Arixmethes Homework
Hey all, Commander 2018 looks super sweet and I’m really pumped to get my hands on it soon!
Anyway, this big lobster friend was previewed today, so let’s talk about how this weird card works.
First of all, let’s cover the basics:
Arixmethes will enter the battlefield as a land (barring an effect like Solemnity).
This will trigger landfall abilities.
This doesn’t count as playing a land for the turn since Arixmethes was cast as a spell or put onto the battlefield by some other effect.
Arixmethes doesn’t enter the battlefield as a creature and won’t trigger any abilities that care about creatures entering the battlefield.
While Arixmethes is a land, it still has colors and a mana cost. It’s not a Kraken, though. Arixmethes is always legendary.
Arixmethes enters the battlefield tapped, so you can’t tap it for mana unless you untap it somehow.
If you do untap Arixmethes, you can tap it for mana before your next turn begins because because summoning sickness only applies to creatures and it’s not a creature.
Arixmethes switches immediately from land to creature when the last slumber counter is removed from it.
Becoming a creature isn’t a trigger and can’t be responded to. Players will need to respond to the effect that removes the last counter.
Arixmethes just changes types while it’s on the battlefield. It’s not a new object and so it won’t trigger anything that looks for creatures entering the battlefield.
All right, basics out of the way, so let’s talk about some interactions with other cards:
Vesuva: Copying Arixmethes with Vesuva will just give you another fresh Arixmethes. Since Vesuva is entering the battlefield as a copy of Arixmethes, it enters with slumber counters just like the real thing. You’ll need to choose one of your lobster friends to keep and send the other to the graveyard (or command zone if Arixmethes is your commander.)
Thespian’s Stage: Copying Arixmethes with Thespian’s Stage works much better than using Vesuva. Because Thespian’s Stage is already on the battlefield, it’s not affected by the “enters tapped with counters” ability and so you’ll have a counter-free lobster friend, which conveniently makes it a creature right away. You’ll still have to choose one Arixmethes to keep, but since the one you copied was a land, maybe keep the one that isn’t?
Blood Moon:
If Arixmethes is already on the battlefield as a land when Blood Moon enters the battlefield, then Blood Moon just makes Arixmethes into a Mountain and takes away all of its abilities. It’s still a land.
If Arixmethes enters the battlefield while Blood Moon is on the battlefield, things are a little weird if you think about it too deeply. The TL;DR here is that Arixmethes will enter tapped with slumber counters and is a Mountain with no other abilities.
But why, you ask? Buckle up, because this one is a little brain-melty.
As Arixmethes would enter the battlefield, we look at what effects want to modify how it enters the battlefield. Only Arixmethes’s own ability wants to modify it, so we check to see if anything would prevent that.
For this check, the rules say to “check the characteristics of the permanent as it would exist on the battlefield, taking into account replacement effects that have already modified how it enters the battlefield, continuous effects from the permanent’s own static abilities that would apply to it once it’s on the battlefield, and continuous effects that already exist and would apply to the permanent.”
No replacement effects have already modified how it enters the battlefield, so that’s out.
What about continuous effects from its own abilities? The only one that could apply is the effect that makes it a land, but it doesn’t know that it’s getting slumber counters yet, so that’s not going to apply yet here.
There are no other continuous effects that would apply to it in its current state.
Taking all of these together, we see that nothing is stopping us from applying this replacement effect, so Arixmethes enters the battlefield tapped with slumber counters on it.
Once it’s on the battlefield, Arixmethes’s ability turns it into a land and then Blood Moon pounces and turns it into a Mountain and strips its abilities.
If Arixmethes loses its counters through outside means, such as Vampire Hexmage, it will become a creature and regain its abilities.
Blood Sun: Blood Sun affects Arixmethes the same as Blood Moon does with the exception of leaving its mana ability intact and not making it into a Mountain. Blood Sun locks Arixmethes as a land (while it has counters on it) and doesn’t stop it from entering the battlefield tapped or with counters.
Worms of the Earth: If Arixmethes tries to enter the battlefield while Worms of the Earth is on the battlefield, then Arixmethes won’t be able to enter the battlefield (because it’s trying to enter the battlefield as a land) and so it will stay in whatever zone it was in before, unless it was on the stack in which case it will be put into its owner’s graveyard instead. (If Arixmethes is your commander, you can send it to the command zone instead.)
That’s everything I can think of right now, but if you have any more Arixmethes interactions you’d like to know about, comment below and I’ll make an addendum if there are enough common requests.
