*Angry screaming albino cat*

Ajani for Nayawalker

[magicjudge]

My opponent has the ability to cast their spells at instant speed. It is my turn and I move to attack. My opponent responds by faithless looting, it resolves, they draw and discard. I have extirpate in hand. Who currently has priority? I.E. can I extirpate their faithless looting before they can flash it back?

You get priority after it resolves.

116.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.

[markrosewater]

Could you confirm that The Wanderer is NOT Elspeth?

I can confirm nothing about The Wanderer other than she’s awesome.

[magicjudge]

Hi! If I kill one of my opponents attacking with Wasitora, will I get a Cat Dragon token?

Yes.

Wasitora will still trigger when she deals lethal combat damage to your opponent. When her trigger resolves, that player is no longer in the game and can’t take any game actions, such as sacrificing anything. Since that’s the case, Wasitora gives you an adorable Cat Dragon token!

[magicjudge]

If I have Sharktocrab enter with a +1/+1 counter (via guildmage’s forum, metallic mimic, etc.), does it’s ability trigger?

Yes.

Entering the battlefield with a counter counts as having that counter put on the permanent.

[magicjudge]

How do cards with hybrid mana interact with Edgewalker and Ragemonger? E.G. Boros Reckoner and Ragemonger or Edgewalker with Deathbringer Leige while Arcane Adaptation is out.

When you cast a spell with a hybrid cost, you determine which option you’re choosing for each hybrid mana in that cost before you apply any cost reduction effects.

With Ragemonger and Boros Reckoner, this means that Ragemonger will reduce its cost by {R} as long as you choose red for at least one of the mana symbols in Boros Reckoner’s cost.

[markrosewater]

Blue can counter anything, black can discard anything, white can destroy anything, and green can either naturalize or fight anything. How come red gets such a hard line on "absolutely no enchantment interaction, ever, in any way" when every other color gets some in-color way to handle all card types?

The colors’ weaknesses are all very different from one another. It’s not structured as being as parallel as each being unable to deal with a particular card type. That aspect is something red plays up more than other colors. Green, for example, has an over-reliance on a card type, but that type of weakness is not seen in another color.

The color pie is constructed such that each color has unique problems. Red’s enchantment issue is easier to notice as it’s a specific card type a color can’t deal with and that’s just more visible than things like blue being more reactionary or white having card flow issues.

In other words, you can frame it such that any color seems unfairly treated versus the other four if you look from the right vantage point.

[doctor-roman]

Red can wheel any hand

[dasebeleren]

Lightning Bolt can get rid of all your opponent’s permanents if they’re at 3 or less life.

[magicjudge]

If I have Krallenhorde howler and Food Chain in play, is there a way to exile the Howler to cast a creature, while still getting the cost reduction?

Yes, you can do this.Food Chain’s ability is a mana ability, which means it can be activated while you’re casting a creature spell. The point at which you activate mana abilities while casting a spell comes after you’ve determined that spell’s total cost, and so the cost reduction effect from Krallenhorde Howler has already been applied and the total cost locked in. This means that sacrificing it now won’t undo the cost reduction and so your creature can have its Howler and eat it too!

[homebrewdtyrant]

Dank-Jank Spotlight: Strands of Night

Strands of Night is a janky combo piece I recently rediscovered while browsing thru my totes of bulk EDH cards and it inspired me to write this piece. Let’s discuss the game plan of decks that want to run Strands. 

Commanders

Gitrog Monster: Hypno-Toad loves when lands hit the graveyard and Strands of Night gives you access to recursion with card draw. Pair with Glowspore Shaman for more value town. Your deck already runs Ramunap Excavator, Crucible of Worlds and World Shaper. Your sacrificed swamps won’t stay in the yard for long. 

Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest: Mazirek cares about permanents going the graveyard and this card heavily enables that. Sacrificing swamps to bring back creatures that have died to be sacrificed later just creates a nice little self contained cycle to grow your army.  See also Stoic Builder, Eternal Witness, Molderhulk, Turntimber Sower and Tilling Treefolk for more land recursion. 

Lord Windgrace: I mean, you’re sacrificing lands… in a land matters deck. Titania, Protector of Argoth will net us a 5/3 elemental every time we use Strands of Night to recur a creature. 

Combining Drownyard Temple with Urborg allows you to essentially Rise from the Grave for 3BB as long as you have access to the mana. Pay BB, sacrifice the Drownyard Temple and pay two life to recur a creature. Then pay 3 mana to return the Temple to play tapped. Rinse and repeat. Mind you, you do pay 2 life everytime you activate Strands of Night, but a Grazing Gladehart in play will nullify the 2 life cost.  

In all honesty, Strands of Night is a decent repeatable graveyard recursion enchantment if you can swing the land cost. I’ve used it in my Obzedat, Ghost Council deck as a way to get around commander tax when it gets too high. Just let the Obzedat die and bring it back at instant speed during your opponents end step. 

Yes you heard that right… instant speed recursion. No exiling at end of turn or at sorcery speed restrictions. Let that sink in… *sips tea loudly* 

[bacejelerenvorthos]

Tajic

“The guildmage Tajic is the highest-ranking non-angel in the Legion, and he maintains close communication with Aurelia. However, he is not in perfect agreement with her, and recent events in Ravnica have set them at odds. Tajic believes in the idea of peace among the guilds, but after a brief collaboration with Teysa Karlov of the Orzhov that led to his imprisonment, he is convinced that no great peace can be achieved so long as the other guildmasters are uninterested in the rule of law. Aurelia quickly secured Tajic’s release, but the relationship between them has soured significantly.” - #MTGGRN Player’s Guide

Art by Anthony Palumbo

[magicjudge]

If I Deadly Visit my own Blood Operative, can i get the Operative back with the Visit's surveil?

Yes.

Blood Operative is in the graveyard when you Surveil, so its ability will trigger.

In fact, Blood Operative’s ability will still trigger if you put it into your graveyard while surveiling from that very same surveil! Wow!

[magicjudge]

Lots of questions about why Blood Operative will trigger from a surveil that puts it into the graveyard from the library, so I’ll explain in more detail.

Triggered abilities that look for a specific action to happen trigger after that thing has happened. (They can’t trigger before since it hasn’t happened yet.) Normally, the thing that’s happening is relatively instantaneous, such as entering the battlefield or dying, but this also holds true for events that take more time, such as scrying or surveiling. This means that triggers like Blood Operative’s that trigger when you surveil won’t trigger until the surveil action is complete, but more importantly the game won’t check to see which cards that have relevant triggers will trigger until after the event as well.

This is similar (but inverse) to how a creature that triggers when you cast a spell won’t trigger if you sacrifice it as a cost of casting that spell.

[magicjudge]

I was playing on Arena against a Nexus of Fate deck that was trying to win with Psychic Corrosion. This and Teferi were their only win cons. Late into the game I had a Lich’s Mastery in play, but no cards in deck and no permanents due to Teferi ult. In arena this got resolved by my opponent spinning their wheels for about 10 minutes before conceding, but how would this be resolved on paper? Neither of us can win, but they have to take actions to not lose and I don’t have to do anything.

When the game gets to the point where your opponent has to have Teferi tuck itself each turn in order for them to not deck out, the game has entered a loop and your opponent will have to make a different decision, i.e. not tuck Teferi, to not continue the loop.

TL;DR: Your opponent has to stop their loop, so you win.

[magicjudge]

So last night one of my opponents casts Living Death. When priority passes to me I respond to the Living Death with Rakdos Charm choosing to exile their graveyard. No one responds to me casting Rakdos Charm, so it resolves on the stack. The first opponent thens cast Dream Twist to mill himself for three cards AFTER Rakdos Charm has resolved but BEFORE the Living Death resolves. Is this possible? Can someone respond to the resolution of a spell while the stack is resolving? Thanks!

Yes, this is perfectly fine.

There’s no such thing as “resolving the stack”.

Spells and abilities on the stack always resolve one at a time and players then get priority to cast further spells or put new abilities on the stack before the next object on the top of the stack resolves.

If players couldn’t respond once any item on the stack started to resolve, then that would be a batch system, which magic used to have prior to the 6th edition rules changes in 1999.

[magicjudge]

Question about the newly spoiled card Hypothesizzle (Instant. 3UR. Draw two cards, then you may discard a nonland card. WHEN you do, ~ deals 4 damage to any target). Am I right in assuming that this creates a triggered ability upon resolution, which goes on the stack after Hypothesizzle has finished resolving? If yes, do you have any idea why it is templates like this and not with „if you do“?

Yes, this is correct.

Hypothesizzle has what’s called a “reflexive trigger”, which is new technology as of Amonkhet. Reflexive triggers haven’t shown up on a lot of cards yet, so most players don’t yet recognize them.

Reflexive triggers exist to allow their controllers to more precisely control how their spells and abilities resolve by not forcing a selection of targets until the reflexive trigger is put on the stack.

In the case of Hypothesizzle, you don’t choose a target for its reflexive trigger until you discard a card. While the exact nature of the discarded card doesn’t matter (beyond being nonland), the two cards drawn from the first half of the spell might change what you want to target. For example, if the card you discard is a Fiery Temper, you might choose to then target a 7-toughness creature rather than a 4-toughness creature.

If Hypothesizzle had the “if you do” wording rather than the “when you do” wording, the target for the damage would have to be chosen when Hypothesizzle was cast, before any cards were drawn from it.

[magicjudge]

Hi! I have a question about the card Myth Unbound, from C18. The rulings for this card say "If Myth Unbound leaves the battlefield at the same time as your commander is put into the command zone, its last ability won’t trigger." Why does this card behave differently to a card like Blood Artist, which triggers if it leaves the battlefield simultaneously with other creatures? Thanks in advance.

When a card changes zones, triggers that look for that card to change zones will normally trigger when the card enters the zone it’s going to, not when it leaves its previous zone.

If that sounds wrong to you, that’s because abilities that trigger when something leaves the battlefield are the big exception to this rule and these triggers are more common than most other kinds of zone-change triggers. Leaves the battlefield (and dies) triggers trigger the moment the object leaves the battlefield, not the moment it enters another zone, so anything leaving the battlefield at the same time as that permanent can trigger any relevant abilities as in your Blood Artist example.

Myth Unbound looks for your commander to enter the command zone. If it leaves the battlefield at the same time as your commander, it’s not on the battlefield when your commander enters the command zone and so its second ability can’t trigger.

[magicjudge]

Say I have a Sunhome Stalwart enchanted with an Ordeal of Heliod. If I attack with the Stalwart and another creature with base power 2, will the Stalwart' s Mentor trigger?

Sunhome Stalwart’s ability will trigger but there’s no legal target for the ability so it won’t go on the stack. 

Even though Sunhome Stalwart would have greater power than the other attacking creature by the time the mentor trigger would resolve, that’s not good enough since it doesn’t have greater power when the trigger would go on the stack.

Mentor requires the target to have lesser power when the trigger would go on the stack as well as when it resolves. This means that two Sunhome Stalwarts couldt both target the same 1/1 creature on an attack but that creature would end up with only one +1/+1 counter on it.

[magicjudge]

Hi! I'm curious how does Underrealm Lich work with Sylvan Library?

Underrealm Lich’s ability replaces every card you would draw, which includes both your normal draw for the turn and extra draws from cards like Sylvan Library. For each card you would draw, instead you look at the top three cards of your library, put one of them into your hand and the other two into your graveyard. This is is done separately for each card drawn.

If you choose to draw cards with Sylvan Library, then Underrealm Lich will replace those draws. When the trigger instructs you to choose cards you’ve drawn this turn, you can’t choose anything since you haven’t drawn any cards this turn, so nothing has to be put back and no life has to be paid.

[magicjudge]

Nissa, Unbound? Hi there, Could you please explain how Nissa, Vastwood Seer and Myth Unbound interact when Nissa is your Commander? My understanding is that when she Transforms, instead of Exiling her, you can place her in the Command Zone instead as a replacement effect to draw a card off of Myth Unbound, then return her Transformed as a Planeswalker as normal, since the wording doesn’t specify where to return her from. Can you please explain why that does or doesn’t work?

Yes, you can have Myth Unbound’s ability trigger when you exile Nissa and return her to the battlefield transformed. To do so, you’ll need to send her to the command zone instead of exile during the resolution of her exile and return trigger. She’ll still return to the battlefield transformed almost immediately, but that brief layover in the command zone will be just long enough to trigger Myth Unbound.