable values (anything granted by another copy ability) right? It shouldn't get the stats from a continuous effect. 4. This one is hilarious 8. I'm not sure I get this one. If they draw in response to an Emrakul trigger, they lose. If they draw the Emrakul nothing special happens (they lose). Am I missing something?
@@fernandobanda5734 imagine this: cast 1 billion copies of brain freeze, targetting your opponent. Your opponent has 1 emrakul in their library, and if it is milled it will shuffle their graveyard into thie library, this never milling out to draw a card with an empty library on their next draw step. However, what are the odds of emrakul being the Last card of their library, so when it gets milled they have 0 cards remaining in their library? Could I in response to this rare event make you draw a card (e.g. vision skeins) and lose the game? There is a weird ruling for "non repeating infinites" and this is legally not allowed if it goes over a certain time or iterations.
@@ChuggaChoo Thanks for the clarification. I honestly don't know what would happen. Non-deterministic loops are banned when you are doing them on purpose. But in this case, the Brain Freezes are already on the stack. No player is actively doing anything to continue the loop. I guess they just have to play it out.
In that case you decide the relative timestamp order as they enter. If they belong to different players then the cards that belong to turn players will have an earlier timestamp by default and it goes around in turn order..
I dont play Magic. But I watch so much magic content. I mostly figured out every of this ruling nightmares thanks to Judging FtW 's Channel. I love this
Equinox is really confusing. It's an enchantment that enchants a land that can tap to counter a spell that would destroy a land. The confusing part is that the wording of the card commands you to see into the future, because it can't counter if there's any option the spell couldn't destroy the land. Random Card Talking made a great video about it, where it gives some ridicoulus examples in addtion.
The ruling on Omniscience regarding Trinisphere is wrong on Magic's part. "Without paying the mana cost" doesn't say the mana cost is 0. Trinisphere can go right ahead and make the cost 3. And I'm casting it without paying the cost. Cost is the same. I'm not paying. It's right there in the wording. So the ruling is just... wrong.
Yeah I don't understand why the ruling is that the mana cost is 0... wouldn't it make more sense to replace the mana payment step rule 601.2h with nothing? So dumb
"Opposition agent" has a really weird Rule 716.4 still applies for the agent even though it's not a "mindslaver" effect "If information about an object in the game would be visible to the player being controlled, it’s visible to both that player and the controller of the player. If information about cards outside the game would be visible to the player being controlled, it’s visible only to that player, not the controller of the player." th agent states you control them while you search which allows you to look at their hand,face down cards, and play from top effects if its face down, while you are searching. even though its not stated in the cards rules.
Next complication in your Selvala/Wurm scenario: what if Panglacial Wurm is the top card of your library when you cast Demonic Tutor? Panglacial Wurm leaves your library to go to the stack before paying for costs, so you'll end up drawing the second card in library with Selvala. If you ended up failing to cast because of the randomized nature of Selvala (thus replacing Panglacial Wurm to the library), you'll have sniped your second card with an ability that should only be able to get the top card
>dont play panglacial wurm because its confusing dude, that is literally the best reason to play it, i strive to make decks that will have judges pull there hair out trying to figure out whats going on, its one of the reasons MTG is so amazing because chaos decks are not only a thing you can make, its an entire god damned archetype designed specifically to fuck with the game and the board state as much as possible.
I don’t care if they say “Rain of Gore” doesn’t trigger off Lifelink. I recognize that the council has made a decision. But it’s a stupid-ass decision and I’m electing to ignore it.
Same. The ABILITY is what is causing the life gain. It feels like the dumbest of hoops to jump through to say "well technically, the combat damage is what is causing the life gain" yeah... because of the ability!!!
When I saw the title, I knew that Humility would be toward the top of the list. I love my Humility deck, and I get a kick out of the rulings for it every time I look at its page in Gatherer
Surprised we didn't see Chains of Mephistopheles, the card that's such a meme for being confusing that there are actual flow charts to explain how it works
My favourite rulings nightmare is casting Brainstorm during your upkeep while you control Sylvan Library. Sylvan Library requires you to keep track of which cards in your hand were drawn this turn. Brainstorm is an instant that both draws cards *and* puts cards from your hand on top of your library, where they can be drawn again by the Sylvan Library trigger. This requires very carefully handling your cards to ensure you don't cause a problem with the judges.
Why they didn't errata Sylvan Library to not actually draw the cards is beyond me. Clearly wizards is ok with rules changes hosing entire strategies (see Sunforger with split cards) but not card erratas.
The other aspect of Panglacial Wurm is that the basic aspect to cards is their effects only work while in play (or cast for instant/sorceries) and it's search line doesn't state it can be used while not in play.
A good way to think about Rain of Gore and Lifelink as a player is to remember that Lifelink is a keyword, not an ability. IF I'm reading the comprehensive rules right, keywords and abilities are similar, but not the same. Now granted that's a big if because that document is about as big as War & Peace, but I'm fairly certain they're classified as two different things.
I thought I knew a lot about this game, but I learned a lot of new things from this video. Ironworks interaction with Myr Retriever is really neat, as well as Auras and Curses not needing to target anything when they are not cast, and Morph being a Special Action that doesn't use the stack, and also beats out Split Second. I knew that Trinisphere applied after cost reduction, but I didn't know the complete cost modification order. In spite of playing Trinisphere in the Sideboard regularly. The Layer System is also genius. Timestamps can also come into play with Blood Moon. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove is an example I ran into several times when playing Modern. If the opponent has played his Dryad after my Blood Moon, then his nonbasic lands first become Mountains, and then they gain all other land types. If I now play a second Blood Moon afterwards, all his nonbasic lands just become Mountains again. Another really interesting thing is state based actions. Many old cards that have basically lifelink don't actually have lifelink. (At least not anymore, they changed the errata back to the original printed wording.) Lifelink is a static ability, while these older cards have triggered abilites that use the stack. If you have a 6/2 creature with the Enchantment Spirit Link that says: "Whenever enchanted creature deals damage, you gain that much life.", and you are at 1 life and block a 5/5 trample with it, you loose the game as a state based action, because you hit zero or less life, before the Spirit Link ability goes on the stack. If your creature had actual life link, you would survive. I heard about the Panglacial Wurm thing before, and another really funny thing is only finding 2 cards with Gifts Ungiven. Oh, and Trample and Deathtouch, which allows you to only deal one damage to the blocking creature and the rest to the player, since one damage is leathal damage with deathtouch. This whole video is just mindblowing. Layers and Timestamps are a genius way to resolve these crazy paradoxes. But citing people making mistakes when it comes to the rules as a reason for banning Crak-Clan Ironworks is a joke. When it's such a common card, people, especially judges, should just learn the darn rules... It was mainly banned because the deck was really strong I hope. I'm sorry if I made any errors in my musings, I'm not a judge, but it's what I read online and been tought by other players.
@@golem001px buhuuu, jesus Let me be passionate about something, how does it hurt you? Get a life. You don't need to read this shit or watch this video.
Nice video! :) Really enjoyed the humility/opalescence one! One note, the background video for this #6 was much more distracting/unpleasant than normal.
Regarding Zur, I knew that he’d allow auras to enchant things, but I figured that was an errata on the card, I love that it works in general as that can allow for my extremely annoying aura pin down decks to be even more annoying by pinning down hexproof creatures. I knew about blood moon’s replacement effects I was aware that unmorphing was a special action but I never put thought into what that would mean and how that could apply while split second cards were on the stack. I absolutely love the fact that split second cards can be countered. I knew about Trinisphere but I never knew how it interacted with convoke so I’m very glad to know how that works now. I did not know that until end of turn effects like switching power and toughness applied to effects that boost power and toughness after that, I had assumed that the card essentially had it’s base power and toughness replaced until end of turn and so you could apply other effects after that base. I did not know that the owner of a permanent got to choose which replacement effect would apply. I assume that means wheel of sun and moon could be used as a secret tech card against Kalitas which I find to be pretty cool. I don’t think I knew about the Krack-Clan Ironworks ruling, but I absolutely love that interaction with myr retriever. I knew about the humility, opalescence interaction but I never thought about it with multiple opalescence on that battlefield, so having the different cards have different power and toughness is extremely interesting to me. I don’t remember ever seeing rain of gore, but when I saw it the interaction made perfect sense. Mostly because I know that slightly different wording can have strange effects on the rules. Panglacial Wurm is a card that I had buried deep in the depths of my subconscious. Seeing it again though, I do wonder what kind of crazy interactions you could make happen with it. Such as if you used lion’s eye diamond to cast it and discarded a madness card could you then also cast the madness card while searching your library? I’d love to see all the crazy things that could be done with Panglacial Wurm.
blood moon also follows the humility rules. If your opponent plays dryad of the illisian grove after you play blood moon, it’s effect applies. If they play it before, then blood moon applies Another weird interaction is Jeskai infliltraitor. If you take control of it and trigger it’s ability, despite shuffling the two facedown cards, your opponent is still required to know which one is theirs, requiring you to know the results of a randomized shuffle. Or if it triggers to flip a commander face down, the table is required to know which manifest is the commander and it would still deal commander damage
A video (series) explaining different keywords (and maybe how impactful they are)? There are so many keywords I can't keep up, and I like your style of explaining (big fan of your banned card list and failed card mechanic list in Yu-Gi-Oh, and I don't even play that).
You missed Splicing Veil of Secrecy onto a Disrupting Shoal. Splice onto Arcane is a fascinating mechanic that has its own rabbit hole. Specially the steps when a shoal is being cast. Example is Disrupting Shoal with a Veil of Secrecy spliced on. Let’s say you have a reflector mage on the battlefield and you want to counter a spell that costs 3. This casting process lets you exile from your hand the creature you are returning from your hand as you choose the order in how you pay costs. It’s also counter intuitive if you have a a card like Hinata. So basically you can use Hinata itself as the card to return to your hand and exile to pay for the alternate cost of the shoal with the veil of secrecy spliced on it since you lock the costs of the spell once you announce how the spell is going to be cast. Splice has its own step in the casting process. Making it the the second thing you have to announce as you cast the spell (the first is the card you are going to use to splice onto) Later you announce the modes and targets. The spell gets cost locked and you proceed to pay for alternate costs and mana abilities last.
Something else interesting is what happens when you Splice onto an Epic spell. There are only two cards that can do it, Everdream and Splicer's Skill. What happens is that for the rest of the game on your upkeep you cast that Epic spell, including any text spliced onto it. An extra 3/3 or card draw each upkeep can be pretty powerful additions.
@@connorhamilton5707 Splice onto Instant and Sorcery is problematic due to being so wide open causing extra complexity with so many mechanics. I like the limits of arcane so at least you can contain the complexity creep.
I was disappointed you didn't get into layers when talking about blood moon, and how it still works even if you remove its effect. Glad you circled back around to it.
I actually came across the first interaction, the aura entering attached to a permanent, thanks to Academy Rector. Slamming ENSLAVE from your deck on a Simic Sky Swallower and completely turning a game around back in like 2008 was a big deal lol
From what i have been told by judges, your explanation of the blood moon / urborg interaction isnt quite that simple even, and due to th - if i remember orrectly theyre called "layers" of state based actions - the outcome depends on which is in play first - if blood moon is out first, its just a mountain, but if urborg is out first, it has already applied the swamp type, before it loses the ability to do so, and as such is a basic mountain that also has the swamp type, along with every other land already in play
Arbor Elf's ability to untap a Forest is not a mana ability, so you have to use it before you try to cast spells. Which most of the time is not a problem, since you know what you are going to cast. Unless you use for example Chandra, Torch of Defiance's ability to look the top card of your library and decide whether to cast it or have the opponent take 2 damage. What if you possibly wanted to attack with Arbor Elf, if the top card of your library is not worth casting or impossible to cast, like when it's too expensive, or it's a land, which can only be played, not cast. I'm no judge, but I'm pretty sure it works that way sadly.
I have been playing Magic for roughly three years now. I've played hundreds of decks and played with my friends many times. To this day we are still learning new rulings. Magic is such a old and vast game with unique rulings. You can really "break" the game using enough weird cards and rulings. Nothing is static if you don't want it to be. It's awesome. We've had to pause quite a few games to pull up the rulings on interactions and ability nonsense just so we could confirm. 🤣
It's funny, I remember seeing a video of some huge weird combo that resulted in you getting a card on the battlefield that has no color, no creature type, is not an enchantment, sorcery, artifact or creature. Its just like, a card that is on the field with no further properties beyond that. Breaking mtg and ygo can be very funny lol
Some cool rules interactions include Sylvan Library + Pursuit of Knowledge (skip all 3 draws from the Library, you don’t pay any penalty for not putting anything back, and then you can draw 7 with Pursuit), Tangle Wire + Smokestack (you can order the effects for all players and really screw people), and does anyone know what really happens when Knowledge Pool, Possibility Storm, and Shared Fate are all in play at once?
My favourite from recent time is Ashaya, soul of the wild enchanted with witness protection... its kinda like that humility example you made. Iirc your creatures stay forests, even ashaya but she becomes a 1/1
Cool video. A suggestion for another cool interaction you could delve into: what happens when in a game of commander, you try to activate a wheel of fortune while both you and multiple opponents have cards such as Notion Thief in play?
I don't know if this is how it works, but it's what makes sense to me. You may activate Selvala while casting a spell if the number of possible nonlands on top of libraries are equal to or less than the mana you would need to cast the spell. This could of course be very high in multiplayer (the intent, considering the set it's from). But a little stipulation; if you announce casting Panglacial Wurm while shuffling, you will know what the top card of your library is. If you would need mana equal to the number of players to cast the Wurm, and your top card is a land, you would be knowingly performing an illegal action.
I like the scenario of searching, going to cast Panglacial Wurm, then using Millikin to mill the top card of your deck putting something that shuffles back in like an Eldrazi titan. So now you're searching, casting a spell and shuffling all at the same time which as stated you're not supposed to do while searching your library. Now that's an extreme edge case that makes anyone scratch their heads.
Surely the interaction between Trinisphere and Omniscience would go: You have a card in hand that costs 1B, Trinisphere is untapped so the card that would have cost 1B instead costs 2B, but Omniscience allows you to cast that spell from your hand *without paying it's mana cost* even though that cost has been modified to 3 instead of 2. The process for determining modified costs is that you apply the cost increases, then the cost decreases, then if that cost is less than 3 it costs 3 instead. This *modifies the cost* which means you can still ignore this cost with omniscience. If Trinisphere were an *additional cost* to cast a spell then it would be different, but the example baked into the card makes it really clear that the text "costs 3 mana to cast" is modifying the existing cost. The example says the final cost to cast the spell would be 2B, and omniscience says we may play cards from our hands without paying their mana costs. The idea that a card like Omniscience "sets the cost to zero" is simply not what it does. It's not in it's rulings on gatherer and it's not mentioned in the general rules for costs. You just don't have to pay the cost period.
Omnicience (and other "cast without paying its mana cost" effects), aren't actually part of the cost increase/decrease system at all, but rather they provide an _alternate_ cost (of 0) to cast the spell. There are no cost increases or decreases to consider, you just start with a cost of 0, and this is less than 3, so Trinisphere bumps it up to 3. This applies to any alternate cost. For instance, when Trinisphere is in play, you can cast Force of Will by exiling a blue card from your hand, paying a life, and 3 mana.
@@mrphlip Ok you and the video may be right, but only because the definitions of the different costs are not very clearly defined even once you dig into the real rules. Rule 601.2f reads: The player determines the total cost of the spell. Usually this is just the mana cost. Some spells have additional or alternative costs. Some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay, or may provide other alternative costs. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. The total cost is the mana cost, or alternative cost (as determined in rule 601.2b), plus all additional costs and cost increases, and minus all cost reductions. If multiple cost reductions apply, the player may apply them in any order. If the mana component of the total cost is reduced to nothing by cost reduction effects, it is considered to be 0. It cant be reduced to less than 0. Once the total cost is determined, any effects that directly affect the total cost are applied. Then the resulting total cost becomes locked in. If effects would change the total cost after this time, they have no effect. The relevant part is where it mentions "mana costs," which are apparently different from the "total cost." This would have been a lot more obvious if Omniscience had said "converted mana cost" instead of just "mana cost," in fairness. The reason this is confusing is because the rulings for Omniscience itself say: "If you cast a spell “without paying its mana cost,” you can't choose to cast it for any alternative costs. You can, however, pay additional costs, such as kicker costs. If the card has any mandatory additional costs, such as that of Tormenting Voice, those must be paid to cast the card." It literally says in gatherer that you don't and cant pay alternate costs. It wouldn't make sense for Omniscience to be an "alternate cost," and in fact it isn't one. It does not set the Mana Cost value of the cost calculation "to zero," it simply removes it from the equation completely. It's just that it removes a *different value* from the equation than was implied. That's semantics, I guess (null vs 0), so at the end of the day you're right, but I still maintain that most people saying that it is an "alternate cost of 0" are just as wrong and are simply getting the right answer on accident lol.
@@McCaffeteria The relevant rule is 118.9, which defines alternative costs. The definition explicitly includes "without paying its mana cost" effects. The gatherer ruling isn't the best worded (but then, gatherer rulings, like reminder text, are just informative, and aren't as rigorous as the actual CR). It's trying to get across that you can't use any _other_ alt costs with Omniscience, because Omniscience is already an alt cost and you can only use one.
One of my favorites is the gitrog dredge combo, specifically using an 8 card hand and discarding during cleanup repeatedly to win in your end step at instant speed. The entirety of gitrog combos are full of ruling edge cases
I didnt play MtG over 15 years, and still watch whole video :) Its not logical that you have to pay 3 mana from Trinisphere if you have Omniscience. It Omniscience wording would be you cast it for 0 mana, than yes, cost should pay 3 mana (as its go from 0 to 3). But it say play without paying mana cost, so it dont matter if 1,3,15 mana, you should not pay it.
What you pay for the spell is not the "mana cost". Trinisphere doesn't care about mana cost, it cares about the final total cost. "Without paying its mana cost" is not a special phrase that makes the costs be bypassed or anything. It just means you pay {0} instead of the normal mana cost, but *is* affected by cost increases and reductions.
There's another layer to the Zur interactions, with a card like Darksteel Mutation. As I understand it, if you use Zur to attach an enchantment like that onto a creature with relevant protection, the aura will fall off before it makes the creature lose the protection.
You couldn't choose to attach an aura to a permanent with protection from it in the first place. You have to choose something it could legally enchant.
One that needs to be discussed and isn't even addressed on Gatherer: Sacred Ground versus man-lands. (Whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls causes a land to be put into your graveyard from the battlefield, return that card to the battlefield.) Treetop Village is hit by opponent's Terror. Does it come back? Yes. The Terror killed it. Treetop Village is hit by opponent's Lightning Bolt. Does it come back? NO!!! Why? The Lightning Bolt did not cause the Treetop Village to die. The RULES OF MAGIC caused the land to die.
That's how I explained the Un-card "Rules Lawyer". I would summarize it as: "Creatures can only be removed by "destroy," "sac," or "exile" effects, damage and -x/-x won't work. And a player can only win or lose by card effect that says "win" or "lose" directly in its text."
@@twistedtachyon5877 For effects like "Destroy target creature"? I've always thought that happens during the resolution of the spell. I don't know for sure, One way to find out would be to play on Arena and create the following scenario: * Opponent controls Tarmogoyf * There are exactly 2 card types in all graveyards, neither of which are Instant or Sorcery * Cast an instant or Sorcery that says "Destroy target creature with power 2 or less" and see what happens
Want the power/toughness switch thing to be even more confusing? Try also playing Hearthstone. In Hearthstone, any power/toughness switch basically just takes whatever numbers are currently there and permanently writes them into the new column. This has an interesting interaction with aura effects that boost those values. Let's say you have what starts out as a 3/4 pirate and you have another minion that gives all pirates +1/+1. That original pirate will be a 4/5. If you then play a card that swaps the attack and health, it will then set the new base stats of the minion as a 5/4, then the aura effect will make it a 6/5. When I saw a card on the screen that has a 0 mana activated ability to swap stats, my Hearthstone training momentarily thought about having a "creatures you control get +1/+1" effect and suddenly you have infinite stats. Then I remembered it works differently here.
Something else that confused me coming from Hearthstone: Polymorphs don't inherently remove abilities. This was even more confusing because most polymorphs, like Darksteel, do remove abilities, but if you used Obuun on a Needle Spires that has turned into a creature with it's own effect, it would keep the double strike.
@@TheMCGamer2012 Swapping stats isn't an overly useful ability in Hearthstone though. I haven't played lately, but one of the original Classic cards that made it unchanged throughout the base set revisions for years is simply a 2 mana 2/2 that swaps attack and health as a battlecry (effectively "when you cast this creature" in MTG terms). Crazed Alchemist, I believe. However, Hearthstone isn't as big on providing temporary buffs or a bunch of aura effects that a stat swap would convert into permanent stat increases. It's more of a niche interaction than anything, but certainly one to remember in case it does come up.
Not exactly a ruling nightmare, but I love that Wizards released a new Emrakul in Eldritch Moon with the ability to control your oponent's actions for 1 turn, and a little later released an errata saying that no, forcing your oponent to surrender while controlling them is not a valid move
my favorite of the comprehensive rules is the clarification that you cannot control a player not in the game XD
That was a ruling as soon as mindslaver was printed in the OG mirrodin since no one had ever seen that effect before of controlling another player. The weird ruling with it that came up later was whether you could check their sideboard while you had them emrakuled or mindslavered. IIRC you can check their sideboard to see their tech for you or how they boarded.
@@dark_rit You are not allowed to look at your opponent's sideboard when controlling them. Not even if you play an effect that interacts with cards "outside the game". So cards like Burning Wish wouldn't work at all, because you can't prove that the card you choose has the required characteristics.
@@nielsmarckmann3897 you shouldn’t have to be able to prove it, you should be able to take the risk, and if it was illegal, lose the game. The current ruling makes no sense and only exists because cry babies didn’t like people seeing their sideboard.
@@WRanger87 wait, they changed that?
I remember doing that in a tourney when it was still a thing.
My opponent was so confused, lmao.
It was a cool interaction, sad they got rid of it
One of my favorite weird rules interactions is in Commander, using a commander with mutate and the spell Leadership Vacuum. If your commander is mutated onto a creature, then Leadership Vacuum is cast on your commander, the creature your commander is mutated onto is brought into the Command Zone with your commander. Furthermore, you can't cast cards other than your commander from the command zone, so any other cards brought there are stuck permanently. Someone actually managed to figure out a combo using this and manifest to put their entire deck into the command zone.
>Furthermore, you can't cast cards other than your commander from the command zone, so any other cards brought there are stuck permanently.
(Wall of text incoming. Look away if you don't like really dumb interactions)
Not entirely true! While you can't cast them by any method (as far as I know!), they aren't always stuck there permanently.
If you have Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow in your 99 and somehow mutate on top of her (perhaps using Amoeboid Changeling to remove Yuriko's creature type) and she's in a mutate stack with your commander (easily possible if your commander has mutate) when the stack gets Leadership Vaccuum'd, then you can still use her Commander Ninjutsu ability to get her back onto the battlefield. Her ability is NOT based on her being your commander.
Likewise, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician can get itself out of the command zone pretty easily if it got commander mutated/Leadership Vacuum'd.
The aura Next of Kin can also get any creature card from the command zone, even if it isn't your commander. So you can bring back any of the other creatures -- but only creature cards! If you used your commander to mutate on top of Sarkhan the Masterless or Gideon, the Oathsworn while they were creatures and the stack got Leadership Vacuum'd, then they're stuck in there (again, as far as I know -- would be happy to be shown otherwise!)
Related: while they're still stuck in the command zone, any card with Eminence or similar such (like Oloro, Ageless Ascetic) still trigger from the command zone even though they're not you're commander. Which is a neat little thing.
Done any of this have any practical implications, besides pulling off dumb tricks to showboat? Not really! But Magic: the Gathering can be surprisingly similar to something like speedrunning. Somebody finds a weird interaction, it's an obscure little niche that never comes up, and then all of a sudden it becomes a vital part of the meta because of something new or another discovered interaction. So, who knows! Maybe one day getting your own creatures into your command zone will be a legit strategy -- and won't that be weird?
All it takes is one Dranith Magistrate once all the cards are in the command zone and they just have to suffer in inaction
And if you do all this during a subgame, then every card that isn't your commander "cease to exist" according to the rules :)
@@DeadlyGrim I've always thought that some janky way of turning a land into a creature after you have enough on the battlefield, and then exiling from your deck all creatures with the same name as your land creature would be a cool way of trimming your deck to only juice at that point. No more drawing land for five turns straight. But then, if you pulled off this janky combo you probably could have won with some other janky combo already.
@@DeadlyGrim my brain hurts
The interaction that taught me about how casting spells actually works is Emry, Lurker of the Loch, and Lotus Petal. Emry is a creature that costs 2u, and costs 1 less for each artifact you control, while Lotus Petal is a 0 mana artifact that you can tap and sacrifice to make one mana of any color. So, on your first turn, you can play a land and the petal. With just that, you'd think that you wouldn't be able to cast Emry, as if you sacrifice the petal to make the second mana to cast her, she loses the cost reduction from having the petal in play. However, because you can activate mana abilities to pay for a spell after you declare intent to cast it, you are able to cast Emry this turn. You declare intent to cast Emry, apply cost reductions, and then activate mana abilities to pay for her. So it sees that you control 1 artifact, making her cost 1u, then tap the land to cover the generic cost, and the lotus petal to cover the blue mana in her cost, successfully casting her.
This also applies to other cards that have Affinity for Artifacts.
Ah, yes, I remember this interaction because of Affinity for Artifacts and KCI (Krark Clan Ironworks). Declare you're casting something with an affinity for artifacts, apply the affinity cost reduction, and then sacrifice the artifacts in question to KCI.
Also important if you use Ironworks and the various artifacts that give discount on artifact spells, or either Altar and the various creatures that give you discount on whatever else you are playing.
I actually used that timing rule in standard with Emry and a golden egg or guild globe. Sometimes I'd want to cast her for just 1 or 2 mana with my artifacts out, but didn't have any blue. So I'd declare I was casting her and then sac the artifact for the color, even though if I had sacced the artifact earlier it would've increased her cost.
Only reason I know this is because I have a judge friend who went into the mechanics of how to put a spell onto the stack. Of course it seems like you paid costs immediately, but that was step 3 or 4 IIRC it's been a while. You have to first announce the spell, specify mode(s) if it's a spell like cryptic command where you can choose, then choose targets, then finally pay the mana. I want to say KCI was banned in modern for power level reasons, but I can't recall that either since I played legacy and not modern and KCI in legacy wasn't played AFAIK.
Didn't realize the morph flipping face up was a special action. I usually just look at rules to find goofy and funny rules like with Void Winnower's rules saying "Yes, we know. Your opponents can't even." referring to its effects
That would be a fun kind of top 10 to watch
I have a friend that plays nothing but morph so I had to learn the hard way that it’s a special action lolz
They made morph a special action so you couldn't have someone pay the cost then have a -2/-2 effect put on it. It isn't a great reason, but it is a reason.
I remember morph is a special action because of time spiral standard. You had to know you can't prevent a brine elemental from flipping face up, and that you can respond to sudden death by unmorphing willbender to redirect the spell. Certain formats can really drive in certain ruling oddities. Innistrad standard is a key reason why I know AP NAP(active player non active player).
@@vivecanada1 To emphasize the part of the reason, it's so that your opponent doesn't get to see what cost you paid (so they can figure out what the morph is before it flips) and respond with that knowledge.
Given how bad casting a 3-mana 2/2 is, the buff to morph is warranted. The only other fix would give every morph an ability to flip once per stack if a reflexive trigger is paid. (Rulings tech that didn't exist at the time, and would add more words to an already wordy ability)
As a card game enthusiast, this channel is such a blessing.
My personal favorite Blood Moon interaction is with Zoetic Cavern. If you have a Zoetic Cavern as a face-down 2/2 from its Morph ability and then attempt to flip it up face-up... you cannot. The first step of Morphing a card face-up is to turn it up and reveal its Morph cost so that it can be properly paid. However, when the Zoetic Cavern is turned up, the game sees it as a Mountain with no Morph ability to pay... so you go 'Oops, I guess this doesn't have morph after all' and turn it face-down again. This ruling is more intuitive, perhaps, with Humility and a regular morph creature (which works is precisely the same manner).
Does that mean it regains the Morph ability while face-down? Thus you can continue to try and flip it face-up to no avail as often as you like? XD
@@johngleeman8347playing a card face down as a morph creature requires the *card* to have the morph keyword and not the *creature*. I believe!
@@johngleeman8347Morph cards don't actually have the morph ability when face down, only when in your hand and while turning face up.
You could technically attempt to turn *any* face down card face up but knowingly doing so on a card without morph is cheating.
For anyone interested in more "ruling nightmares", there's a channel called JudgingFTW, run by an actual MtG judge. Every day, he posts a video where he presents a judging scenario (including many of the ones listed here, or very similar ones), explains the exact rules, and solves the question.
I think the Wandering Fumarole one is the only one I haven't touched. Was very happy to see some of my favorite rulings on this list!
@@JudgingFtW I do want to say, your channel helped a lot making this video! It was a great resource for double checking my rulings!
@@pumkinswift8263 Thanks! Message me if you ever want to do a collab!
Panglacial Wurm is truly a can of wurms you don't want to open, but I love theorycrafting BS with it. It's one of the few cards (if not the only one) that allows for nonsense scenarios, such as searching your library while searching your library (yo dawg), winning through an alternative win condition for which you don't meet the conditions, winning while having an illegal board, a half-cast spell and a game state that says you lose in like 3 different ways, casting a spell at a time no player receives priority... the setups for these can't be done by accident, so if you somehow manage to do that at an event and a judge is called, you shall get the bonk.
If anyone's interested in those setups, I can explain them in more details. Some are basic, but others are so ridiculous you could win multiple times with those resources.
Please do explain!
Story time please
Yes please!
Yeah, I really think people miss the significance of the Wurm's unique ability. No other card really allows you to do a bunch of stuff WHILE in the middle of actions that could cause huge problems. Probably 80% of the rulings on Panglacial Wurm are literally just to prevent you from reaching a completely unrecoverable game state. Even then, it still allows for some really, really insanely dumb interactions. Probably the first card that I would support them just banning because it was just too fugged to make it fit within the rules. Kinda like when they banned Sensei's Divining Top - yeah it was a very strong card... but probably half or more of the reason it was banned was just that it being really good meant a ton of decks ran it... and it made games take FOREVER.
Alright, it's going to be long so here's the TL;DR: replacement effects apply at all times, "exile until" is checked immediately without waiting for SBAs, and mana abilities can be jank.
I know many here are YuGiOh players, so I'll try to explain so anyone can follow.
Searching your library while searching your library:
As shown in the video, Selvala is a creature who has a particuliar mana ability which lets you draw a card as well. Archmage Ascension is an enchantment which, once its requirements are met, replaces every draw by letting you search for any card instead.
So, if you're searching your library, you can cast Panglacial Wurm. To pay for it, tap Selvala for mana. She's supposed to make you draw, which instead makes you search your library. While casting a spell. While already searching your library. And this can go on.
Losing the game by deck out, despite having cards in your deck.
As you search your library, it must only have 1 card and that card must be Panglacial Wurm. Choose to cast it. The first step of casting a spell is to move it from its current zone to temporary zone called the stack. Then you pay the costs. To do so, activate Selvala's mana ability and draw a card. Since Wurm was your only card, and it moved to the stack, you're trying to draw from an empty deck - but you don't lose yet. Realize you can't cast wurm, put it back and finish the search. When the search ends, State Based Actions (SBAs) are checked. These are rules that are checked at pretty much all times, except during the resolution of effects, that handle things like "you have 0 life, you lose; this creature took that much damage, it dies" etc. One of those SBAs is "if a player attempted to draw from an empty library since the last check, that player loses". Therefore, even though you still have Wurm in your deck, you lose the game by deck out.
Casting spells at a time no one receives priority
Priority is quite simple. If you have it, you can play cards, activate abilities or give the priority to your opponent. If both players pass priority in a row, the next spell/ability on the stack resolves. If the stack is empty, the turn goes to the next phase. It's given a bit differently during battle, but you get the point: players alternate getting priority, if they have it they can play, if they don't have it they must wait for it. The untap step, which is when the turn player untaps all their card to start their turn, is a step where no one receives priority. If anything should happen there, it waits until the upkeep - the next time a player receives priority - to be put onto the stack. HOWEVER, there's a land called Undiscovered Paradise whose drawback causes it to return to the hand at the beginning of your next untap. This doesn't use the stack, it just returns to the hand.
Now for the setup: let's say say you have 2 life; in play you have Archmage Ascension ready (replaces draws with searches), Nefarious Lich (if you would gain life, you draw that many cards instead) and Enduring Angel (if your life total would be reduced to 0 or less, instead it becomes 3). You also have Glorious Protector, a card that lets you exile your other creatures until it leaves the field, exiling Watery Grave (it's a land, but you can turn it into a creature beforehand). Turn your Undiscovered Paradise into a creature, then use another card to turn Glorious Protector into a copy of Undiscovered Paradise and activate its mana ability. Part of that ability include the effect to return to hand during your next untap. During your next untap, Glorious Protector returns to your hand. This causes the Watery Grave it had exiled to immediately return into play. Watery Grave has an effect where it enters tapped, unless you pay 2 life. Since you have 2 life, you can exactly do that. But that would reduce your life to 0, so Enduring Angel replaces that so your life becomes 3 instead. But since you had 2 life, this counts as gaining life, so Nefarious Lich replaces that life gain with card draw, which Archmage Ascension turns into searching your library. Now you're searching your library, you are allowed to cast Panglacial Wurm from your library. Despite no one having priority, just through replacement effects. It'll probably have to wait in limbo until the upkeep to resolve though, but no one is sure - don't ask a judge they'll just bonk you.
Panglacial Wurm is one of the few cards that was probably just straight up a bad idea.
I love it, but if they banned it in all formats and instead released a fixed version that could exile itself after you search the library and then you could cast it later (or whatever would make it work) I'd be all for it.
You'd also be running basically a 56 card deck then. Just search turn 1 and exile all your Panglacial Wurms to thin your deck 5 cards.
@@0241Nixon You could always shuffle it back if you didn't cast it. Not pretty but possible.
Nah, Panglacial Wurm is fine. The issue is the Mana Ability rules. Mana abilities should be any mana-producing ability that can be rolled back. Instead it's an arbitrary patchwork of characteristics. There is already tech in the rules to define what makes an ability eligible for rollback or not, it's just that the current rule that decides what's a mana ability and what isn't does not take that into account, leading to some mana abilities that aren't "rollbackable".
This is super dumb imho because the only reason mana abilities need to be their own thing in the first place is that you have to be able to use them when paying costs, which by its own nature is an action that can be at risk of requiring a rollback.
@@tubebrocoli As much as it would clean up the rules a bit, I think the current implementation actually serves the players a lot. Nobody wants to be caught with a Selvala that can't pay for a Mana Leak, a Pact, or something like that, just because you let it resolve, in a tournament. Non-reversible mana abilities cause very few issues in an average game compared to someone not knowing which mana abilities can or cannot be activated while prompted to pay and the punishment they would get out of it.
@@tubebrocoli The rules do include multiple types of mana abilities that can't be used for panglacial worm. For example, Deathrite Shaman. Because it's mana ability can affect your opponents graveyard, it must be activated at instant speed. That is also why you cannot use a DRS to pay for propaganda.
YGO Players: Pole Position is a nightmare to understand.
MtG Players: In MtG, we got Panglacial Wurm.
Pole position is far worse in my opinion though.
Solemnity has weirder interactions. Or Ghave.
@@benplocica3790 Is it even that hard to understand? "If pole position would cause an infinite loop, destroy it" seems to be the common special ruling for the many pole position issues.
@@thomaswood8405 That's a recent (like, a couple years ago) development. Look up "judge call ftk / pole position ftk" for how it worked before then.
The TL;DR of that is: It was possible to manipulate the gamestate in such a way that pole position was valid but only because the number of cards on the field was exactly the number already on there, and that stability broke the moment another card was placed on the field for any reason... such as your opponent doing anything. Since it would cause an infinite loop if your opponent placed a card on the field, your opponent couldn't place a card on the field.
@@thomaswood8405 IIRC the issue is that the rule is actually "destroy what is causing the loop". Pole position had it's special ruling that makes it always be considered the cause of a loop it's involved in added in after the fact. That resolves the ambiguity of the rule. Humility and Pole Position cause the same problem in their respective games, a logic loop. The difference is in how the game solves the logic loop.
A few others that I personally find hilarious:
Lich's Mirror (multiple rulings): (Effect: If you would lose the game, instead shuffle your hand, graveyard, and all permanents you own into your library, then draw 7 cards and your life becomes 20).
A: If a state-based action causes you to lose the game , unless the actions of Lich's Mirror removes that state you still lose the game. Some examples include... poison counters, if you have 10 or more of them you lose the game. LM doesn't remove poison counters, so you still lose. Another are life gain replacement effects, if you lose due to having 0 life, and either you cannot gain life or take damage instead of gaining life (i.e. Rain of Gore), you still lose the game.
B: If you control but do not own (as in it was originally your opponent's but took control of it) LM, Lich's Mirror will stay on the board and gain its effect each time you would lose the game until removed from the board. (Another quirk is that if the owner of LM surrenders, the controller would automatically lose)
C: If, during a check of state-based actions, you would lose in multiple conditions simultaneously (e.g. Drawing a card with an effect that also deals damage, and you both draw enough cards to deck out and go to 0 life), LM triggers as a replacement effect for all loss actions simultaneously.
Genju of the Fields: (Effect: Enchant Plains. 2: Until end of turn, enchanted Plains becomes a 2/5 white Spirit creature with "Whenever this creature deals damage, its controller gains that much life." It is still a land. When enchanted Plains is put into a graveyard, you may return Genju of the Fields from your graveyard to your hand.)
Ruling: If activated ability is used multiple times, it will have the triggered ability multiple times. While this will not make the land multiple 2/5 creatures, it will have multiple instances of the damage trigger.
Chaos Orb (multiple rulings): (Effect: 1T: If Chaos Orb is on the battlefield, flip CO onto the battlefield from a height of at least one foot. If CO turns over completely at least once during the flip, destroy all nonland permanents it touches, then destroy CO)
A: You can arrange your cards in any order you choose before CO is placed onto the battlefield, but not after. You should not move your cards or arrange them in such a way that your opponent can't read their names or count them.
B: It must turn at least 360 degrees in the air to destroy cards. Turning in your hand does not count.
C: If you have sleeves or other protectors on your cards, they count as the cards themselves.
D: No player can physically interfere with the activation of this card (no swatting out of the air or blowing on it as it falls onto the table)
Last one, I promise...
Goblin Test Pilot: (Effect: T: GTP deals two damage to any target chosen at random)
Ruling: If a static ability causes its tap effect to gain a mana cost, the random target is chosen before costs are paid.
So, if you end up not liking the target (say its GTP itself, or something else you control, or even you end up as the target), you can choose to decline to pay the mana needed to tap GTP in the first place... meaning it untaps, and you'd have the chance to do so again.
Did they outlaw the Chaos Confetti trick? I feel like they should have...
Here's another: Miracle is a triggered ability that must resolve before the spell is cast. While that ability is on the stack, the Miracle card is still in the player's hand, meaning you can use Vendilion Clique to deny a Miracle spell
@@timothymclean The card is banned in all formats so essentially yes
Wow, that Goblin Test Pilot interaction is very anti-intuitive. I don't know of any other situation in Magic where you can just "take back" something for benefit.
I didn't realize "Set to X Life" was treated as Life Gain/Loss for effect triggers and replacements
Love the channel, your production value and narration are excellent. Glad you branched out into MTG
That was legitimately fascinating, started playing YGO due to your videos 2 years ago and I think you'll get me into Magic soon lol
The Cleanup Step itself has sub steps. So: If you turn your Mirage Mirror into a reliquary tower and have 9 cards in hand. The check for hand size occurs first. And then you remove all "until end of turn effects." Leaving you with 9 cards in hand, and no Reliquary Tower. However, if something still triggered in the cleanup step, then a second full cleanup step will happen, and you'll need to discard.
I always wondered why Humilty and Opalescensce had weird official interactions. Thanks for explaining!
And for more "fun," the last ruling regarding that interaction begins with the worryingly specific line, "This is the *current* interaction between Humility and Opalescence" (emphasis mine).
Blood Moon is the worst for me, because its actual effect is defined in the rulebook, not on the card, even though there's *more* than enough space to define it. To know how blood moon works, you need to know at least two bits of specific, obscure rules text - that when lands "become" other land types, they lose their existing types and all other abilities, and second that gaining a basic land type also causes a card to gain that type's inherent mana ability. Neither of these things are intuitive, especially if you're coming from another game where card types don't have inherent meaning. Bare minimum, Blood Moon should say "Non-basic lands are mountains with 'T: Add R', and lose all other land types and abilities".
Wouldn't need the "T: add R to your mana pool", but otherwise, yeah, it Should say "And loses all other land types and abilities". Same for Song of the Dryads.
@@calemr No, recent wordings like any new Sol Ring from the past 2-4 years don’t specify the mana pool. This has been a thing since Core Set 2019 I think
@@brittanynguyen3794 I'm saying that because it has the type "Mountain", it doesn't need to tell you that you can tap it for red.
It could have it as reminder text, but it's not needed as rules text.
@@calemr It's poor game design to require the player to (theoretically) look up another card to know how it now works. Even if it's as basic as what a Mountain does.
@@Skasaha_ So is the Mountain card itself bad? It doesn't have "{T}: Add {R} to your mana pool" any more.
Knowing what a basic land does is part of the core rules, you don't need to print "This is how much you need to pay" next to every card's mana cost.
One important thing about the krark clan interaction is that you can cast a spell that cost less than four mana as well. You can activate more Mana abillities than is strictly required.
I love how straight to the point this channel is, i will watch your growth with great curiosity
A fun weird rulling would be for lingering souls and any other flashback card.
If your opponent has a scavenging ooze you can cast lingering souls, hold priority after the spell resolves, then activate flash back without your opponent being able to eat the card in the graveyard.
This is due to flash back being an ability that moves lingering souls from the graveyard to the stack, as well as the whole priority situation if you are casting it during your own turn.
This got me a win in a GP years ago in modern against a jund player who sat on 1 green mana to activate his ooze, he couldn't beat 4 fliers.as well as the other creatures I had on board.
Also priority is a super weird rule in general but a necessary one.
Excellent analysis video! I love hearing baout weird rulings like this! Thanks for uploading!
Some of my favorite complicated rules interactions are Modal Double Faced cards (and Adventure cards, for which much of the same rulings apply). MDFs are double faced cards, for which each side can be cast. Unlike split cards, which combine the characteristics of both spells, only their front face is considered for characteristics when not being played as the back side. For example, there's a series of MDF cards that are a land on the back side, and a spell on the front. These MDF lands interact pretty differently with certain effects that are otherwise considered pretty interchangeable. For example, Crucible of Worlds is an artifact that lets you play lands from your graveyard, while Wrenn and Six is a planeswalker that lets you return a land from your graveyard to your hand each turn. Wrenn doesn't work with the MDF lands, as it only sees a spell, and can't target the land. Crucible does work, however. Crucible is effectively just a permission change, saying that now it is a valid action to play lands from your graveyard, so by the same rules interactions that let you cast the land side of the MDF from your hand works there as well. Additionally, there's cards like Courser of Kruphix, which reveals the top card of your library, and lets you play lands from the top of your library. Again, its a permission change. A similar effect, Coiling Oracle, reveals the top card of your library, and then puts it into play if its a land or into your hand if its not, will always put the MDF land into your hand, as it fails the "if its a land" check.
Other MDF cards are spells on both sides, and in the case of Valki, God of Lies, a very cheap creature on the front, and a very expensive planeswalker on the back. This card singlehandedly led to a rules change on how cascade works. Previously, cascade had you reveal cards until you revealed a nonland card with a lower mana value than the cascading card, then let you cast that card for free. This meant you could cascade into Valki, and since it just let you cast that card for free, you could decide to cast the back side instead. This rule was changed to instead allow you to cast that spell for free if it is cheaper than the cascading spell. This double check finding a cheaper spell, then casting it if it is cheaper sounds extremely strange, but it prevents this exact interaction. There is one card that continues to work with Valki called Bring to Light. It lets you search for a creature, instant or sorcery with mana value less than or equal to the number of colors used to cast Bring to Light, and then cast that card for free. Bring to Light is especially interesting, because it doesn't even allow you to get planeswalkers, but because of that single check, it doesn't matter. Valki passes the check when it is first found, and then Bring to Light doesn't care what happens when you go to cast the chosen spell.
Another particularly interesting case are adventures with Kess, Dissident Mage. Adventures are an instant or sorcery within a creature (or artifact, more recently). You can cast the adventure side, at which has a special replacement effect, exiling the creature on an adventure, which lets you cast that creature from exile later. Kess says that once a turn, you may cast an instant or sorcery from your graveyard, and if you do exile it instead of putting it anywhere else. Even though Kess's can only be used once per turn, it's just a blanket permission change, rather than something that targets. Additionally, the adventure clause letting you cast the creature from exile means that you can actually get the cards cast with Kess back as their creature half. It's also notable that like Crucible and Wrenn for the MDF lands scenario, there are many cards similar to Kess that don't work with adventures. Snapcaster Mage needs to target an instant or sorcery in the graveyard. Past in Flames gives an ability to instants and sorceries allowing them to be cast, but adventures are considered creatures and don't receive the ability. Lurrus functions similar to Kess, but with permanents, and since its a permission change, it only lets you cast the creature side of adventure cards, not the adventure itself.
I love MDFs and adventures for being high flexibility cards with some powerful interactions, but they definitely have a lot of cases where two abilities players consider interchangeable actually interact differently when it comes to MDFs/adventures.
Dang, when I was a kid, we used to gripe over mono-artifacts, banding, and phasing. This is some true next level stuff.
Maybe not that much of a nightmare, but one of my favorite rules oddities is the card "Riding the Dilu Horse", which is a sorcery that gives a creature +2/+2 and horsemanship. However, they forgot to write "until end of turn" on the card, so this effect just lasts indefinitely and you must keep track of it somehow.
A couple of more recent cards do that sort of thing on purpose. Generally not ones that are so easy to forget, though
In yugioh that kind of effect is very very common
That's way more common in mtg now, with Ikoria's ability counters
@@williamdrum9899 Ah, but those add counters. a permanent 'object', if you will, within the game itself. they can be removed by effects, have copies of them put on by effects such as proliferate and count towards card effects that count the number of counters on creatures. You cannot interact with the effects of Riding the Dilu Horse once it has resolved, it basically erratas the target
@@kisukebomb3750 Fair enough. There was a spell from the original Theros block that did this too, it brought a creature back from the graveyard and made it indestructible.
That was the best kci explanation I've ever heard.
Also another weird ruling with blood moon is it and spreading seas, and how those two stack.
What I love about MDFC’s is that they don’t work with transforming double faced cards (moonmist)... and Kamigawa’s flip cards introduce another axis... and that face down dual sided cards can exist only if they entered that way (see manifest rulings)... which all means that in theory, Wizards could make a card that has all 4 mechanics. It’d be a rules nightmare, impossible to represent on a real piece of cardboard, and probably never see the light of day, but you could have a card with 9 sides. Two castable sides, each with 2 transform states, each with two flip orientations, as well as being playable as a 2/2 “facedown” creature. Future unset potential?
Holy shit, I would kill for an unset like this. Absolute anarchy for anyone that doesn't have total rules knowledge.
Arena only unset, bonus points if each combination of states was different but probably impossible to do without driving the devs insane (coders AND card designers), and the flavor text of "...please...kill...me.."
This video is extremely helpful. Now I understand some of the games rulings better.
Honorable mention has to go to four horsemen. It doesn't really break any game rules or cause any issues but rather it all becomes a judgmental call simply because you fail to show a progression in the game state yet at the same time still progressing to your wincon.
Very similar to YGO's pole position lock.
15:56 "so all 4 of these enchantments" TIMESSTAMPS A GOGOGO!
I feel like Goblin Test Pilot should have been on this list. The interaction with Suppression Field is bizarre. Honorable mention to Lazav and flipped cards, as well as Brainstorm/Sylvan Library. I think there’s definitely enough to make a part 2
Also Chains of Mephisto
@@Atmapalazzo i was suprised about no chains
Yeah like anvil of bogardan + chains of mephistopheles is a weird rules interaction. Sylvan library sounds simple, but then you read the full effect carefully and realize it's any card you've drawn this turn can be put back, not just cards that it drew you. So if you somehow drew like 20 cards in your upkeep or something, then resolved the effect of sylvan library you can put any of those cards you drew that turn back.
@@dark_rit Until you realize that Library say also "If you do", which means any replacement effect actually makes it so you never drew with Library and get to keep them all, no life or strings attatched. Library and Teferi's Ageless Insight is a fun rules explanation.
Amazing video. I enjoy top 10 lists that teach me something more than those that just list boring performance stats. Thank you very much hope to see more lists in this style in the future.
One that I recently learned: Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor says that "target land becomes an X/X Elemental creature with trample and haste." My opponent used Needle Spire, making Needle Spire into a 2/1 Elemental with double strike. They then used Obuun to make it an X/X Elemental with trample, haste, and double strike. I attempted to correct it, assuming it worked like other polymorphs like Darksteel Mutation, but nope, after looking at rulings, it does actually keep the double strike. Darksteel specifically says it removes all abilities, where Obuun doesn't.
As a Hearthstone player, I was used to the fact that changing a creature into another creature gets rid of everything, and given that's how MOST polymorphs in Magic also work, you can imagine my confusion when learning that
Both abilites have the all-important reminder, "It's still a land." It may be part creature now, but as long as the target is a land, it takes into account any other abilities the land had, like Cascading Cataracts having Indestructible. Especially powerful with card like Inkmoth Nexus, which can become an X/X with Haste, Trample, Flying, and Infect.
You know I've watched a few videos like this and I've always been like "nah, that's not that bad, that's stuff you just pick up after a while." But no, this list is mostly stuff that I didn't know and couldn't have sussed out. Nice video!
#3 just makes me happy that resolving the issues with Pole Position in YGO is way easier than that mess. :P
Finally, a video about complicated rulings that are actually complicated!! The only one I knew about was the humility ruling and thats because my friend recently got himself a humility and then asked the question about it getting turned into a creature. This video is a must watch for newer and older players alike!
minus the urbog vs blood moon, how are so many players unnable to understabd that urborg loses his ability to blood moon because it is also a land
Some true rules nightmares are:
-Equinox, for requering future vision
-Season of the Witch+Silent Arbiter, because nobody known how many creatures should be destroyed
Season of the Witch + Silent Arbiter kills everything that didn't attack. Silent Arbiter doesn't prevent creatures from being declared as attackers, it just prevents you from choosing how many attackers are declared.
This was superb. Thank you.
The ruling that I instantly thought of was Merfolk Trickster vs. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove.
I still struggle to understand layers.
MtG Video idea: Top 10 Funny Gatherer Rulings. Things like:
Void Winnower "Yes, your opponent can't even. We know."
Queen Marchesa several "(long may she reign)"
Sleeper Agent "This card is a bit weird."
Falling Star "It must flip like a coin and not like a Frisbee."
Candles of Leng "Unless something weird happens..."
Arni Brokenbrow "Arni strenuously objects to this course of action."
Jadelight Ranger "...If you don’t pretend to be surprised, you’ll hurt Jadelight Ranger’s feelings."
Revel in Riches "If the second ability of Revel in Riches causes you to win the game, please refrain from throwing your Treasure tokens into the air as this may distract or injure other players."
Harmless Offering "Your opponent can’t refuse your generous donation."
Mairsil the Pretender "If Mairsil has an equip ability, activating it won’t cause anything to happen. Mairsil doesn’t become attached to a creature. They may remain friends."
Professor Onyx "If Professor Onyx seems familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen this Type of planeswalker before."
and my personal pet favorite card ever Throes of Chaos "Throes of Chaos does nothing as it resolves. All of its chaos happens before it resolves."
Rankle, Master of Pranks: "If you really want, you may choose zero modes for Rankle's triggered ability, but carefully consider the hidden costs in not entertaining someone titled Master of Pranks"
Search for Blex: "While resolving Search for Blex, you may put any number of the cards into your hand, even if you don't have enough life to cover it. We'll assume you have a plan that's better than "and then I'll lose the game."
The Meathook Massacre: "If The Meathook Massacre enters the battlefield and it wasn't cast (or it was cast without paying the mana cost), X will be 0. The first ability will trigger, but it won't be much of a massacre"
Ledger Shredder: "Don't play with this card near any important paperwork. We can't take responsibility for what happens."
Tovolar, Dire Overlord: "The second ability of Tovolar, Dire Overlord seems a little strange because Tovolar and other Human Werewolf creatures in this set transform when it becomes night anyway. Tovolar, however, isn't content to transform Werewolf creatures from just one set. This ability will allow you to transform Human Werewolf creatures from previous visits to Innistrad as well."
Domri, Chaos Bringer: Multiple instances of haste on the same creature are redundant, but we're not going to tell the Gruul how to live their lives.
Regarding the Wandering Fumarole and any pumping spells, you have to use the stack to determine the values, not the timestamps. If you turn it to a creature, this ability goes on the stack, then it resolves. You can only flip the P/T if it is a creature with the ability, and therefore already a 1/4. If you then try to pump it with a spell BEFORE swaping the P/T with Sure Strike, the instant will resolve and the creature will be a 4/4, and so it will be if you respond to the swaping. However, if you first swap, resolve and then pump the creature, it will be a 7/1. Layers and timestamps only apply to continous effects from permanents, because the stack prevents the overlaping.
Also, if a preceeding effect had an earlier timestamp that has negative effects, such as Elesh Norn and you turn to creature and flip it, it will die before you can apply the bonus stats from Sure Strike.
This is not true. The layers were explained in the video. Effects that swap power and toughness always apply after every other increase or decrease, regardless of the order in which the effects happened.
It *used* to be how you said it was but that hasn't been the case anymore for years now.
@@fernandobanda5734 are you serious? So if I turn wandering fumarole into a 1/4 creature on first main phase, switch it to a 4/1 until end of turn, go through combat, then on my second main phase, cast sure strike on it, I get a 4/4? That's absolutely asinine if true.
@@anthonyjs8048 Yes. The logic is that remembering what effects apply and then switching them in the end is much simpler than having to remember if each individual pump was made before or after the swap, especially for things like Fumarole that can swap multiple times.
@@fernandobanda5734 well thank you for responding! Yea I remember further back when damage used the stack, morphing shenanigans could be painful to keep track of haha.
I instinctively get angry when i see Humility, i also get incredibly happy whenever panglacial wurm/ Selvala ruling comes up so all is good.
0:25 correction. It can also be blocked by creatures that have reach
This is interesting because sometimes reach is described "(...) can block as though it had flying" so saying a creature can only be blocked by creatures with flying would indeed include creatures with reach. Though I don't see any cards with this specific reminder text so I don't know where this comes from (perhaps it was simplified to remove complexity in understanding?)
@@SilveraLordzFlying is an older mechanic than reach. When they introduce a new mechanic they always add a description of what it does. Latter on, once people have gotten used to it, they just put the keyword. Reach acts like flying only when blocking, but at no other times.
One of my favorite interactions is magus of the moon being imprisoned into the moon.
It turns into a colorless land, then turns itself into a mountain (losing its own ability in the process) then loses the ability to tap for red (and can tap for colorless). And I think its ability, while removed, still affects other lands.
great video, there was some points i didnt even know about myself with over 10 years play expirience :D i love to learn ruling stuff like this! hope i see more of this ^^
Honestly, there could several videos like these! Y'all ever read Illusionary Mask? One of the cases in MTG where the updated rules text only serves to make it even harder to understand.
Or Dead Ringers. Dead Ringers is always fun.
Wasn't Illusionary Mask banned until the rules department could figure out what it actually did?
That was an amazing video. Well done!
I have played Magic since 1996, and rulings like this still confuse me today!
you described those nightmare scenarios so clearly I understood them first thing in the morning
When you bounce a creature token with Recoil, the token actually goes to the player's hand, because a token ceasing to exist is a state-based effect (and cannot happen while Recoil resolves). However! The player cannot discard the token, because the token is not a card, and recoil specifies that the player has to discard a card.
I love that half of this is just explaining the Magic the Gathering version of PEMDAS
My favorite weird ruling is if you have a magus of the moon out and someone casts oko thief of crowns and uses his second ability to “elk” the magus turning it into a 2/2 and losing all its abilities you’d think the magus would no longer be making all the non basics into mountains but due to ✨layers✨ the magus’ ability will actually still be in effect turning all nonbasics into mountains. It’s super weird and looks like you’re cheating but it’s true
You need to do a part 2.
1. Cloning a creature with Frog spell with a characteristic ability makes a 1/1 and doesn't gain it's characteristic p/t.
2. casting Snap, in response you shroud the target, you don't draw a card. BUT Mangara + Karakas works fine.
3. Dryad Arbor
4. Gitrog Monster + Cleanup step + 8 cards in hand
5. worldgorger dragon + animate dead / 3 O-rings
6. Hellbent + lions eye diamond
7. opalessence + paralax wave/tide
8. Casting Vision Skeins to make an opponent draw their last card in their library ONLY if it was Emrakul after casting 1 billion copies of Brain Freeze.
9. Illusory mask/ice cauldron (trust system)
There are plenty more too.
1. Does it? Copy effects normally only copy original stats and copiable values (anything granted by another copy ability) right? It shouldn't get the stats from a continuous effect.
4. This one is hilarious
8. I'm not sure I get this one. If they draw in response to an Emrakul trigger, they lose. If they draw the Emrakul nothing special happens (they lose). Am I missing something?
@@fernandobanda5734 imagine this: cast 1 billion copies of brain freeze, targetting your opponent. Your opponent has 1 emrakul in their library, and if it is milled it will shuffle their graveyard into thie library, this never milling out to draw a card with an empty library on their next draw step.
However, what are the odds of emrakul being the Last card of their library, so when it gets milled they have 0 cards remaining in their library? Could I in response to this rare event make you draw a card (e.g. vision skeins) and lose the game?
There is a weird ruling for "non repeating infinites" and this is legally not allowed if it goes over a certain time or iterations.
@@fernandobanda5734 1. yes, try it yourself in arena
@@ChuggaChoo Thanks for the clarification. I honestly don't know what would happen. Non-deterministic loops are banned when you are doing them on purpose. But in this case, the Brain Freezes are already on the stack. No player is actively doing anything to continue the loop. I guess they just have to play it out.
But what if Humility and the two Opalescences enter the battlefield at the same time?
In that case you decide the relative timestamp order as they enter. If they belong to different players then the cards that belong to turn players will have an earlier timestamp by default and it goes around in turn order..
@@samueledefilippo9955 thank you! I actually didn't know this. I would have to look it up lol
Took Humility completely out of my Replenish deck for this very reason. Not worth the time and rules were even more convoluted in 2000.
Thanks for asking this question!
I dont play Magic. But I watch so much magic content. I mostly figured out every of this ruling nightmares thanks to Judging FtW 's Channel. I love this
Equinox is really confusing. It's an enchantment that enchants a land that can tap to counter a spell that would destroy a land.
The confusing part is that the wording of the card commands you to see into the future, because it can't counter if there's any option the spell couldn't destroy the land.
Random Card Talking made a great video about it, where it gives some ridicoulus examples in addtion.
Equinox works on faith alone
My understanding is that it will work on "Destroy target land" and "Destroy all lands" and that's it
@@williamdrum9899it also works with destroy target permanent
Excellent video. Iblove the inclusion of layers. That has been an issue for decades.
The ruling on Omniscience regarding Trinisphere is wrong on Magic's part. "Without paying the mana cost" doesn't say the mana cost is 0. Trinisphere can go right ahead and make the cost 3. And I'm casting it without paying the cost. Cost is the same. I'm not paying. It's right there in the wording. So the ruling is just... wrong.
Yeah I don't understand why the ruling is that the mana cost is 0... wouldn't it make more sense to replace the mana payment step rule 601.2h with nothing? So dumb
"Opposition agent" has a really weird
Rule 716.4 still applies for the agent even though it's not a "mindslaver" effect
"If information about an object in the game would be visible to the player being controlled, it’s visible to both that player and the controller of the player. If information about cards outside the game would be visible to the player being controlled, it’s visible only to that player, not the controller of the player."
th agent states you control them while you search which allows you to look at their hand,face down cards, and play from top effects if its face down, while you are searching. even though its not stated in the cards rules.
Next complication in your Selvala/Wurm scenario: what if Panglacial Wurm is the top card of your library when you cast Demonic Tutor? Panglacial Wurm leaves your library to go to the stack before paying for costs, so you'll end up drawing the second card in library with Selvala. If you ended up failing to cast because of the randomized nature of Selvala (thus replacing Panglacial Wurm to the library), you'll have sniped your second card with an ability that should only be able to get the top card
Gotta love the sweet sweet knowledge pool
"Move to trinisphere step?"
The logical contradiction resolving to a game state that looks like a glitch is an absolute gamedev mood.
>dont play panglacial wurm because its confusing
dude, that is literally the best reason to play it, i strive to make decks that will have judges pull there hair out trying to figure out whats going on, its one of the reasons MTG is so amazing because chaos decks are not only a thing you can make, its an entire god damned archetype designed specifically to fuck with the game and the board state as much as possible.
Thanks for the video. Just a suggestion: reading something different than what you are speaking can be confusing.
I don’t care if they say “Rain of Gore” doesn’t trigger off Lifelink. I recognize that the council has made a decision. But it’s a stupid-ass decision and I’m electing to ignore it.
Same. The ABILITY is what is causing the life gain. It feels like the dumbest of hoops to jump through to say "well technically, the combat damage is what is causing the life gain" yeah... because of the ability!!!
When I saw the title, I knew that Humility would be toward the top of the list. I love my Humility deck, and I get a kick out of the rulings for it every time I look at its page in Gatherer
Surprised we didn't see Chains of Mephistopheles, the card that's such a meme for being confusing that there are actual flow charts to explain how it works
It's not really a ruling confusion though. It's just incredibly wordy. The flowchart makes it so easy to understand, and it's not a big chart either.
Sgut up with your meme crap, grow up
Would love a series like this of things to know for the judge test
Just discovered your channel and I love it. Keep up the great work this video was an instant sub from me!!
It bothers me how many people don't understand that, if you counter my Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, I CAN still exile two permanents.
My favourite rulings nightmare is casting Brainstorm during your upkeep while you control Sylvan Library. Sylvan Library requires you to keep track of which cards in your hand were drawn this turn. Brainstorm is an instant that both draws cards *and* puts cards from your hand on top of your library, where they can be drawn again by the Sylvan Library trigger. This requires very carefully handling your cards to ensure you don't cause a problem with the judges.
Why they didn't errata Sylvan Library to not actually draw the cards is beyond me. Clearly wizards is ok with rules changes hosing entire strategies (see Sunforger with split cards) but not card erratas.
The other aspect of Panglacial Wurm is that the basic aspect to cards is their effects only work while in play (or cast for instant/sorceries) and it's search line doesn't state it can be used while not in play.
A good way to think about Rain of Gore and Lifelink as a player is to remember that Lifelink is a keyword, not an ability. IF I'm reading the comprehensive rules right, keywords and abilities are similar, but not the same. Now granted that's a big if because that document is about as big as War & Peace, but I'm fairly certain they're classified as two different things.
I thought I knew a lot about this game, but I learned a lot of new things from this video. Ironworks interaction with Myr Retriever is really neat, as well as Auras and Curses not needing to target anything when they are not cast, and Morph being a Special Action that doesn't use the stack, and also beats out Split Second. I knew that Trinisphere applied after cost reduction, but I didn't know the complete cost modification order. In spite of playing Trinisphere in the Sideboard regularly. The Layer System is also genius.
Timestamps can also come into play with Blood Moon. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove is an example I ran into several times when playing Modern. If the opponent has played his Dryad after my Blood Moon, then his nonbasic lands first become Mountains, and then they gain all other land types. If I now play a second Blood Moon afterwards, all his nonbasic lands just become Mountains again.
Another really interesting thing is state based actions. Many old cards that have basically lifelink don't actually have lifelink. (At least not anymore, they changed the errata back to the original printed wording.) Lifelink is a static ability, while these older cards have triggered abilites that use the stack. If you have a 6/2 creature with the Enchantment Spirit Link that says: "Whenever enchanted creature deals damage, you gain that much life.", and you are at 1 life and block a 5/5 trample with it, you loose the game as a state based action, because you hit zero or less life, before the Spirit Link ability goes on the stack. If your creature had actual life link, you would survive.
I heard about the Panglacial Wurm thing before, and another really funny thing is only finding 2 cards with Gifts Ungiven. Oh, and Trample and Deathtouch, which allows you to only deal one damage to the blocking creature and the rest to the player, since one damage is leathal damage with deathtouch.
This whole video is just mindblowing. Layers and Timestamps are a genius way to resolve these crazy paradoxes.
But citing people making mistakes when it comes to the rules as a reason for banning Crak-Clan Ironworks is a joke. When it's such a common card, people, especially judges, should just learn the darn rules... It was mainly banned because the deck was really strong I hope.
I'm sorry if I made any errors in my musings, I'm not a judge, but it's what I read online and been tought by other players.
tell me that you asking people to lear this rules was a joke please
@@golem001px buhuuu, jesus
Let me be passionate about something, how does it hurt you?
Get a life. You don't need to read this shit or watch this video.
Nice video! :) Really enjoyed the humility/opalescence one!
One note, the background video for this #6 was much more distracting/unpleasant than normal.
Regarding Zur, I knew that he’d allow auras to enchant things, but I figured that was an errata on the card, I love that it works in general as that can allow for my extremely annoying aura pin down decks to be even more annoying by pinning down hexproof creatures.
I knew about blood moon’s replacement effects
I was aware that unmorphing was a special action but I never put thought into what that would mean and how that could apply while split second cards were on the stack. I absolutely love the fact that split second cards can be countered.
I knew about Trinisphere but I never knew how it interacted with convoke so I’m very glad to know how that works now.
I did not know that until end of turn effects like switching power and toughness applied to effects that boost power and toughness after that, I had assumed that the card essentially had it’s base power and toughness replaced until end of turn and so you could apply other effects after that base.
I did not know that the owner of a permanent got to choose which replacement effect would apply. I assume that means wheel of sun and moon could be used as a secret tech card against Kalitas which I find to be pretty cool.
I don’t think I knew about the Krack-Clan Ironworks ruling, but I absolutely love that interaction with myr retriever.
I knew about the humility, opalescence interaction but I never thought about it with multiple opalescence on that battlefield, so having the different cards have different power and toughness is extremely interesting to me.
I don’t remember ever seeing rain of gore, but when I saw it the interaction made perfect sense. Mostly because I know that slightly different wording can have strange effects on the rules.
Panglacial Wurm is a card that I had buried deep in the depths of my subconscious. Seeing it again though, I do wonder what kind of crazy interactions you could make happen with it. Such as if you used lion’s eye diamond to cast it and discarded a madness card could you then also cast the madness card while searching your library? I’d love to see all the crazy things that could be done with Panglacial Wurm.
Where has this channel been all my life
woah what up wow top 10 guy glad u finally made a mtg channel
blood moon also follows the humility rules. If your opponent plays dryad of the illisian grove after you play blood moon, it’s effect applies. If they play it before, then blood moon applies
Another weird interaction is Jeskai infliltraitor. If you take control of it and trigger it’s ability, despite shuffling the two facedown cards, your opponent is still required to know which one is theirs, requiring you to know the results of a randomized shuffle. Or if it triggers to flip a commander face down, the table is required to know which manifest is the commander and it would still deal commander damage
Dryad will still affect basic lands*
A video (series) explaining different keywords (and maybe how impactful they are)? There are so many keywords I can't keep up, and I like your style of explaining (big fan of your banned card list and failed card mechanic list in Yu-Gi-Oh, and I don't even play that).
You missed Splicing Veil of Secrecy onto a Disrupting Shoal.
Splice onto Arcane is a fascinating mechanic that has its own rabbit hole.
Specially the steps when a shoal is being cast. Example is Disrupting Shoal with a Veil of Secrecy spliced on. Let’s say you have a reflector mage on the battlefield and you want to counter a spell that costs 3. This casting process lets you exile from your hand the creature you are returning from your hand as you choose the order in how you pay costs.
It’s also counter intuitive if you have a a card like Hinata. So basically you can use Hinata itself as the card to return to your hand and exile to pay for the alternate cost of the shoal with the veil of secrecy spliced on it since you lock the costs of the spell once you announce how the spell is going to be cast.
Splice has its own step in the casting process. Making it the the second thing you have to announce as you cast the spell (the first is the card you are going to use to splice onto)
Later you announce the modes and targets. The spell gets cost locked and you proceed to pay for alternate costs and mana abilities last.
Something else interesting is what happens when you Splice onto an Epic spell. There are only two cards that can do it, Everdream and Splicer's Skill. What happens is that for the rest of the game on your upkeep you cast that Epic spell, including any text spliced onto it. An extra 3/3 or card draw each upkeep can be pretty powerful additions.
@@connorhamilton5707 ooo... that seems fun.
@@connorhamilton5707 Splice onto Instant and Sorcery is problematic due to being so wide open causing extra complexity with so many mechanics.
I like the limits of arcane so at least you can contain the complexity creep.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR AMAZING VIDEOS!!!
I was disappointed you didn't get into layers when talking about blood moon, and how it still works even if you remove its effect. Glad you circled back around to it.
I actually came across the first interaction, the aura entering attached to a permanent, thanks to Academy Rector. Slamming ENSLAVE from your deck on a Simic Sky Swallower and completely turning a game around back in like 2008 was a big deal lol
From what i have been told by judges, your explanation of the blood moon / urborg interaction isnt quite that simple even, and due to th - if i remember orrectly theyre called "layers" of state based actions - the outcome depends on which is in play first - if blood moon is out first, its just a mountain, but if urborg is out first, it has already applied the swamp type, before it loses the ability to do so, and as such is a basic mountain that also has the swamp type, along with every other land already in play
There are three factors at play: layers, dependency and timestamps. Urborg + Blood Moon uses dependency, not timestamps.
The crazy bastard tried to tackle layers. Bravo!
Arbor Elf's ability to untap a Forest is not a mana ability, so you have to use it before you try to cast spells. Which most of the time is not a problem, since you know what you are going to cast. Unless you use for example Chandra, Torch of Defiance's ability to look the top card of your library and decide whether to cast it or have the opponent take 2 damage. What if you possibly wanted to attack with Arbor Elf, if the top card of your library is not worth casting or impossible to cast, like when it's too expensive, or it's a land, which can only be played, not cast.
I'm no judge, but I'm pretty sure it works that way sadly.
I have been playing Magic for roughly three years now. I've played hundreds of decks and played with my friends many times. To this day we are still learning new rulings. Magic is such a old and vast game with unique rulings. You can really "break" the game using enough weird cards and rulings. Nothing is static if you don't want it to be. It's awesome. We've had to pause quite a few games to pull up the rulings on interactions and ability nonsense just so we could confirm. 🤣
It's funny, I remember seeing a video of some huge weird combo that resulted in you getting a card on the battlefield that has no color, no creature type, is not an enchantment, sorcery, artifact or creature. Its just like, a card that is on the field with no further properties beyond that. Breaking mtg and ygo can be very funny lol
I’m sorry, is this the same guy who does World Of Warcraft videos?!? Love this guy!
Some cool rules interactions include Sylvan Library + Pursuit of Knowledge (skip all 3 draws from the Library, you don’t pay any penalty for not putting anything back, and then you can draw 7 with Pursuit), Tangle Wire + Smokestack (you can order the effects for all players and really screw people), and does anyone know what really happens when Knowledge Pool, Possibility Storm, and Shared Fate are all in play at once?
My favourite from recent time is Ashaya, soul of the wild enchanted with witness protection... its kinda like that humility example you made. Iirc your creatures stay forests, even ashaya but she becomes a 1/1
Cool video. A suggestion for another cool interaction you could delve into: what happens when in a game of commander, you try to activate a wheel of fortune while both you and multiple opponents have cards such as Notion Thief in play?
I don't know if this is how it works, but it's what makes sense to me. You may activate Selvala while casting a spell if the number of possible nonlands on top of libraries are equal to or less than the mana you would need to cast the spell. This could of course be very high in multiplayer (the intent, considering the set it's from). But a little stipulation; if you announce casting Panglacial Wurm while shuffling, you will know what the top card of your library is. If you would need mana equal to the number of players to cast the Wurm, and your top card is a land, you would be knowingly performing an illegal action.
I like the scenario of searching, going to cast Panglacial Wurm, then using Millikin to mill the top card of your deck putting something that shuffles back in like an Eldrazi titan.
So now you're searching, casting a spell and shuffling all at the same time which as stated you're not supposed to do while searching your library.
Now that's an extreme edge case that makes anyone scratch their heads.
Surely the interaction between Trinisphere and Omniscience would go: You have a card in hand that costs 1B, Trinisphere is untapped so the card that would have cost 1B instead costs 2B, but Omniscience allows you to cast that spell from your hand *without paying it's mana cost* even though that cost has been modified to 3 instead of 2.
The process for determining modified costs is that you apply the cost increases, then the cost decreases, then if that cost is less than 3 it costs 3 instead. This *modifies the cost* which means you can still ignore this cost with omniscience. If Trinisphere were an *additional cost* to cast a spell then it would be different, but the example baked into the card makes it really clear that the text "costs 3 mana to cast" is modifying the existing cost. The example says the final cost to cast the spell would be 2B, and omniscience says we may play cards from our hands without paying their mana costs. The idea that a card like Omniscience "sets the cost to zero" is simply not what it does. It's not in it's rulings on gatherer and it's not mentioned in the general rules for costs. You just don't have to pay the cost period.
Omnicience (and other "cast without paying its mana cost" effects), aren't actually part of the cost increase/decrease system at all, but rather they provide an _alternate_ cost (of 0) to cast the spell. There are no cost increases or decreases to consider, you just start with a cost of 0, and this is less than 3, so Trinisphere bumps it up to 3.
This applies to any alternate cost. For instance, when Trinisphere is in play, you can cast Force of Will by exiling a blue card from your hand, paying a life, and 3 mana.
@@mrphlip Ok you and the video may be right, but only because the definitions of the different costs are not very clearly defined even once you dig into the real rules.
Rule 601.2f reads: The player determines the total cost of the spell. Usually this is just the mana cost. Some spells have additional or alternative costs. Some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay, or may provide other alternative costs. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. The total cost is the mana cost, or alternative cost (as determined in rule 601.2b), plus all additional costs and cost increases, and minus all cost reductions. If multiple cost reductions apply, the player may apply them in any order. If the mana component of the total cost is reduced to nothing by cost reduction effects, it is considered to be 0. It cant be reduced to less than 0. Once the total cost is determined, any effects that directly affect the total cost are applied. Then the resulting total cost becomes locked in. If effects would change the total cost after this time, they have no effect.
The relevant part is where it mentions "mana costs," which are apparently different from the "total cost." This would have been a lot more obvious if Omniscience had said "converted mana cost" instead of just "mana cost," in fairness.
The reason this is confusing is because the rulings for Omniscience itself say: "If you cast a spell “without paying its mana cost,” you can't choose to cast it for any alternative costs. You can, however, pay additional costs, such as kicker costs. If the card has any mandatory additional costs, such as that of Tormenting Voice, those must be paid to cast the card."
It literally says in gatherer that you don't and cant pay alternate costs. It wouldn't make sense for Omniscience to be an "alternate cost," and in fact it isn't one. It does not set the Mana Cost value of the cost calculation "to zero," it simply removes it from the equation completely. It's just that it removes a *different value* from the equation than was implied.
That's semantics, I guess (null vs 0), so at the end of the day you're right, but I still maintain that most people saying that it is an "alternate cost of 0" are just as wrong and are simply getting the right answer on accident lol.
@@McCaffeteria The relevant rule is 118.9, which defines alternative costs. The definition explicitly includes "without paying its mana cost" effects.
The gatherer ruling isn't the best worded (but then, gatherer rulings, like reminder text, are just informative, and aren't as rigorous as the actual CR). It's trying to get across that you can't use any _other_ alt costs with Omniscience, because Omniscience is already an alt cost and you can only use one.
This was very cool video. My head hurts now.
One of my favorites is the gitrog dredge combo, specifically using an 8 card hand and discarding during cleanup repeatedly to win in your end step at instant speed. The entirety of gitrog combos are full of ruling edge cases
I didnt play MtG over 15 years, and still watch whole video :)
Its not logical that you have to pay 3 mana from Trinisphere if you have Omniscience. It Omniscience wording would be you cast it for 0 mana, than yes, cost should pay 3 mana (as its go from 0 to 3). But it say play without paying mana cost, so it dont matter if 1,3,15 mana, you should not pay it.
What you pay for the spell is not the "mana cost". Trinisphere doesn't care about mana cost, it cares about the final total cost. "Without paying its mana cost" is not a special phrase that makes the costs be bypassed or anything. It just means you pay {0} instead of the normal mana cost, but *is* affected by cost increases and reductions.
There's another layer to the Zur interactions, with a card like Darksteel Mutation. As I understand it, if you use Zur to attach an enchantment like that onto a creature with relevant protection, the aura will fall off before it makes the creature lose the protection.
You couldn't choose to attach an aura to a permanent with protection from it in the first place. You have to choose something it could legally enchant.
Hirus voice is so iconic. Dudes the best kind of nerd and plays everything
One that needs to be discussed and isn't even addressed on Gatherer: Sacred Ground versus man-lands. (Whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls causes a land to be put into your graveyard from the battlefield, return that card to the battlefield.)
Treetop Village is hit by opponent's Terror. Does it come back? Yes. The Terror killed it.
Treetop Village is hit by opponent's Lightning Bolt. Does it come back? NO!!! Why? The Lightning Bolt did not cause the Treetop Village to die. The RULES OF MAGIC caused the land to die.
That's how I explained the Un-card "Rules Lawyer". I would summarize it as: "Creatures can only be removed by "destroy," "sac," or "exile" effects, damage and -x/-x won't work. And a player can only win or lose by card effect that says "win" or "lose" directly in its text."
@@williamdrum9899 wait... isn't removing a permanent that had been destroyed from the field also an SBA?
@@twistedtachyon5877 For effects like "Destroy target creature"? I've always thought that happens during the resolution of the spell. I don't know for sure, One way to find out would be to play on Arena and create the following scenario:
* Opponent controls Tarmogoyf
* There are exactly 2 card types in all graveyards, neither of which are Instant or Sorcery
* Cast an instant or Sorcery that says "Destroy target creature with power 2 or less" and see what happens
Want the power/toughness switch thing to be even more confusing? Try also playing Hearthstone. In Hearthstone, any power/toughness switch basically just takes whatever numbers are currently there and permanently writes them into the new column. This has an interesting interaction with aura effects that boost those values. Let's say you have what starts out as a 3/4 pirate and you have another minion that gives all pirates +1/+1. That original pirate will be a 4/5. If you then play a card that swaps the attack and health, it will then set the new base stats of the minion as a 5/4, then the aura effect will make it a 6/5.
When I saw a card on the screen that has a 0 mana activated ability to swap stats, my Hearthstone training momentarily thought about having a "creatures you control get +1/+1" effect and suddenly you have infinite stats. Then I remembered it works differently here.
Thanks for sharing, but that's a Hearthstone L if it works like that
Something else that confused me coming from Hearthstone: Polymorphs don't inherently remove abilities. This was even more confusing because most polymorphs, like Darksteel, do remove abilities, but if you used Obuun on a Needle Spires that has turned into a creature with it's own effect, it would keep the double strike.
@@TheMCGamer2012 Swapping stats isn't an overly useful ability in Hearthstone though. I haven't played lately, but one of the original Classic cards that made it unchanged throughout the base set revisions for years is simply a 2 mana 2/2 that swaps attack and health as a battlecry (effectively "when you cast this creature" in MTG terms). Crazed Alchemist, I believe. However, Hearthstone isn't as big on providing temporary buffs or a bunch of aura effects that a stat swap would convert into permanent stat increases. It's more of a niche interaction than anything, but certainly one to remember in case it does come up.