Concerning the combination of these two cards, Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and Ashes of the Fallen, does this actually work in general with creature spells that are not normally knights? Also, would it work with a face-down Zoetic Cavern?
My intuition says no. I know from previous clarifications that you can cast a Zoetic Cavern face-down from the top of your library while you control Garruk's Horde, because it's a creature when you turn it face-down as per the rules of morph. However, while it would remain a creature when you put it on the stack, it wouldn't remain a knight, because Ashes of the Fallen only applies to cards in your graveyard. Presumably, the game checks if your spell can be legally cast right before you determine costs, use mana abilities and pay costs, but I'm not sure how that applies here.
There is a decade-old thread about this interaction that left the subject hanging. Maybe the rules changed since then, but either way, could I get some clarification on this?
Ashes of the Fallen actually gives the Knight creature type to creature cards in your graveyard in addition to their other types, so you would indeed be able to play them from your graveyard as long as Haakon, Stromgald Scourge is on the battlefield. However, that static ability only applies to creature cards in your graveyard. Even though you could cast Zoetic Cavern as a creature spell for 3 since it has morph, it isn't ever a creature card while it's in your graveyard, so you can't use Haakon's ability to play it.
You actually can't cast Zoetic Cavern from the top of your library with Garruk's Horde either for the same reason - while it's in your library, it's a land card, not a creature card, so you won't be able to cast it from there with that ability since the ability specifies that you can only cast the top card of your library if it's a creature card.
Basically, in either case, when you go to cast the Cavern, the game checks to see what the card looked like before the spell was moved to the stack. In both cases, the game sees a land card, so the casting announcement is actually illegal. If you were casting, say, a Grizzly Bears, the game would be able to look at the Grizzly Bears as it existed in your graveyard and see that it was a Knight (thanks to Ashes of the Fallen), and you'd be able to complete casting it.
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Presumably, the poster was referring to this ruling:
601.3. A player can’t begin to cast a spell unless a rule or effect allows that player to cast it. If that player is no longer allowed to cast that spell after completing its proposal, the casting of the spell is illegal and the game returns to the moment before the casting of that spell was proposed (see rule 721, “Handling Illegal Actions”).
The implication here is that leaving the graveyard causes the card to lose the knight subtype, removing Haakon's ability to allow the spell to be cast. Of course, this intent of this ruling applies to the presence of "can't" abilities that may or may not apply, such as Void Winnower. How this rule applies to the loss of "can" abilities is far murkier.
I also agree that the ruling that lets Garruk's Horde cast noncreature morphs needs to be clarified. The Horde's ability is only active when the top card of its controller's library is a creature card, which Zoetic Cavern is not, and morph can only be used when the card to which it is attached can be cast (emphasis mine):
702.36a Morph is a static ability that functions in any zone from which you could play the card it’s on, and the morph effect works any time the card is face down. “Morph [cost]” means “You may cast this card as a 2/2 face-down creature with no text, no name, no subtypes, and no mana cost by paying {3} rather than paying its mana cost.” (See rule 707, “Face-Down Spells and Permanents.”)
Therefore, the initiation of morph itself, which turns the card face-down, would be an illegal action because Garruk's Horde's third ability does not make the library's top card castable while a noncreature, which would fail to fulfill morph's own condition.
The previous ruling used this rule:
707.4. Objects that are cast face down are turned face down before they are put onto the stack, so effects that care about the characteristics of a spell will see only the face-down spell’s characteristics. Any effects or prohibitions that would apply to casting an object with these characteristics (and not the face-up object’s characteristics) are applied to casting this object. The permanent the spell becomes will be a face-down permanent.
However, if turning the card face-down to initiate morph in the first place were an illegal action under 702.36a, then rule 707.4 wouldn't even have a chance to apply.
You actually can't cast Zoetic Cavern from the top of your library with Garruk's Horde either for the same reason - while it's in your library, it's a land card, not a creature card, so you won't be able to cast it from there with that ability since the ability specifies that you can only cast the top card of your library if it's a creature card.
A Judge Blog and a Cranial Insertion Article (both fairly old but should still be accurate) disagree with you:
You check the legality of casting it after it has gone onto the stack (the fifth step specifically) and Horde allows you to cast a creature from the top of your library. And since the card is now face down on the stack, and it is a card, it is a creature card since that it what it is on the stack when the game checks to see if you are permitted to cast it.
You actually can't cast Zoetic Cavern from the top of your library with Garruk's Horde either for the same reason - while it's in your library, it's a land card, not a creature card, so you won't be able to cast it from there with that ability since the ability specifies that you can only cast the top card of your library if it's a creature card.
A Judge Blog and a Cranial Insertion Article (both fairly old but should still be accurate) disagree with you:
You check the legality of casting it after it has gone onto the stack (the fifth step specifically) and Horde allows you to cast a creature from the top of your library. And since the card is now face down on the stack, and it is a card, it is a creature card since that it what it is on the stack when the game checks to see if you are permitted to cast it.
Now the game checks if a spell can be cast both before (601.3) and after (601.2e) it moves to the stack, and effects that allow you to cast spells with certain characteristics from zones other than hand aren't covered in 601.3 a-d.
So let me see if I got the final verdict correctly.
Because you check if a spell can be cast both before (601.3) and after (601.2e) it moves to the stack, creature cards that are not normally knights can't be cast with Haakon even with Ashes of the Fallen on knights. And you can't cast Zoetic Cavern face-down either with Garruk's Horde from the top of your library or with Haakon and Ashes from your graveyard. I'm a little surprised that 707.4 didn't kick in with Garruk's Horde if all this is true.
For the purposes of Haakon's second ability and Garruk's Horde's last ability, in general, what is relevant is whether the object was a Knight spell or a creature spell, respectively, on the stack as it began to be cast. See also this thread and this thread.
In the case of Zoetic Cavern, if you cast Zoetic Cavern with morph from your graveyard—
you do so "as a 2/2 face-down creature with ... no subtypes" (including creature types) and without certain other characteristics (C.R. 702.36a, 203.5m), and
Zoetic Cavern is turned face down (and normally becomes a creature card with no subtypes) before it goes on the stack, so that, for example, Haakon alone won't treat it as a Knight spell, but if you control Haakon and Ashes of the Fallen, Zoetic Cavern will be treated as a creature card of the chosen type in your graveyard, and would be treated as a spell of the chosen type for the purposes of Haakon (C.R. 702.36c, 601.3e, 613.1d, 613.1, 702.36a, 203.5m; see also C.R. 704.4).
EDIT: Edited after comment 8 was posted.
EDIT (May 30): Correctness edit; add rule citation.
EDIT (Sep. 9): Edited quoted text.
EDIT (Apr. 22; May 5): Edited to conform to update with Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths.
EDIT (Mar. 26, 2021): Struck out text because it's unclear whether Zoetic Cavern would be treated as a Knight spell if it acquires the Knight creature type in the graveyard with Ashes of the Fallen. This is notably because under C.R. 702.36c, a card with a morph ability is cast using morph by, among other things, "[p]ut[ting] it onto the stack (as a face-down spell with the same characteristics [as those given earlier in the rule])", namely, "with ... no subtypes ...", among other things.
EDIT (Aug. 4, 2023): Edit comment from Mar. 26, 2021.
Rules or effects that provide for "allowance" to cast a spell can't actually mean to examine the spell object. A spell can't be cast, because it's already a spell. But the rules or effects that deny a spell "can legally be cast" indeed refer to spellcasting overall. Note that there's an asymmetry between saying an object can't be cast, and an object can be cast. Indeed, notice it's rare to see an effect that something "can" be cast, they say you "may" cast.
This is the difference to me between 601.2 step-e, and 601.3. There has to be an allowance to cast the card, not defeated by a rule or effect. And then the spell has to not be illegal to cast (at two checkpoints).
Where Morph refers to a zone "from which you could normally play the card it's on", I'm confident this is an error:
702.36a Morph is a static ability that functions in any zone from which you could play the card it’s on, and the morph effect works any time the card is face down. “Morph [cost]” means “You may cast this card as a 2/2 face-down creature with no text, no name, no subtypes, and no mana cost by paying {3} rather than paying its mana cost.” (See rule 707, “Face-Down Spells and Permanents.”)
702.36b [...]
702.36c To cast a card using its morph ability, turn it face down. It becomes a 2/2 face-down creature card with no text, no name, no subtypes, and no mana cost. Any effects or prohibitions that would apply to casting a card with these characteristics (and not the face-up card’s characteristics) are applied to casting this card. These values are the copiable values of that object’s characteristics. (See rule 613, “Interaction of Continuous Effects,” and rule 706, “Copying Objects.”) Put it onto the stack (as a face-down spell with the same characteristics), and pay {3} rather than pay its mana cost. This follows the rules for paying alternative costs. You can use a morph ability to cast a card from any zone from which you could normally play it. When the spell resolves, it enters the battlefield with the same characteristics the spell had. The morph effect applies to the face-down object wherever it is, and it ends when the permanent is turned face up.
The first bolded passages seem to be intended to read as "any zone from which you could play a card", and the second one definitely wouldn't mean "from which you could normally play it". If the first passage is really read as BlazingRagnarok highlights, then Zoetic Cavern being used for Morph from your hand depends on whether you can drop a land right now. I don't think we're supposed to actually consider *the card it's on*, just answer the question "is this a zone from which you could play a card", or, basically, Morph should apply from everywhere. And "from which you could normally play it"? Not "otherwise play it"? Then it doesn't interact with other effects and would only let you do things from your hand according to the intrinsic permissions of the card types. Either way, it contradicts an earlier sentence of the same rule...
For cards that change card type to creature, like Lumithread Field, in interactions like with Haakon or the Garruk's Horde, those phrases look problematic. But Morph is written to turn the card into a face-down creature object, and "Any effects or prohibitions that would apply to casting a card with these characteristics (and not the face-up card’s characteristics) are applied to casting this card." (702.36c) It's crystal clear about that. We are not supposed to ask if there's some ersatz permission to cast this card before allowing morph to see if we can morph it. Morph straight lets us see if we can cast a face-down spell.
So,
Garruk's Horde lets creature cards be cast from the top of a library, and Haakon lets creature cards that are Knights be cast from a grave. This is an allowance that discovers a card having those types in the first check of 601.2 (and redundantly? specified in 601.3), when using morph. The proposal moves the object to the Stack, where it is now a creature spell that isn't a knight anymore. There are no illegalities from rules or effects in this situation to consider for 601.2e. As peteroupc says, that isn't the purview of Haakon or the Horde to deny. Void Winnower isn't in the ask from the OP.
So the proposal is completed, and the final check of 601.3 gets the same answer as 601.2e, so the spell is cast.
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In the case of morph, see C.R. 113.6d, which applies, among other things, to "[a]n object's ability that ... modifies how that particular object can be played"; such an ability includes morph (C.R. 702.36a) and "functions in any zone from which it could be played ... and also on the stack".
EDIT (Sep. 28, 2020): One rule was renumbered in the meantime.
My intuition says no. I know from previous clarifications that you can cast a Zoetic Cavern face-down from the top of your library while you control Garruk's Horde, because it's a creature when you turn it face-down as per the rules of morph. However, while it would remain a creature when you put it on the stack, it wouldn't remain a knight, because Ashes of the Fallen only applies to cards in your graveyard. Presumably, the game checks if your spell can be legally cast right before you determine costs, use mana abilities and pay costs, but I'm not sure how that applies here.
There is a decade-old thread about this interaction that left the subject hanging. Maybe the rules changed since then, but either way, could I get some clarification on this?
Old thread:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-rulings/magic-rulings-archives/261349-haakon-and-his-knights
You actually can't cast Zoetic Cavern from the top of your library with Garruk's Horde either for the same reason - while it's in your library, it's a land card, not a creature card, so you won't be able to cast it from there with that ability since the ability specifies that you can only cast the top card of your library if it's a creature card.
Basically, in either case, when you go to cast the Cavern, the game checks to see what the card looked like before the spell was moved to the stack. In both cases, the game sees a land card, so the casting announcement is actually illegal. If you were casting, say, a Grizzly Bears, the game would be able to look at the Grizzly Bears as it existed in your graveyard and see that it was a Knight (thanks to Ashes of the Fallen), and you'd be able to complete casting it.
601.3. A player can’t begin to cast a spell unless a rule or effect allows that player to cast it. If that player is no longer allowed to cast that spell after completing its proposal, the casting of the spell is illegal and the game returns to the moment before the casting of that spell was proposed (see rule 721, “Handling Illegal Actions”).
The implication here is that leaving the graveyard causes the card to lose the knight subtype, removing Haakon's ability to allow the spell to be cast. Of course, this intent of this ruling applies to the presence of "can't" abilities that may or may not apply, such as Void Winnower. How this rule applies to the loss of "can" abilities is far murkier.
I also agree that the ruling that lets Garruk's Horde cast noncreature morphs needs to be clarified. The Horde's ability is only active when the top card of its controller's library is a creature card, which Zoetic Cavern is not, and morph can only be used when the card to which it is attached can be cast (emphasis mine):
702.36a Morph is a static ability that functions in any zone from which you could play the card it’s on, and the morph effect works any time the card is face down. “Morph [cost]” means “You may cast this card as a 2/2 face-down creature with no text, no name, no subtypes, and no mana cost by paying {3} rather than paying its mana cost.” (See rule 707, “Face-Down Spells and Permanents.”)
Therefore, the initiation of morph itself, which turns the card face-down, would be an illegal action because Garruk's Horde's third ability does not make the library's top card castable while a noncreature, which would fail to fulfill morph's own condition.
The previous ruling used this rule:
707.4. Objects that are cast face down are turned face down before they are put onto the stack, so effects that care about the characteristics of a spell will see only the face-down spell’s characteristics. Any effects or prohibitions that would apply to casting an object with these characteristics (and not the face-up object’s characteristics) are applied to casting this object. The permanent the spell becomes will be a face-down permanent.
However, if turning the card face-down to initiate morph in the first place were an illegal action under 702.36a, then rule 707.4 wouldn't even have a chance to apply.
https://blogs.magicjudges.org/articles/2014/09/16/morph-rules-problems-face-down-in-a-face-up-world/
http://www.cranialinsertion.com/article/619
You check the legality of casting it after it has gone onto the stack (the fifth step specifically) and Horde allows you to cast a creature from the top of your library. And since the card is now face down on the stack, and it is a card, it is a creature card since that it what it is on the stack when the game checks to see if you are permitted to cast it.
The rule for casting legality has changed since then.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/core-set-2019-comprehensive-rules-changes-2018-07-06
Now the game checks if a spell can be cast both before (601.3) and after (601.2e) it moves to the stack, and effects that allow you to cast spells with certain characteristics from zones other than hand aren't covered in 601.3 a-d.
Because you check if a spell can be cast both before (601.3) and after (601.2e) it moves to the stack, creature cards that are not normally knights can't be cast with Haakon even with Ashes of the Fallen on knights. And you can't cast Zoetic Cavern face-down either with Garruk's Horde from the top of your library or with Haakon and Ashes from your graveyard. I'm a little surprised that 707.4 didn't kick in with Garruk's Horde if all this is true.
Could someone confirm?
In the case of Zoetic Cavern, if you cast Zoetic Cavern with morph from your graveyard—
, and would be treated as a spell of the chosen type for the purposes of Haakon(C.R. 702.36c, 601.3e, 613.1d, 613.1, 702.36a, 203.5m; see also C.R. 704.4).EDIT: Edited after comment 8 was posted.
EDIT (May 30): Correctness edit; add rule citation.
EDIT (Sep. 9): Edited quoted text.
EDIT (Apr. 22; May 5): Edited to conform to update with Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths.
EDIT (Mar. 26, 2021): Struck out text because it's unclear whether Zoetic Cavern would be treated as a Knight spell if it acquires the Knight creature type in the graveyard with Ashes of the Fallen. This is notably because under C.R. 702.36c, a card with a morph ability is cast using morph by, among other things, "[p]ut[ting] it onto the stack (as a face-down spell with the same characteristics [as those given earlier in the rule])", namely, "with ... no subtypes ...", among other things.
EDIT (Aug. 4, 2023): Edit comment from Mar. 26, 2021.
This is the difference to me between 601.2 step-e, and 601.3. There has to be an allowance to cast the card, not defeated by a rule or effect. And then the spell has to not be illegal to cast (at two checkpoints).
Where Morph refers to a zone "from which you could normally play the card it's on", I'm confident this is an error:
702.36b [...]
702.36c To cast a card using its morph ability, turn it face down. It becomes a 2/2 face-down creature card with no text, no name, no subtypes, and no mana cost. Any effects or prohibitions that would apply to casting a card with these characteristics (and not the face-up card’s characteristics) are applied to casting this card. These values are the copiable values of that object’s characteristics. (See rule 613, “Interaction of Continuous Effects,” and rule 706, “Copying Objects.”) Put it onto the stack (as a face-down spell with the same characteristics), and pay {3} rather than pay its mana cost. This follows the rules for paying alternative costs. You can use a morph ability to cast a card from any zone from which you could normally play it. When the spell resolves, it enters the battlefield with the same characteristics the spell had. The morph effect applies to the face-down object wherever it is, and it ends when the permanent is turned face up.
The first bolded passages seem to be intended to read as "any zone from which you could play a card", and the second one definitely wouldn't mean "from which you could normally play it". If the first passage is really read as BlazingRagnarok highlights, then Zoetic Cavern being used for Morph from your hand depends on whether you can drop a land right now. I don't think we're supposed to actually consider *the card it's on*, just answer the question "is this a zone from which you could play a card", or, basically, Morph should apply from everywhere. And "from which you could normally play it"? Not "otherwise play it"? Then it doesn't interact with other effects and would only let you do things from your hand according to the intrinsic permissions of the card types. Either way, it contradicts an earlier sentence of the same rule...
For cards that change card type to creature, like Lumithread Field, in interactions like with Haakon or the Garruk's Horde, those phrases look problematic. But Morph is written to turn the card into a face-down creature object, and "Any effects or prohibitions that would apply to casting a card with these characteristics (and not the face-up card’s characteristics) are applied to casting this card." (702.36c) It's crystal clear about that. We are not supposed to ask if there's some ersatz permission to cast this card before allowing morph to see if we can morph it. Morph straight lets us see if we can cast a face-down spell.
So,
Garruk's Horde lets creature cards be cast from the top of a library, and Haakon lets creature cards that are Knights be cast from a grave. This is an allowance that discovers a card having those types in the first check of 601.2 (and redundantly? specified in 601.3), when using morph. The proposal moves the object to the Stack, where it is now a creature spell that isn't a knight anymore. There are no illegalities from rules or effects in this situation to consider for 601.2e. As peteroupc says, that isn't the purview of Haakon or the Horde to deny. Void Winnower isn't in the ask from the OP.
So the proposal is completed, and the final check of 601.3 gets the same answer as 601.2e, so the spell is cast.
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EDIT (Sep. 28, 2020): One rule was renumbered in the meantime.