ask magic rules questions

i can try and answer questions about judging too, but i am mute irl, and so afaik i am unable to become a judge. so if you ask questions about judging, keep in mind i aint one.

i am trying out the name spike, and i use any pronouns (feel free to get freaky with it :3)

every month ill do a set of posts on a single topic. under the read more is a link to each of those posts. so are my tags by topics

anyways theres another take back "controversy" in top 8s of a pro tour event. and a lot of people who i could insult are saying that steuer's take back was cheating. im sure i could find a clip of it, but let me paint the scene as i honestly cant be arsed to find that clip.

larsen crews his worldwagon and attacks, getting like a million triggers. he tutors for a land, pumps the worldwagon, then uses dyadrine to kill off one of his earthbent lands. he plays this fast and loose. nathan responds to the earthbend trigger with his keen eyed curator to exile the land before it returns. theres a bit of confusion as for when this happens, and they are talking about the tiggers and making sure they both know whats going on.

to pay for the exile, nathan taps one of his lands, while explaining whats happening and iirc not even looking at his own board state. later on, but still potentially with the earthbend trigger on the stack, he realises he should have tapped one of his creatures instead of his non-creature land. he asks a judge if he can take back to change his tap, and the judge allows it.

i hope that makes sense. maybe getting a clip would have been easier than writing all of that.

anyways, to me, this seems pretty cut and dry as "yeah that take back is fine". this was the finals, there was a judge watching over the whole thing, and so you can apply context of the game to this call. even if you couldnt, no additional information would be gained from doing this.

but a lot of people are just thinking "take backs shouldnt be allowed at comp REL, ever". which is really what i want to talk about. because like, of course they should be allowed. i mean not only are these events long and grueling, but also lets think about the larsen vs steuer take back. if it wasnt allowed, then larsen would have gained an advantage due to him playing fast and loose. which would then set an example that if you rush things and have an unclear boardstate, then you can gain an advantage from that. what would this enable in players? and is that something we want in competitive magic?

we know that copying spells is weird. some things get copied, some not. how does this interact with converge?

if your third spell in a turn is lightning bolt from emeritus of ideation, it immediately becomes prepared again.

if a creature enters prepared and has an instant as its prepared spell, there is no chance to kill it before its controller gets to cast its prepared spell. the same is true for sorceries only if there isnt any trigger from entering.

uhhhh wotc hates judges and loves confusion, apparently. book is a new artifact subtype with no rules meaning and no cards that care about it. it also appears on codie, voracious codex - a popular commander. and so lots of people will think its a creature type and not understand the difference between creature and artifact types. like they do with food and shrines and a whole lot more.

emil vastlands roamer cares about differently named lands. unfortunately you cannot use lands in different languages that would have the same name. (eine insel ist ein ,,island'')

cards that say ``at the beginning of your end step, if a creature died this turn, ...'' can only trigger if a creature died before the end step. if nothing dies until the end step then you wont get this trigger

in SOS limited the best choice to name with petrified hamlet is probably terramorphic expanse. it can also hit the surveil effects of the common duals, the prepared effect of skycoach waypoint. and the animation of great hall of the biblioplex. in the commander product there are also cycling lands, this hits those too.

outside of strixhaven, petrified hamlet's etb is a triggered ability. so if you name a land then your opponent can respond with that land before it loses abilities. (which is bad against fetches)

if you habitually shuffle your hand after you draw, then you probably already know how that works with miracle. once the card is shuffled in you can no longer miracle it. ive heard judges say that as soon as it touches your hand its too late, but theyre lame so you should ignore them for casual EDH.

you can use mana sculpt on an uncounterable spell. it wont be countered, but you will still get mana next turn.

with repartee triggers, you should: target with your spell, then resolve triggers, then resolve the original spell.

storm counts spells all players cast. it counts spells that were countered. and if you have multiple instances of storm they do work together. storm, storm doubles up on the copies.

if you sac silverquill to causality then you dont get a copy of the spell. i imagine there will eventually be a zinnia / ashling limitless style eratta for silverquill due to this.

for the purposes of determining mana value, ``twobrid'' mana e.g. {2/G} counts as 2. so wildgrowth archaic (costs {2/G}{2/G}) mas a mana value of 4.

if a spell has multiple sources of affinity, they all apply. if you somehow have two copies of witherbloom, then each creature reduces the mana needed by 2.

it is an alternative cost (you cant mix and match alternative costs).

if a spell cast with flashback would leave the stack, it gets exiled instead. no memory lapsing or remanding a flashed back spell.

increment means whenever you cast a spell that cost more than this creature's power or toughness, put a +1/+1 counter on it. this spell may be a creature or noncreature.

the counter gets put on before the other spell resolves.

note that its the amount of mana spent on the spell, not the CMC. it counts kicker, but also evoke.

increment has an intervening if. you check if you spent enough mana both at time of casting and at time of resolution. your opponent can giant growth your creature to stop it from gaining counters.

increment will only trigger if it is on a creature. if your incrementer becomes a non-creature then nothing will trigger.

now, we just had ECL with blight as an additional cost. paying costs happens in the process of casting spells. this is best explained with a more full example.

this ability is much, much simpler than preparation cards so no read more needed.

as you resolve a spell with paradigm, you exile it. then at the beginning of each main phase you cast a copy of it.

the copy is of the spell as it existed on the stack. so if you use an everdream or similar to add text to the original spell, that will still exist on the copies.

if the card in exile goes away somehow, you still get the paradigm triggers. if you have a copy of it resolve, and the original countered, dont worry! you still get your triggers!

you only get one paradigm trigger for each card name. if you cast multiple of the same card name and they have paradigm, you still only get one copy per main phase. (if this didnt happen then with the current wording you would get more triggers from each copy you get in the main phase)

lots of stuff under the read more

what happens when shark shredder reanimates a creature with first strike

that creature will still get to deal its damage with everything else. luckily wotc figured this interaction is unintuitive, and so shark shredder is the only draftable card with first strike. (and only one other if you include the commander cards)

the relevant rule is 702.7b

The only creatures that assign combat damage in that step are the remaining attackers and blockers that had neither first strike nor double strike as the first combat damage step began