Here is the situation:
Player A has Spark Double on the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter and is not copying anything. If they play another Spark Double can they choose to copy the Spark Double currently on the field multiple times before eventually choosing another creature they control to get a copy of the other creature they control with as many +1/+1 counters as they chose to copy the original Spark Double or does this not work?
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
Replacement effects only get one chance to apply to any given event (with the exception of the commander replacement rule, which can be applied multiple times if it still appies to the modified event). Here you have one replacement effect (from the Double that's entering the battlefield), applied it makes another replacement effect applicable (from the Double it becomes by copyng the one on the field). That one gets applied, and then there is no more replacement effect to apply, as all the ones that could be applied have already been applied. So the new Double gets two additional +1/+1 counters if it copies a creature in the end.
No they cannot. +1/+1 counters are not a copy-able characteristic.
That's not relevant.
The issue is Spark Double replaces entering the battlefield with "entering the battlefield with [copy of: the Spark Double] stats and an additional +1/+1 counter", and then according to CR706.5, the ability of Spark Double gained this way will apply. This replaces "entering the battlefield" with "entering the battlefield with [copy of: Spark Double] stats and an additional +1/+1 counter", which seemingly gives us the next event, "|entering the battlefield with [copy of: the Spark Double] stats and an additional +1/+1 counter|and an additional +1/+1 counter".
Each time, an ability gained due to a different effect asserts that you pick a creature or planeswalker and makes the ability of that creature apply as the permanent enters the battlefield having copied it. The copying replaces the statistics defined by the other copying, so that doesn't accumulate in any way, but the instruction to put a counter gets queued up as many times as you want to choose the raw Spark Double. The copying effects after the second selection give an ability defined from the same Spark Double, but a distinct (unique for that ability) effect granted it. The identity conditions of abilities and effects are peculiar. Effects are clearly individuated.. if something causes an effect to exist, that effect is unique/new, period. Abilities have 'definition' and 'instance':
112.1a An ability can be a characteristic an object has that lets it affect the game. An object’s abilities are defined by its rules text or by the effect that created it. Abilities can also be granted to objects by rules or effects. (Effects that grant abilities usually use the words “has,” “have,” “gains,” or “gain.”) Abilities generate effects. (See rule 609, “Effects.”)
112.2c An object may have multiple abilities. If the object is represented by a card, then aside from certain defined abilities that may be strung together on a single line (see rule 702, “Keyword Abilities”), each paragraph break in a card’s text marks a separate ability. If the object is not represented by a card, the effect that created it may have given it multiple abilities. An object may also be granted additional abilities by a spell or ability. If an object has multiple instances of the same ability, each instance functions independently. This may or may not produce more effects than a single instance; refer to the specific ability for more information.
The entering permanent never has multiple instances of the Spark Double ability, which is room for a loophole to prevent your loophole. If those are different abilities, then they generate different effects, and different replacement effects can be applied to an event without upper limit (614.5, and 616.2 in light of 706.5). But if the ability which the entering permanent has "because" of entering the battlefield as a copy of a raw Spark Double is not considered to function independently from a textually-identical ability which happens to be the cause of entering the battlefield as a copy of a raw Spark Double, then those effects would not be different, and you could only acquire two +1/+1 counters this way, as the replacement effect's identity is the same one on the third try as the second (CR 614.5).
If the game does not consider that ability to generate the same replacement effect, then the only conclusion is that the event is repeatedly amended before the permanent enters the battlefield, and after being defined, it doesn't matter that the ability which applied the replacement effect that modified the event to include the things it does now no longer exists. All that matters is that a valid replacement effect exists and can modify that event, so it can be chosen.
When you apply the Spark Double's copy effect, it overwrites the previous copy effect that was there. This is the same situation as Progenitor Mimic, really: You can't just copy a Mimic with a Mimic over and over and get an arbitrarily large number of triggers. Here, you can't get an arbitrarily number of counters.
When you apply the Spark Double's copy effect, it overwrites the previous copy effect that was there. This is the same situation as Progenitor Mimic, really: You can't just copy a Mimic with a Mimic over and over and get an arbitrarily large number of triggers. Here, you can't get an arbitrarily number of counters.
On the Mimic, "...except it gains..." is acting to define extra elements of the copiable values. They inject additional, redacted, or altered information as though that was what was copied. The data are indeed replaced totally by putting another copy definition upon that object. That situation cannot become like this one. Besides, you're never choosing a Progenitor Mimic that has become a copy in that way - only the object entering the battlefield (not on the battlefield) would have that triggered ability, so you can pile up the instances only by putting different Progenitor Mimics into play, sequentially, choosing each other.
If you picked a raw Progenitor Mimic with a Progenitor Mimic, you could end up with a bunch of copy effects apparently applying to the new permanent, saying "This copies: [actual Progenitor Mimic] + the triggered ability", where the copying would also force the application of that ability to generate the copying effect to say "This copies: [actual Progenitor Mimic] + the triggered ability", but as you can see, these copy effects actually say the same thing, and copying overwrites copying anyway, so neither the last word is larger than the first, nor can you add these together and end up with anything more than one of them.
Overwriting the copy effect on Spark Double does not wrap up because its effect is not just a copy effect. The copy effect comes with a putting effect, these two things proceeding from an as-enters-the-batlefield ability. As-enters-the-battlefield abilities don't "overwrite" others of their kind... that's exactly not what the point of using the word "additional" for the counter is. This situation is caused by the as-enters-the-battlefield ability, and the fact that the copying causes the application of an as-enters-the-battlefield ability, which does the two things. The as-enters-the-battlefield creates a replacement effect, and it's a replacement behaviour that drives this situation.
The object doesn't have to be the copy for this application to do its business, either; applying this ability instructs us to do two things: to countenance a modified event before it actually happens, and to apply the as-enters-the-battlefield ability copied - the whole thing - at this same traffic stop (entering the battlefield).
edit: Expanding...
Replacement effects have different arithmetic to the copying mechanics in the Progenitor Mimic example. One happening may be partially replaced, leading to an event that is the designated event of the last replacement effect, plus the other things it didn't modify. You can use equivalent replacement effects to accumulate a greater outcome, and that happens here. In the Spark Double case, as with the example, still "the last word is not larger than the first", but the outcome is definitely adding up to more, because the event being defined through successive applications of equal replacements includes an action, a new one each time, and actions, when they aren't impossible, actually occur, and that necessarily changes something.
If this interaction is not intended, it's because Wizards doesn't want an ability to apply at some step of this loop, doesn't want a replacement effect to be allowed in. If they are allowed to apply, then they will add up.
Replacement effects only get one chance to apply to any given event (with the exception of the commander replacement rule, which can be applied multiple times if it still appies to the modified event). Here you have one replacement effect (from the Double that's entering the battlefield), applied it makes another replacement effect applicable (from the Double it becomes by copyng the one on the field). That one gets applied, and then there is no more replacement effect to apply, as all the ones that could be applied have already been applied. So the new Double gets two additional +1/+1 counters if it copies a creature in the end.
How grand if that could be the logic. But this can't be inferred from the text of the CR. This argument claims that a replacement effect's identity is the same at two stages of the procedure, by arguing that there is an equivalence of the object that it is "from" and because its existence proceeds from that object. But there isn't a reason to find a replacement effect's identity to depend on an object. Effects are defined and generated by abilities. Objects can have multiple abilities, sometimes equivalent ones that do the same thing but the effects are distinct. You'd need to believe that the ability of the Double is the same. Then, in this amended argument, the replacement instruction (of the as-enters-the-battlefield ability) is not followed because the ability of the entering Spark Double is the same single one as the one that just applied, made Spark Double into a copy, and caused 706.5 to tell us to apply that ability. Then that single ability is of course generating just the one replacement effect, which must be itself.
I can't readily prove this is wrong, because "applying the ability" isn't the same as being allowed to sling the replacement effect it defines. 706.5 is consistent with just letting the ability gained through copying generate the effect it seems to, but generating a replacement effect is different from applying it. Neither can I say for sure that the Spark Double does not cause itself to copy over the identical same ability that is causing it to do that very thing. The copy effect is equivalent (type-identity) because it has the same text, and it has been fed equivalent data (raw Spark Double copiable values), but to say that means that either one would grant the identical (token-identity) ability? Such claim has no basis, because the definition of an "instance of an ability" is underworded, as I went through in post #4.
(It can't matter that it is the same Spark Double permanent chosen for the ability, because it is the copiable values that are acquired. Just the data. The copy process only takes note of what stats the copied object has, not which particular one it is. Rejoice for the goal of closing the loophole, because otherwise additional Spark Doubles would still grow the number of valid iterations as the square.)
...
Equivalent effects, which are operating at the same time, in general can do either different things, or a redundant thing. Gaining an ability has not been considered redundant before. Abilities have been considered redundant, but not the effect of gaining one.
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A card similar to Spark Double in this respect is Altered Ego. Take the following scenario:
One Altered Ego (Altered Ego I) is on the battlefield and isn't a copy of anything. You cast another Altered Ego (Altered Ego II) with an X of 2.
All players pass, then Altered Ego II resolves. You have Altered Ego II become a copy of Altered Ego I. Altered Ego II thus acquires Altered Ego I's copiable values and would enter the battlefield with two additional +1/+1 counters on it.
Now, the effect from Altered Ego I's second ability is applicable (C.R. 616.1e, 616.2). You have Altered Ego II again become a copy of Altered Ego I. Altered Ego II thus acquires Altered Ego I's copiable values. The X on the second ability Altered Ego II acquired from Altered Ego I is 2 since Altered Ego II's X was already chosen to be 2 when Altered Ego II was cast and that X doesn't appear "in a mana cost, alternative cost, additional cost, or activation cost" (C.R. 107.3e); thus, Altered Ego II would enter the battlefield with two additional +1/+1 counters on it (but those counters replace the additional +1/+1 counters that Altered Ego II would have in step 2 [C.R. 706.9e]).
Now, the question is whether the effect from Altered Ego I's second ability, newly acquired this way, is applicable (under C.R. 616.1e). Recall that under C.R. 614.5, in general, a given replacement effect "gets only one opportunity to affect an event or any modified events that may replace that event". However, C.R. 614.5 doesn't apply to the case of two different replacement effects. If the replacement effect from the second ability Altered Ego II acquired from Altered Ego I in step 2 is different from that of the second ability Altered Ego II acquired from Altered Ego I in step 3, thenSince the abilities acquired in steps 2 and 3 are distinct, and so generate different effects for the purposes of C.R. 614.5 (review C.R. 609.1), the effect from the latter abilityAltered Ego I's second ability acquired in step 3 is applicable (C.R. 616.1e, 616.2) and you can choose to have Altered Ego II again become a copy of Altered Ego I (with two additional +1/+1 counters on it) (but if you do, those counters replace the additional +1/+1 counters that Altered Ego II would have in step 3 [C.R. 706.9e]), forming a loop that ends, for example, when you choose not to have Altered Ego II become a copy of anything.
Thus, the decisive question is whether, when the same ability is acquired more than once by the same object in the process of replacing the same event "or any modified events that may replace it", the replacement effects generated each time are distinct for the purposes of C.R. 614.5.
Note also that C.R. 614.13a-b don't apply to the scenario above since Altered Ego I is not being chosen to change zones.
EDIT: Edited after comment 9 was posted.
EDIT (Jun. 13): Edited to conform to rule update for Modern Horizons.
EDIT (Apr. 17, 2020): Change quoted text to conform to rule update with Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths.
We're aware of a rules loophole allowing Spark Double to copy another Spark Double that isn't a copy of anything and repeat more times than 140 characters allow me to properly express, growing quite large. This is correct under current rules, will change in the future. #WotCStaff
The rules update for Modern Horizons added C.R. 706.9e. Due to this new rule, if a replacement effect of the form "enter the battlefield as a copy of [an object], except it enters with ... additional +1/+1 counter[s] on it", the additional +1/+1 counters are not added on if "another copy effect is applied to" the permanent entering the battlefield this way. Here is an example that illustrates this rule.
One Spark Double (Spark Double I) is on the battlefield and isn't a copy of anything. You cast another Spark Double (Spark Double II).
All players pass, then Spark Double II resolves. You have Spark Double II become a copy of Spark Double I. Spark Double II thus acquires Spark Double I's copiable values and would enter the battlefield with one additional +1/+1 counter on it.
Now, the effect from Spark Double I's second ability is applicable (C.R. 616.1e, 616.2). You have Spark Double II again become a copy of Spark Double I. Thus, Spark Double II would now enter the battlefield with only one additional +1/+1 counter on it (not two) (the part of the previous replacement effect that would add counters to Spark Double II doesn't happen anymore) (C.R. 706.9e).
Now, the effect from Spark Double I's second ability is again applicable (C.R. 616.1e, 616.2). You have Spark Double II again become a copy of Spark Double I. Thus, Spark Double II would now enter the battlefield with only one additional +1/+1 counter on it (not two and not three) (the part of the previous replacement effects that would add counters to Spark Double II doesn't happen anymore) (C.R. 706.9e).
This forms a loop that ends, for example, when you choose not to have Spark Double II become a copy of anything.
And here is another example:
One Spark Double (Spark Double I) is on the battlefield and isn't a copy of anything, and one Clone is also on the battlefield and isn't a copy of anything. You cast another Spark Double (Spark Double II).
All players pass, then Spark Double II resolves. You have Spark Double II become a copy of Spark Double I. Spark Double II thus acquires Spark Double I's copiable values and would enter the battlefield with one additional +1/+1 counter on it.
Now, the effect from Spark Double I's second ability is applicable (C.R. 616.1e, 616.2). You have Spark Double II become a copy of Clone. Thus, due to the Spark Double I effect, Spark Double II would now enter the battlefield with only one additional +1/+1 counter on it (not two) (the part of the previous replacement effect that would add a counter to Spark Double II doesn't happen anymore) (C.R. 706.9e).
Now, the effect from Clone's ability is applicable (C.R. 616.1e, 616.2). You have Spark Double II again become a copy of Spark Double I. Thus, due to the Clone effect, Spark Double II would now enter the battlefield with no additional +1/+1 counter on it (and not with one or with two) (the part of the previous replacement effects that would add counters to Spark Double II doesn't happen anymore) (C.R. 706.9e).
This forms a loop that ends, for example, when you choose not to have Spark Double II become a copy of anything.
Player A has Spark Double on the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter and is not copying anything. If they play another Spark Double can they choose to copy the Spark Double currently on the field multiple times before eventually choosing another creature they control to get a copy of the other creature they control with as many +1/+1 counters as they chose to copy the original Spark Double or does this not work?
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That's not relevant.
The issue is Spark Double replaces entering the battlefield with "entering the battlefield with [copy of: the Spark Double] stats and an additional +1/+1 counter", and then according to CR706.5, the ability of Spark Double gained this way will apply. This replaces "entering the battlefield" with "entering the battlefield with [copy of: Spark Double] stats and an additional +1/+1 counter", which seemingly gives us the next event, "|entering the battlefield with [copy of: the Spark Double] stats and an additional +1/+1 counter|and an additional +1/+1 counter".
Each time, an ability gained due to a different effect asserts that you pick a creature or planeswalker and makes the ability of that creature apply as the permanent enters the battlefield having copied it. The copying replaces the statistics defined by the other copying, so that doesn't accumulate in any way, but the instruction to put a counter gets queued up as many times as you want to choose the raw Spark Double. The copying effects after the second selection give an ability defined from the same Spark Double, but a distinct (unique for that ability) effect granted it. The identity conditions of abilities and effects are peculiar. Effects are clearly individuated.. if something causes an effect to exist, that effect is unique/new, period. Abilities have 'definition' and 'instance':
The entering permanent never has multiple instances of the Spark Double ability, which is room for a loophole to prevent your loophole. If those are different abilities, then they generate different effects, and different replacement effects can be applied to an event without upper limit (614.5, and 616.2 in light of 706.5). But if the ability which the entering permanent has "because" of entering the battlefield as a copy of a raw Spark Double is not considered to function independently from a textually-identical ability which happens to be the cause of entering the battlefield as a copy of a raw Spark Double, then those effects would not be different, and you could only acquire two +1/+1 counters this way, as the replacement effect's identity is the same one on the third try as the second (CR 614.5).
If the game does not consider that ability to generate the same replacement effect, then the only conclusion is that the event is repeatedly amended before the permanent enters the battlefield, and after being defined, it doesn't matter that the ability which applied the replacement effect that modified the event to include the things it does now no longer exists. All that matters is that a valid replacement effect exists and can modify that event, so it can be chosen.
(edited to rearrange the conclusions for clarity)
Awesome avatar provided by Krashbot @ [Epic Graphics].
When you apply the Spark Double's copy effect, it overwrites the previous copy effect that was there. This is the same situation as Progenitor Mimic, really: You can't just copy a Mimic with a Mimic over and over and get an arbitrarily large number of triggers. Here, you can't get an arbitrarily number of counters.On the Mimic, "...except it gains..." is acting to define extra elements of the copiable values. They inject additional, redacted, or altered information as though that was what was copied. The data are indeed replaced totally by putting another copy definition upon that object. That situation cannot become like this one. Besides, you're never choosing a Progenitor Mimic that has become a copy in that way - only the object entering the battlefield (not on the battlefield) would have that triggered ability, so you can pile up the instances only by putting different Progenitor Mimics into play, sequentially, choosing each other.
If you picked a raw Progenitor Mimic with a Progenitor Mimic, you could end up with a bunch of copy effects apparently applying to the new permanent, saying "This copies: [actual Progenitor Mimic] + the triggered ability", where the copying would also force the application of that ability to generate the copying effect to say "This copies: [actual Progenitor Mimic] + the triggered ability", but as you can see, these copy effects actually say the same thing, and copying overwrites copying anyway, so neither the last word is larger than the first, nor can you add these together and end up with anything more than one of them.
Overwriting the copy effect on Spark Double does not wrap up because its effect is not just a copy effect. The copy effect comes with a putting effect, these two things proceeding from an as-enters-the-batlefield ability. As-enters-the-battlefield abilities don't "overwrite" others of their kind... that's exactly not what the point of using the word "additional" for the counter is. This situation is caused by the as-enters-the-battlefield ability, and the fact that the copying causes the application of an as-enters-the-battlefield ability, which does the two things. The as-enters-the-battlefield creates a replacement effect, and it's a replacement behaviour that drives this situation.
The object doesn't have to be the copy for this application to do its business, either; applying this ability instructs us to do two things: to countenance a modified event before it actually happens, and to apply the as-enters-the-battlefield ability copied - the whole thing - at this same traffic stop (entering the battlefield).
edit: Expanding...
Replacement effects have different arithmetic to the copying mechanics in the Progenitor Mimic example. One happening may be partially replaced, leading to an event that is the designated event of the last replacement effect, plus the other things it didn't modify. You can use equivalent replacement effects to accumulate a greater outcome, and that happens here. In the Spark Double case, as with the example, still "the last word is not larger than the first", but the outcome is definitely adding up to more, because the event being defined through successive applications of equal replacements includes an action, a new one each time, and actions, when they aren't impossible, actually occur, and that necessarily changes something.
If this interaction is not intended, it's because Wizards doesn't want an ability to apply at some step of this loop, doesn't want a replacement effect to be allowed in. If they are allowed to apply, then they will add up.
Awesome avatar provided by Krashbot @ [Epic Graphics].
How grand if that could be the logic. But this can't be inferred from the text of the CR. This argument claims that a replacement effect's identity is the same at two stages of the procedure, by arguing that there is an equivalence of the object that it is "from" and because its existence proceeds from that object. But there isn't a reason to find a replacement effect's identity to depend on an object. Effects are defined and generated by abilities. Objects can have multiple abilities, sometimes equivalent ones that do the same thing but the effects are distinct. You'd need to believe that the ability of the Double is the same. Then, in this amended argument, the replacement instruction (of the as-enters-the-battlefield ability) is not followed because the ability of the entering Spark Double is the same single one as the one that just applied, made Spark Double into a copy, and caused 706.5 to tell us to apply that ability. Then that single ability is of course generating just the one replacement effect, which must be itself.
I can't readily prove this is wrong, because "applying the ability" isn't the same as being allowed to sling the replacement effect it defines. 706.5 is consistent with just letting the ability gained through copying generate the effect it seems to, but generating a replacement effect is different from applying it. Neither can I say for sure that the Spark Double does not cause itself to copy over the identical same ability that is causing it to do that very thing. The copy effect is equivalent (type-identity) because it has the same text, and it has been fed equivalent data (raw Spark Double copiable values), but to say that means that either one would grant the identical (token-identity) ability? Such claim has no basis, because the definition of an "instance of an ability" is underworded, as I went through in post #4.
(It can't matter that it is the same Spark Double permanent chosen for the ability, because it is the copiable values that are acquired. Just the data. The copy process only takes note of what stats the copied object has, not which particular one it is. Rejoice for the goal of closing the loophole, because otherwise additional Spark Doubles would still grow the number of valid iterations as the square.)
...
Equivalent effects, which are operating at the same time, in general can do either different things, or a redundant thing. Gaining an ability has not been considered redundant before. Abilities have been considered redundant, but not the effect of gaining one.
Awesome avatar provided by Krashbot @ [Epic Graphics].
If the replacement effect from the second ability Altered Ego II acquired from Altered Ego I in step 2 is different from that of the second ability Altered Ego II acquired from Altered Ego I in step 3, thenSince the abilities acquired in steps 2 and 3 are distinct, and so generate different effects for the purposes of C.R. 614.5 (review C.R. 609.1), the effect fromthe latter abilityAltered Ego I's second ability acquired in step 3 is applicable (C.R. 616.1e, 616.2) and you can choose to have Altered Ego II again become a copy of Altered Ego I(with two additional +1/+1 counters on it)(but if you do, those counters replace the additional +1/+1 counters that Altered Ego II would have in step 3 [C.R. 706.9e]), forming a loop that ends, for example, when you choose not to have Altered Ego II become a copy of anything.Thus, the decisive question is whether, when the same ability is acquired more than once by the same object in the process of replacing the same event "or any modified events that may replace it", the replacement effects generated each time are distinct for the purposes of C.R. 614.5.Note also that C.R. 614.13a-b don't apply to the scenario above since Altered Ego I is not being chosen to change zones.
EDIT: Edited after comment 9 was posted.
EDIT (Jun. 13): Edited to conform to rule update for Modern Horizons.
EDIT (Apr. 17, 2020): Change quoted text to conform to rule update with Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths.
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