#loyalty abilities

[magicjudge]

Rules interaction question. Shelob, Child of Ungoliant + a PW + An ability that turns it into a creature. If Shelob kills a PW while it is a creature, does she still make a food of that "creature"? Does it still have Loyalty Counters/can it activate Loyalty abilities? Is it still killed upon having no Loyalty Counters on it?

Shelob will always make food out of whatever dies to one of your spiders, so the fact that it's a planeswalker or something else that's not normally a creature doesn't matter.

You'll make a token copy of the printed card except it's a Artifact - Food instead of its other types. In the case of a planeswalker, that means your copy of Sarkhan the Masterless will be a Legendary Artfact - Food that enters with no loyalty counters on it. You can still use one of its loyalty abilities on each of your turns, adding or removing loyalty counters as needed*, but it's not a planeswalker and so it can't be attacked and it won't die due to having 0 loyalty counters on it.

*(Loyalty abilities still work normally because they're a special class of abilities with their own rules. However, entering the battlefield with loyalty counters only happens for planeswalkers, so the food starts with none.)

[magicjudge]

If I have Urza, Planeswalker and Oath of Teferi out, can I still only activate Urza’s loyalty abilities twice in a turn?

Correct.

Both abilities have the same wording and so they're redundant. You would need the Chain Veil to get an extra activation out of Urza.

[magicjudge]

Here's one that confused me since the spoilers. If Kaito says I can use his abilities twice in a turn rather than once, and the Chain veil says I get to use Planeswalker abilities "as though none of its loyalty abilities have been activated this turn", does that mean if I use his powers twice and then activate the Chain Veil I get 1 more use of his power, or two?

Only once, because the Chain Veil explicitly says so: "You may activate one of its loyalty abilities once this turn..." This is a special activation and thus isn't affected by Kaito's triggered ability, which only applies to his base activations.

[magicjudge]

Hi! first of all let me thank you for the wonderfull job you do helping people with our favorite game! Then the real question: it's my opponent main phase he cast a PW (say Chandra Torch of Defiance) that I let resolve, is there a moment after the resolution of the PW in which I can cast a spell (say Capsize) to bounce her before he has the opportunity to activate her loyalty ability? Or does priority goes back to him after the resolution of Chandra?

Not normally, no.

When a spell or ability resolves, the active player (the player whose turn it is) immediately receives priority again. That player can then cast spells or activate abilities, including loyalty abilities of planeswalkers they control, assuming its the main phase and the stack is empty. This means that it’s virtually impossible to ever act before a new planeswalker is activated unless its controller purposely chooses to do something else. This is why there is nothing that triggers when a planeswalker enters the battlefield, as it would put those planeswalkers at risk.

The only possible way to get priority before the planeswalker can be activated is to make it so that something triggers when it enters the battlefield. The ways to do this are contrived and involve silly cards like Mycosynth Lattice, so don’t worry about them.

[magicjudge]

Why does doubling season not put additional counters on a planeswalker when activating its loyalty abilities?

Because those counters are being placed by a cost, not by an effect.

In Magic, an effect is defined as anything that happens as the result of a spell or ability resolving. Some things that aren’t effects include special actions, like playing a land, and paying costs like the +1 of Garruk Wildspeaker’s first ability.

The cost to activate a loyalty ability of a planeswalker is to add or remove an amount of loyalty counters as indicated by the number before the ability. Since these counters aren’t added or removed by an effect, Doubling Season’s replacement effect doesn’t care about them.

[magicjudge]

Hello, could you explain how Teferi, Temporal Archmage emblem works? Can i activate my planewalkers unlimited time?

The rules for loyalty abilities states that you can only activate a loyalty ability of a permanent if none of its loyalty abilities have been activated yet this turn.

While Teferi’s emblem will allow you to activate loyalty abilities of planeswalkers any time you have priority, you can still only activate a loyalty ability of each planeswalker once each turn. This means that you’ll be able to activate each of your planeswalkers once on each turn, but not multiple times on the same turn.

[magicjudge]

So in regards to Disallow, me and a buddy from work were wanting to get some quick clarification. Do Planeswalkers' loyalty abilities count as activated abilities? I think they would, but my buddy isn't so sure.

Yes, planeswalker loyalty abilities are activated abilities and can be targeted by Disallow. Note that Disallow doesn’t affect the number of loyalty counters added or removed from the planeswalker as the cost to activate the loyalty ability.

[magicjudge]

Wait so the new Chandra's ability of "+1: Add RR to your mana pool" uses the stack because it's a loyalty ability?

Correct.