#double-faced cards

[magicjudge]

Hey there! I was looking at the new Nicol Bolas card and I was wondering how it would interact with Scion of the Ur-Dragon? Would you be able to use Bolas’ ability via Scion to get the Bolas planeswalker on the other side?

If you grab Nicol Bolas, the Ravager out of your deck with Scion of the Ur-Dragon’s activated ability, then Scion will be a copy of Bolas until end of turn, but it will just be a copy of the front face and not the back face of the card. If you activate the 4UBR ability, you’ll just exile Scion and won’t return to the battlefield since it’s not a double-faced card.

[magicjudge]

If I have a card that's very badly damaged is it still a legal magic card? if it's so damaged even sleeves wouldn't disguise it, could I use something like a checklist card to represent it in my deck? thanks

Yes, it’s still a real Magic card.

However, if it’s badly damaged to the point where it’s impossible to not have it be marked while in your deck, then you’re out of luck and won’t be able to play the card in tournaments. (Unless the card is a double-faced card, of course, in which case you can use the appropriate checklist card in your deck.)

Checklist cards are only usable for the specific double-faced cards they list. They’re not universal stand-ins for any card you want to represent in a deck.

The only situation where you’ll be allowed to play a stand-in for a damaged card in a tournament is if that card became damaged through play at that tournament. In this case, the Head Judge is allowed to issue you a proxy to stand in for the card in your deck for that tournament only. You can’t play the proxy in other events.

[magicjudge]

As an alternative to checklist cards, could I carry an additional copy of a DFC that's been sleeved with its back face up? For example, if my deck has four purple-sleeved copies of Legion's Landing and one of them transforms, could I substitue it with a pink-sleeved Adanto from my deckbox?

Yes. Just make sure the sleeves on your main deck are completely opaque and that the back-face copies of the cards are in different colored sleeves from your main deck and sideboard.

[magicjudge]

Can Hour of Promise fetch the flips sides of the new Ixalan treasure lands? (I obviously don't know what people are calling them.) Thanks!

No. Double-faced cards only ever have the characteristics of their front faces in any zone other than on the battlefield. On the battlefield, they only have the characteristics of whichever face they’re currently showing, with the exception that they have the converted mana cost of their front faces when on their back faces. (So yes, the XLN flip lands have a CMC.)

[magicjudge]

Are cards required to be sleeved in tournament settings? All this talk on blogatog has me wondering if changing the card back would have any judging ramifications.

Players are responsible for ensuring that their cards and/or card sleeves are not marked during the tournament. A card or sleeve is considered marked if it bears something that makes it possible to identify the card without seeing its face, including(but not limited to) scratches, discoloration, and bends.

This is the first part of what the Magic Tournament Rules have to say about marked cards. Sleeves aren’t strictly necessary, but there’s a fairly high bar to playing without them.

Personally, I’ve only ever seen players playing with unsleeved decks in limited events. I have never seen anyone play Standard or other constructed formats unsleeved.

As for tournament ramifications of changing the card back, it doesn’t just affect unsleeved play, it would affect all formats in which players would be playing with new and old cards together. Not all sleeves are fully opaque, and doing something like changing the Magic logo from blue to orange on the back of a card would be visible through the backs of some lighter colored sleeves, and that wouldn’t be a good situation. Players playing in these mixed formats would need to use fully opaque sleeves, and that’s hard enough to enforce when there are double-faced cards in the format. Having entire blocks with different backs would be a disaster and a huge headache for judges.

[magicjudge]

How does Mairsil, the Pretender work with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy? if I have more than 5 cards in my graveyard will it effectively flicker him?

All you’re going to do here is strand Mairsil in exile, which is giving him a taste of his own medicine but not exactly what you were going for.

What happens here is that Mairsil exiles himself and then stays exiled because it can’t return to the battlefield transformed and so it doesn’t return to the battlefield at all.

711.8a If a player is instructed to put a card that isn’t a double-faced card onto the battlefield transformed, that card stays in its current zone. This is a change from previous rules.

[magicjudge]

When I'm using checklist cards, where should I keep the actual DFCs? Especially in relation to my sideboard, tokens, and such? And does playing a Limited format have any effect on this?

With your sideboard in different sleeves. (For limited, I recommend taking a few clear sleeves with you to handle this.) If you’re being deck-checked at a competitive REL event, you must give over the DFCs with the deck and sideboard as they’re part of your deck.

[magicjudge]

How do double faced cards work with devotion? I tried googling it but all the answers I got were from like 2013 and I know rulings about the Mana costs of DFCs have changed since then

The back face of a double-faced card has no mana cost. While it now has a converted mana cost equal to the converted mana cost of its front face, it still doesn’t have an actual mana cost and can’t provide any devotion.