Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 22:36:10 +0100 From: Paul Barclay Subject: [O] NetRep Reply 543 ======================================================================= NetRep Reply number 543 to the Magic: the Gathering List ======================================================================= This reply covers the digests: MTG-L Digest - 19 May 2000 to 20 May 2000 (#2000-151) MTG-L Digest - 20 May 2000 to 21 May 2000 (#2000-152) MTG-L Digest - 21 May 2000 to 22 May 2000 (#2000-153) MTG-L Digest - 23 May 2000 to 24 May 2000 (#2000-155) MTG-L Digest - 24 May 2000 to 25 May 2000 - Special issue (#2000-156) MTG-L Digest - 25 May 2000 - Special issue (#2000-157) Older replies may be found at: http://www.second-hand.demon.co.uk ftp://ftp.magic.asuka.net http://www.yavapaiopen.com http://www.en.magic.asuka.net http://www.wizards.com/dci/judge/judgelistarchive.asp (note the new Yavapai Open address) ** The Pyromancy/Stormbind situation. The ruling for these two cards is that to play them correctly, you _must_ pay the mana cost before doing the random discard. ** Apologies for the delays in these Replies. I've been busy Head Judging the English Nationals last weekend, and didn't get time to write anything. SHORT ANSWERS: ======================================================================= ** BFM: Big Furry Monster ** ACC: Alternative (Play) Cost ** RFG: Removed From the Game ** Forgotten Lore has a new (working) Oracle wording - the extra payments are done on resolution, not announcement. ** If a targeted spell has no legal targets when it resolves, it is countered. ** Replenish has no targets. It cannot be Misdirected. ** If you Blessed Win a Lich, the Lich draws 20 cards. LONG ANSWERS: ======================================================================= [Tod Tinlin, asking about Coffin Queen] > I assume that this would also be the case if I were to shock the Coffin Queen >before resolution of the abilities as well. Although I seem to remember some >debate about delayed trigger effects on non-resolved effects... If you do this, then the creature that was brought out will die as soon as it comes into play - that part of Coffin Queen's ability is a state trigger ("whenever Coffin Queen is not in play"). ----- [Jeff Jordan, with a duplicitous Duplicity] >> ** Duplicity reads (in part) "When you lose control of Duplicity, put >> all cards removed from the game with Duplicity into their owners >> graveyards." - if someone steals it, then the cards go to your >> graveyard. > >Not that I want it to work differently; but as worded, it does. If >the Duplicity leaves play, you look at all triggers *before* the event >for applicable triggers, and this one sees its controller before the >event as "you." If it only changes controllers, it looks at its >controller *after* the event as "you," and doesn't trigger since that >"you" still controls it. :) Hmm. Ah. Yeah. That would be bad. Play it as currently ruled for now. I'll get it appropriate errata (probably "whenever a player loses control of..."). ----- [Richard Cullen, asking grave and mystical questions] >1. Both my opponent and I have a creature in play, my >opponent also has a Grave Pact in play. I play Living >Death, does the effect of the Grave Pact resolve after the >resolution of Living Death That's correct. >2. Can Mystical Tutor be used to search for a Mana >Source and what constitutes a Mana Source. There's no such thing as a Mana Source - they're all Instants now, and Mystical Tutor now only gets Instants and Sorceries (interrupts are now Instants, too). ----- [Bob Terrell, with a good idea] >However, the may be an even simpler fix to all this: costs are paid in the >order printed on the card. In the case of spells, mana costs come first. >(They're in the top corner, after all.) So it would work something like this. >Say you have an Arc Mage. You announce the ability. First you pay the 2R, then >you tap him, then you discard the card. If at anytime you can't pay the cost, >undo it all. Likewise, for Pyromancy, you would first pay the 3, then discard >the random card. For Flowstone flood with buyback, you first pay 3R, then pay >3 life, then discard a random card. I like this idea. I'll suggest it. ----- [Kaznob Nomra, asking about Living Death] >I cast Living Death(TE, B, r), and a Spike Sodier(ST, G, u) and a >Dracoplasm(TE, UR, r) are comes into play. > For Dracoplasm's abilty, I sacrificed only one Spike >Soldier. In this case, how much power will Dracoplasm have? You can't do this. You can only sacrifice creatures that were in play before the Dracoplasm came into play (so, in the case of Living Death, you can't sacrifice anything). ----- [Steve Lord, asking about errata] >They "tried to break the Parallax cards but failed" [I think that's a >direct quote.] They "didn't realize that Rhystic Cave's ability would lead >to some really gross situations". > >I've got just one question: Why not? Same reason that all sorts of things go wrong - it's not possible to be perfect. In both these situations, the playtesters didn't have the exact wording of the card (because they never do), just a close wording and "this is how it works". So, they couldn't have caught all the problems, and would never have caught the Cave problem. We caught it when the set was sent to us to review, but it had already been printed by then. The full results of the card text review process will be seen with Invasion. >I don't know how long it was between the first posting of the Rhystic >Cave, or the Parallax Wave as spoiler cards on websites and the first >postings to .misc, .rules, .strategy, or MTG-L about just how they could >be abused -- but I'd bet it wasn't a very long time. If posters to these >forums could figure it out that quickly, why couldn't the playtesters? There are 7 million players. That's more than 100,000 times the number of playtesters. The playtesters are very >I am not a playtester myself, nor do I know how much time WotC gives them >with the cards ... but something's not right when we have to get cards >from two successive sets errata _before_ the pre-release. Well, we could just wait until two weeks into the set, and then errata them, which is what we used to do. If we find a problem, we fix it. Nemesis had three problems, Prophecy had one. I'm hoping the trend will continue. Paul. - -------------------------------------------------NEW-PHONE-NUMBER-- - - Paul Barclay -- paul@second-hand.demon.co.uk -- Phone: 07939 081819 - - DCI Level 3 judge ---- http://www.second-hand.demon.co.uk/index.htm - - Official MTG-L Network Representative for Wizards of the Coast, Inc -