How does Radiate work with modal spells such as Incendiary Command? Last night I was in an EDH game with five players and someone cast Incendiary Command, with the first and fourth modes. Then they cast Radiate on the spell. Everyone at the table insisted that Radiate would generate copies of the spell so as to target everything the spell could conceivably target. This meant every nonbasic land was destroyed (since Incendiary Command's third mode could target them, even though that wasn't the chosen mode) and every player had a 4 damage burn pointed at them, and everyone wheeled five times. I thought modes carried over when the spell was copied. If this wasn't the case, then how would the second mode on the copies be determined? Would there be a silly amount of copies generated so as to have every conceivable target of the spell targeted with enough copies to have every modal combination targeted at each? I feel like that can't be right, but they insisted on their way and I decided not to argue.
The short answer is you were right. The copied spell keeps the mode/modes chosen at the time of casting, thus each of the five players would take 4 damage and each player would "discard X cards and then draw X cards, where X is equal to the number of cards in said player's hand" 5 times.
The lands and creatures would be untouched by and of the Incendiary Commands.
Rule 706.2: When copying an object, the copy acquires the copiable values of the original object (…), choices made when casting or activating it (mode, targets, the value of X, whether it was kicked, how it will affect multiple targets, and so on). (…)
From Torment's FAQ: Radiate can't change anything about the copies of the spell. They're all exactly like the original, except they target different things. It doesn't change the mode of a spell (modal spells start with "Choose one -- ") for any of the copies.
My EDH Decks:
Purphoros RRR Goblin Burn
The short answer is you were right. The copied spell keeps the mode/modes chosen at the time of casting, thus each of the five players would take 4 damage and each player would "discard X cards and then draw X cards, where X is equal to the number of cards in said player's hand" 5 times.
The lands and creatures would be untouched by and of the Incendiary Commands.
From Torment's FAQ:
Radiate can't change anything about the copies of the spell. They're all exactly like the original, except they target different things. It doesn't change the mode of a spell (modal spells start with "Choose one -- ") for any of the copies.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/products/card-set-archive/torment
RULES OF MAGIC :
http://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/gameplay/rules-and-formats/rules