MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge - 「 T H U R S D A Y '

If you have an effect that says "Skip your next turn/combat phase/etc", do they stack? Or does it all just skip the next available one?

Also, what rules govern this?

>>50926860
Is it true they changed back to the original block rotation because people couldn't wrap their heads around the new "two-set blocks" format?

>>50927690
All of them will WANT to apply, but only one of them can.

614.10a. Anything scheduled for a skipped step, phase, or turn won't happen. Anything scheduled for the "next" occurrence of something waits for the first occurrence that isn't skipped. If two effects each cause a player to skip his or her next occurrence, that player must skip the next two; one effect will be satisfied in skipping the first occurrence, while the other will remain until another occurrence can be skipped.

>>50927737
Not quite; they're changing back to one rotation per year (rather than two rotations a year) because the feedback they got from players is that it made Standard rotate TOO fast, and it was difficult to keep up, and made it really hard to jump back in if you 'lapsed' for even just a few months. Because the twice-yearly rotation was becoming a barrier to entry (and they want Standard to be their most approachable format), they revised it to only rotate once a year. It had nothing to do with the two-set blocks (which are considered a resounding success), but with the speed of the rotation.

My opponent has a 4/4 creature that is enchanted with dead weight. I activate an ability that makes target creature a 1/1 until the end of turn and he responds with a dromoka's gift. Everything resolves.

So i guess it looks like this
7b. creature becomes a 1/1
7c. Dead weight applies creature is a -1/-1
7d. Counter applies creature is a 3/3

if that is correct then would his creature die or do all the layers have to apply if applicable and then SBA are checked?

My opponent and I both have a Mox Lotus. I tap mine for infinity colorless, and use its ability to produce one red, then cast Fireball with X=infinity. My opponent responds by tapping their Mox Lotus and converting to one white, then casting Who (Who/What/When/Where/Why) with X=infinity. After both spells resolve, what's my opponent's life?

>>50928596
Whatever you want it to be. Silver-borded question = silver-borded answers

>>50928596
1) -Though you gain infinity mana you still have to name a finite number to cast fireball since its blackborder and has no silly rule breaking bits.

2)- Ignoring that for a more silver-border answer, you hit them for infinity damage but before that they gained infinity life, following logically their life total is whatever it was before you tried to cast fireball.

If a replacement effect modifies an event, does it modify only the relevant parts and keeps everything else the same, or is the whole event replaced?

Let's say someone plays Grasp of Fate in a commander game. He or she chooses my commander. Due to the commander rules I decide to put it into the command zone instead of the exile zone. According to the rules this happens via a replacement effect.

Does the replacement effect only change the target location and is it still Grasp that is doing the moving? Furthermore, when Grasp leaves the battlefield after such event, does it return the commander from the commander zone to the battlefield since it does not state "exiled card" like O-Ring for example does?

There was some discussion about this on reddit earlier today and one person pointed out, that the Gatherer ruling of Grasp also talks about "exiled cards". Someone else pointed out, that it might be just an oversight and someone didn't have commander in mind when writing the ruling. However, that would be quite awkward since Grasp was printed in a commander product.

Thanks in advance

>>50928465
You go through all of the layers. SBAs don't interact with the layers, really, they just look at 'what shit currently is'. To the game, the creature is originally a 4/4. After Dead Weight resolved, the game saw a 2/2. After Dromoka's Gift resolved, the game saw a 6/6. After your ability resolved, the game saw a 3/3. At no point did the game 'see' a -1/-1 creature.

>>50928596
Silver-bordered question gets my catch-all silver-bordered answer: "Sure, why not?"

>>50929086
It just modifies the relevant part. Applying the Commander replacement effect makes Grasp shunt the card to the Command zone instead of exile "Until Grasp of Fate leaves the battlefield". Because of that wording, it'll get yanked back onto the field from the Command Zone (assuming it's still there and hasn't moved in the interim) if you nuke Grasp. Grasp itself does not refer to 'the exiled cards', so it's just looking in the first public zone the cards got sent to, same as Banishing Light. Compare that to Oblivion Ring, which specifically says 'the exiled card' in the Oracle text, which means it'll only ever look for the card in Exile.

>>50928730
>>50929336
Silver-boardered games are still supposed to basically follow the rules, or else silver-boardered card text would be incoherent and silver-boardered games would be impossible. Even silly games need rules, or else they aren't games. I'm pretty sure older versions of Oracle even had (sometimes silly) rulings on silver-boardered cards, like Squirrel Farm (which has an obvious mistake in its wording).

>>50928928
>name a finite number
Is that actually true? I know that for infinite-but-terminable processes (i.e., standard "infinite" combos) you have to name a finite number of iterations, but that's not really what Mox Lotus is about.

>following logically their life total is whatever it was before you tried to cast fireball
Of all the possible answers, that's the least likely one. If they gain infinity life, their life total becomes infinity, and we know (from Cantor) that any infinity plus any finite number is the same infinity. Their original life total definitely washes out; the question is whether their life total after the Fireball is 0 or infinity.

>>50929826
>Silver border
The rules literally do not apply to the Un-sets. Cards are printed that don't work (like, say, Mox Lotus). Their Oracle text isn't updated, they're not legal in any format other than Kitchen-Table Fuckaround and Un-drafts. MaRo has acted as the "Un-Rules Manager" in the past precisely because the actual CR frequently falls short of working with silver-bordered cards. It's damn near official from WOTC that the proper way to settle a rules dispute about Un-cards is to just come to a conclusion your group is happy with, because you won't find a solution in the CR.

>Is that actually true?
There is no such thing as 'infinite' in Magic, because infinity is a concept, not a number. You cannot generate infinite mana, you cannot cast a Fireball for X=infinite, you cannot gain infinite life. What you can do (in most cases) is perform an indefinitely-repeatable loop to gain an absurd amount of life, or mana, or deal a lot of damage, but you have to pick an actual number, like 'ten billion'. You can't pick a concept.

>>50929826
>Comes into an Ask A Judge thread with a question
>Questions the Judge's answer

Opponent has lethal vapors on the battlefield. I cast elesh norn and she enters . Does lethal vapors trigger before her continuous effect applies or vice versa?

Am I right in thinking Savra, Queen of the Golgari has two seperate triggered abilities?

>>50929904
Vice versa. Her continuous effect goes online the second she touches the board, so you can use this as an expensive Infest to wipe out your opponent's little dudes before Lethal Vapors kills Norn.

>>50929997
You are, because they are written as such. When things are on separate lines like that (or listed in a row with commas, for keywords), each one is a separate thing.

Had a weird one last night.
So my opponent plays Enter the Infinite and then throws Fateful Showdown at my face. Is that a draw?
If he plays Library of Leng before using the Showdown, does the "discarding to top of deck" part save him?

>>50930300
It will be a draw. You'll take a shitload of damage, your opponent will discard a shitload of cards, draw the 1 remaining in their deck, then fail to draw the next one because the library is empty. Spell finishes resolving, SBAs are checked and see you're at 0 (or a lot less) and kill you. They simultaneously see your opponent has tried to draw from an empty library since the last time SBAs were checked, and kill your opponent. No players remaining in the game, game is a draw.

With Library out, your opponent would discard N cards to the top of their library, then draw them back. Still one card in the library, so SBAs only kill you.

>>50930420
Okay, that's what we thought would happen. Good to know for sure. Thanks.

What happens when my opponent has lord of atlantis and I play a spell that makes his creature lose island walk until the end of turn

>>50930655
Well, if all he has is a Lord of Atlantis, nothing. Lord of Atlantis doesn't give itself Islandwalk.

If you use it on another Merfolk of his, that creature won't have Islandwalk until the end of the turn.

Had one, can't remember it. I also decided it was probably answered in the oracle when I was wondering about it.

>>50930420
Two questions from newer player about two situations I've encountered. Firstly, I played against a deck that made it so a creature that added x mana could untap itself infinitely. I can't recall the name of the card the guy was searching for, but it would cause me to deck out. My question is, how does that work? He only had 2 of the creature out, so wouldn't the excess untaps cease to be usable since there wasn't sufficient creatures to apply said untaps?

Second question is, I was playing in sanctioned event and forgot for a turn to add energy counters due to Longtusk Cub and Empyreal Voyager's effects, and asked my opponent at one point during his turn (half a turn following the point the counters would be added) if he minded if I corrected the mistake. He refused the correction. My question is, if the effects are mandatory and one or both players recognize this, can he refuse the correction?

>>50930787
>First
Your question's kinda vague. If you could tell me the specific interaction I could give you a better answer, but right now I'm not 100% sure what you're asking.

>Second
He absolutely can. It's not your opponent's responsibility to remind you of your triggers; they are 100% allowed to let you miss your mandatory triggers if they notice that you have done so. At Regular REL (FNM, Prereleases, most store-level things) the Judge would decide whether too much time has passed to put the trigger on the stack now, so it's not technically UP TO your opponent, but most likely you'd have lost those triggers because we're well past the point they should have happened.

If anything has gone wrong in a sanctioned event, you shouldn't correct it yourself, or ask your opponent how to fix it, you should call a Judge. That's why we're there.

>>50930856
>First
Basically
>Tap for x mana off creature
>Play card that mills x amount based on mana tapped
>Add to hand card that can repeat the process
>At end of resolution, gain x untaps which could be applied ad infinitum to any card(s) on the field
>Do this until you find card that does damage based on total cards milled
Basically, I'm asking if he had something like 13 untaps (so he could untap 13 times) but only 2 cards that he could apply that to, would he still get the remaining 11?
>Second
I kind of figured it worked that way, and I do admit I should have asked the judge instead of asking my opponent. Just as well, it makes sense that I couldn't just out-of-place apply triggers that already passed. Just wanted to be sure about whether it worked that way or not.

Also, would you say Negate is better than Revolutionary Rebuff in terms of prevention, or can Rebuff see a rise in play with disruption tactics?

>>50931035
Again, without knowing the actual wording of the cards in question, this is too vague for me to really give you an answer.

>>50931069
I apologize, then. Thanks for answering anyways

>>50931092
Don't apologize! I'd like to help you, but I'm really not 100% sure what you're asking.

>>50931099
No, I should have written down the cards involved instead and then asked!

>>50930775
It was panglacial wurm.

Question was whether it resolves while you are still searching or waits for you to finish to get on the stack. Looking up now.

>>50932042
I know for a fact it does not resolve during the resolution of the search spell because it has to use the stack like any other spell, but I cant answer exactly when it hits the stack without research.

>>50930142
Thanks GA. Expect to see a list for [LIVING DEAD GIRL] in the near future in EDH general.

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>>50931069
>>50931092
I think I understand what he's asking. The "untap X" is probably from reality spasm, don't know about the other one so I randomly took a creature.

I think he's asking if you're able to pay X=8 for the spasm and just tap the sliver, then untap it once, take the "second" untap from the spasm and retap the sliver for another mill, and this 8 times.

The answer is no because once you start to play any spell, you have to finish everything the spell can do before being able to act again.

If not, the combo he's talking about seems extremely close to the pili-pala one, exept with another thing to mill.

>>50932042
It goes onto the stack (because you're casting it) while you search, but for it to resolve all players have to sequentially pass priority with it as the topmost object of the stack. Since nobody -has- priority while you're resolving the spell or ability that has you searching, it can't even try to resolve yet.

>>50932265
It goes on the stack as one of the first steps of casting it, but it doesn't resolve until after we're done resolving this spell/ability that has you searching your library.

>>50933104
As much of an asshole Rob Zombie is, I can't help but jam

>>50933516
ga what do you think of the jacewatch? is ajani a shit? why is tezzeret an abusive head judge?

>>50935985
Ajani is his favourite.

>>50935985
I feel like they're all becoming much more likeable as characters than they were in the past. Ajani made Bolas play "STOP HITTING YOURSELF" and is therefore the best. Tezzeret is an abusive head judge because whoever tested him forgot the first checkbox on the Candidate checklist:

[ ] IS NOT A HUMAN DUMPSTER FIRE

>>50937275
And now bedtime.

If I ultimate Karn while in a Shahrazade sub game do we restart the sub-game or the entire game

What happens if a creature with Undying and a +1/+1 counter on it dies to infect damage?
Either:
-The creature dies because it has several -1/-1 counters on it and a +1/1 counter
-The creature dies, then comes back with a +1/+1 counter because the +1/+1 counter was cancelled with a -1/-1 counter

Hey gA, if you see this in the morning, when is the earliest time I can combo off with ghave after I cast him? This is assuming I have everything I need, but I'm just casting ghave into the board state. Can I hold priority until I instantly win with blood artist or whatever?

>>50940445
+1/+1 and -1/-1 counters cancel out. This is why puppeteer clique and mazirek with a sac outlet is so hilarious.

Is selvala explorer returned parley an activated mana ability?

>>50940449
Holding priority doesn't mean you're opponent's can't respond. It just means that you don't automatically pass after casting your spell.

>>50940418
The subgame, just like if you use a Door to Nothingness in the subgame the target loses the subgame, not the whole game.

>>50940445
All SBAs are checked at once, so the counters 'cancel' each other simultaneously with it being killed. At the time it died, it had a +1/+1 counter on it, so Undying doesn't trigger.

>>50940449
Assuming you have Season, Altar, and Artist set up, theoretically right away (if you have an open mana). Ghave resolves, enters with 10 counters, one mana floating. Remove a counter, get 2 Saprolings. Sacrifice one of them for 2 mana, spend one mana to sac the remaining Saproling to put 2 counters on Ghave; end result is a net gain of 1 counter and 2 life gained for you/lost for your opponent. Repeat.

You can't "hold priority" here because each step of that loop has to resolve before you can move on, and your opponent will have multiple opportunities to respond.

>>50940454
Half right. While the counters do cancel, if an Undying creature with a +1/+1 counter on it gets enough -1/-1 counters all at once to kill it (say, BSZ or a big Infect creature), Undying won't fire.

>>50942242
Yes. It is an activated ability which could add mana to a mana pool as it resolves, does not target, and is not a loyalty ability. Those are the requirements for an activated ability to be a mana ability.

City of brass tapping damage is a trigger that goes on the stack, right?
If i have 1 life, can i use the mana it gives me to cast an instant or use an ability before the land kills me?

I someone cast whims of fate in a commander game and a player has sigarda host of herons out, when it gets to the sigarda players, do they separate their stuff into piles but don't sacrifice?

>>50942832
You can. Let's say you're at 1 and your opponent is at 3; you can tap the City to float a red mana, trigger it, then respond to that trigger by Bolting your opponent to kill them.

>>50943210
Correct. They separate their things into piles, randomly pick one of them, and sacrifice everything in that pile... but the spell controlled by an opponent can't cause them to sacrifice anything, so nothing happens. In practice they can just ignore the effect to save time.

Why did you become a judge?

>>50943592
A mixture of "I was the go-to 'rules guy' for my group when we had disputes", "An L2 approached me and asked if I'd ever considered it", and "I had really bad interactions with a really crummy judge".

>>50943629
Was your group hot garbage like mine was when they first started out, like regenerating sac creatures and tap to block?

I was taught magic so poorly, those memories really do make you wanna do better and learn as much as you can.

>>50943656
Oooooh yeah. See, my 'group' was largely comprised of Yugioh converts in the early days (a lot of us started with Pokemon, then Yugioh, then moved to Magic when it was introduced to us in the early 2000s), and the ones who had been playing for 'longer' pretty much exclusively learned some fucked up version of the rules from their older brothers or dads.

Hell, one of the guys in our group learned from his dad who's been playing since the mid 90s, and to this DAY I still have arguments with that guy (the dad, that is) about rules that changed nearly 20 years ago.

>>50943677
You mean like 6th edition rules changes with batches and all that nonsense

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Can I cast this by sacrificing scions 1/1 or just prescisely the spawn 0/1?

>>50943814
I meant casting by the alternative cost

>>50943814
Has to be the Spawn

>>50943855
OK, thanks

>>50943739
Right. I've argued with that guy about:

1) Interrupts not being a thing
2) You can't regenerate a sacrificed creature
3) You can't cast a spell targeting nothing (or itself)
4) The Legend Rule
5) Color Identity

To name a few.

>>50943814
You can sacrifice any four creatures, so long as all four of them have the types "Eldrazi" and "Spawn". The Eldrazi Scion tokens do not have those subtypes, so you can't feed them to Hand of Emrakul for the alt-cost. Toss in a Xenograft set to "Spawn" and you could, though!

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>>50944201
The fact that you're arguing with the guy about rules that have been changed ironically makes you just as much of an ignoramus as he is. That's like arguing about grammar with a toddler.

>>50926860
Oh perfect, I just got planechase and me and my friend encountered that on one phenomenon that's basically warp world but with planes walkers included. Our question was, when it referrs to permanents, does that include the ones in our hand and graveyard? No rulings I found were very clear about it.

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If I use grasp of darkness on a 5/4 with regeneration and my opponent regenerates it, what happens?

Dunno if this goes here but I'm semi-new to MtG in general and I was wondering if someone could explain to me how stack resolving works exactly. Once everyone has passed the priority do all the spells on stack resolve one after each other and no one can do anything in between or do you have priority after each resolved spell?

An example situation: I have Leyline of Anticipation, another player casts Obliterate, everyone taps their shit for mana and it resolves. One player casts Faith's Reward and I flash in response Tormod's Crypt/Relic of Progenitus. In this situaiton can I let it resolve and put the ability itself on stack or does the whole stack resolve first and only after than I can use the ability itself?

>>50947513
Regeneration stops a creature from being destroyed. Having 0 or less power causes a creature to die, which doesn't count as being destroyed. The creature dies.

>>50947708
Once priority has been passed all the way round, the top item of the stack resolves and you repeat the process. So you could Crypt in response.

>>50947284
To be fair, a nonzero amount of those times were during an event where I had to threaten him with penalties if he did not accept the ruling he was given and continue playing. I don't really have the option of saying "Fuck you, then" and walking off when I'm being paid to judge the event!

>>50947449
Morphic Tide? When something just says "permanents", it means... well, permanents. A creature in your graveyard isn't a permanent or a creature, it's a creature CARD (also a 'permanent card' for things that care about that). Morphic Tide will only hit permanents- that is, things actually on the battlefield. It won't touch hands or graveyards.

>>50947513
Your opponent wasted mana. Regeneration shields can only apply to destruction events; 'having 0 toughness' is not a destruction event, so the regen has nothing to replace. The creature dies.

>>50947708
Once an object is added to the stack, everyone will get priority at least once. As soon as all players sequentially pass priority without a response of any kind, the topmost object of the stack resolves, and the Active Player gets priority again.

In your example, you can absolutely flash in your spell in response to the Reward, then activate the Crypt/Relic once it has resolved.

"The whole stack" does not resolve because the stack is a game zone. OBJECTS on the stack resolve, one at a time.

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>>50948258
>>50948369
Thank you very much guys.

>>50926860
A card got into the ante-zone.
Neither I nor my opponent know how it got there.
>call judge
What do?

Hi gA, I want to become a judge, but I'm having trouble finding my regional coordinator. I've tried the "contact a coordinator" form, but that was a few weeks back and I've gotten no reply. I live in Australia, if that matters. Any advice?

All my cards rotated. What do?

How do you determine how many distinct abilities a card has?
ie many different things can go on the stack due to it

>>50950150
You might try firing one off again. If you haven't heard back in about a week, let me know and I can fire an email to the man.

>>50950243
COMMANDER

>>50950617
Each 'block' of text on a card (or each keyword!) is an ability, technically.

My opponent has 5 1/1 dudes and no mercy on the battlefield. my 10/10 with trample attacks and he blocks with all his dudes. Can I assign 1 damage to 4 of his dudes and 6 to the other to 'save' my guy

>>50950743
Sure. You don't -have- to trample at all, you could just assign 3 damage to the first three blockers and 1 damage to the last.

>>50950769
Sorry, somehow read that as 4 dudes.

You could just slap each of them for 2 and not worry about No Mercy at all.

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Explain Double Strike vs Double Blockers where one blocker has regenerate.

>>50950801
4/4 double striker, two 2/2 blockers. Opponent pops a regen shield on one; move to First Strike Damage Step and assign 2 damage to each. One dies, one is regenerated; this taps it, clears all damage from it, and removes it from combat. Normal damage step, double striker neither assigns nor receives any damage.

>>50950769
So damage can be assigned in any fashion to blockers so long as it's lethal?

And it is assigned In the combat damage step so player cant do anything while it happen?

>>50950877
Right.

In the Declare Blockers step (after blocks), you declare the damage assignment order (as in, you say "that one first, then this one, then this one"), so your opponent knows the order you'll be assigning damage (so they could, for example, Giant Growth the first one to keep you from touching the next one, or they know whether or not to regenerate based on how far down the line the creature is)

Then in the damage step, you assign the damage as you like, with the caveat that you have to assign at least lethal to a creature before you can move onto the next one. You can assign PAST lethal if you want to, but by the time you're actually deciding the exact amount of damage going to each thing it's past the point anyone can respond.

>>50950848
Alright and what about this

7/7 double strike

2/2 blocker
2/2 blocker with regenerate

>>50951124
No different, really. One dies, the other regenerates and gets pulled out of combat. Your 7/7 deals no damage in the normal damage step.

>>50951028
I remember when combat damage used the stack and trample + damage prevention led to completely bizarre scenarios. Fun times...

Imagine I have dovescape, possibility storm, and rule of law in play

Is it possible for me to stack the triggers such that I get doves when I cast noncreature spells, but other people just get their spells exiled by poss storm and get nothing? Or does dovescape give them doves even if the spell gets exiled by poss storm?

>>50951334
Neither Dovescape nor Possibility Storm care about the spells that got cast, other than their type, nor what happens to them. Dovescape will still give tokens if it can't counter the spell due to it being exiled, and Possibility Storm will still wheel if it can't exile the spell due to it being in the graveyard.

short answer, it doesn't matter how to stack them, everyone gets doves.

>>50951334
Dovescape gives them the birds regardless, because the birds aren't tied to the countering of the spell as an "if you do". All Rule of Law does here is shut Possibility Storm halfway off.

And now I'm off to dinner! Back later.

If I have a Lawless Broker out and my opponent casts mutilate, can I order the deaths of my creatures so the Broker dies first and I put a 1/1 counter on another creature, saving it?

>>50952139
no

>>50950702
Cheers, I sent another message. I'll get back to you if I dont get a reply.

>>50952139
Nope. There is no 'order' of the deaths. The game sees a bunch of things that have 0 or less toughness and kills all of them. By the time the Broker's trigger is going onto the stack and asking for a target, everything with 4 or less toughness is already long dead.

Why is it that I can enchant creatures with hexproof/shroud when the aura isn't cast but can't do it when I am casting them?

>>50953096
Because when cast as a spell, an Aura requires a target.

When put directly onto the battlefield, it simply enters attached to your choice of things it can legally BE attached to. Nothing about this process targets.

Hey gA, thanks again for all the work you do.

How do Possibility Storm and Knowledge Pool interact? Which order should I stack the triggers?

>>50953587
Happy to help!

So, assuming you control both of the permanents, you can stack the triggers as you like. If you have Storm resolve first, it'll eat your spell, flip until you find a new one, then cast that for free. That'll resolve as normal because it won't trigger Pool. Then Pool's trigger resolves, telling you to exile the spell that triggered it; you can't (because it's already gone), so the trigger just stops there because the "if the player does" clause isn't valid.

If you do Pool first, it'll eat your spell and let you cast one out of the pool, which resolves as normal (since it won't trigger Storm). Then Storm goes to resolve and tries to exile the spell that triggered it, but can't, because that spell is gone. HOWEVER, unlike Knowledge Pool, Possibility Storm don't give a fuuuuuuuuck. It'll shrug, ask the game what type the spell was (and get an answer back), then flip until it hits an appropriate card to let you cast.

So, you should stack it so Knowledge Pool resolves first on YOUR spells (to get double value), but Storm resolves first for OTHER PEOPLE'S (so they don't)

>>50953641
And I am officially tapping out for the night. If the thread is still up in the morning, I'll answer remaining questions! If not, expect a new thread in the late afternoon/early evening once I get back from jamming Commander for several glorious hours.

>>50926860
Curious why you did not answer my Inquiry? About the ante zone?

>>50954472
Go back to your comfy thread

Why are multiple instances of mindslaver redundant, but multiple instance of cards like words of waste are not?

>>50954472
Mostly because it's a silly question that'll never actually happen.

>>50957464
Because there's a specific rule about what happens if you have multiple "Skip your next X" effects lined up; all of them try to apply, but they can't because as soon as one of them does, that event is skipped, so the rest have nothing to apply -to-. So they wait for the next-next one.

For Mindslaver, it's not "You control target player during that player's next uncontrolled turn", it's just "next turn". All of them -can- apply simultaneously (pointlessly!), so they do.

>>50957936
So words of waste works if I activate it 5 times because it has a draw to replace for the next 5 draws?

>>50958127
For the turn, yes. If you activate Words of Waste 5 times, the next 5 draws you attempt to take this turn will be replaced.

Are Urabrask effects replacement effects or static abilities?

>>50958818
Both! It's a pair of static abilities, one of which creates a replacement effect, and one of which creates a regular continuous effect.

Basically, all abilities fall into one of four categories: Activated, Triggered, Static, or Spell. Some of those abilities create an effect, which can be one-shot (like Lightning Bolt doing 3 damage) : effects that do something just once without a duration. Some of those abilities create a continuous effect (like Giant Growth creating a continuous effect in layer 7c), which may or may not have a stated duration. Creating a replacement effect (as Urabrask does for your opponent's stuff) is a kind of continuous effect.

>>50958913
So static effects can also be CDA like determining the power and toughness of a creature which applies in all zones?

So then, do static abilities use the last-known information to determine the application of the effect?

Caged sun is a land and is tapped for mana and its ability continuously triggers off itself, can these triggers be responded to?

>>50960514
RTFGR

>>50960743
Right, it can't be responded to because you tap caged sun for mana, which is an activated mana ability.

But caged sun's ability constantly fires off of itself which is not an activated mana, therefore it is not a triggered mana ability. SO my question arises is that since it doesn't fit the criteria of a triggered mana ability, you can respond or does that game treat it as a mana ability?

605.1b A triggered ability is a mana ability if it meets all of the following criteria: it doesn’t have a target, it triggers from the resolution of an activated mana ability (see rule 106.11a), and it could put mana into a player’s mana pool when it resolves

What happen's if life's finale targetted player become illegal as a target

>>50961172
Then, unless that player becomes a legal target again or Life's Finale's target is changed (such as by a casting of Redirect), the exact same thing happens as any targeted spell with no legal targets.
The game rules counter it as it tries to resolve.

Question,

If I cast Torrential Gearhulkand I choose an instant with X in it's casting cost can I pay mana towards X or is X zero?

>>50962107
Since you're not paying its mana cost, X will be 0.

>>50962373
can i pay a kicker?

>>50960436
A static ability is anything on a permanent's text box that isn't an activated or a triggered ability, basically. Vigilance is a static ability. So is "Ancient Ooze's power and toughness are each equal to the total converted mana cost of other creatures you control."

I'm not sure what you're asking in the second question; clarify?

>>50960514
>>50960743
>>50960880
The first trigger is a mana ability that instantly resolves and can't be responded to.

The second and beyond are not because they lack a requirement for a triggered ability to be a mana ability: they didn't trigger from an ACTIVATED mana ability. That second one, and all subsequent ones, use the stack and can be responded to.

>>50961172
The spell does not resolve because it has no legal targets. None of its effects happen.

>>50962107
You cannot. If you're casting an alternate cost (and that cost doesn't involve an X, like Blazing Shoal or Conflagrate), the only legal option for X is 0.

>>50962427
Sure- kicker is an ADDITIONAL cost, and you're free to pay optional additional costs if you're casting a spell for free. You just can't choose X= anything but 0 or pay other alternate costs.