No, I was mistaken, as was pointed out. In this situation described you choose the order to apply replacement effects, and can therefore apply Eye for an Eye's before Fog's and get the effect you wanted.
Okay wow I kind of screwed that one up. I jumped to hasty conclusions about what the "affected object" in such a situation would be. Sorry! Please don't hate me.
EDIT: I'm not usually this much of an idiot. I've made a horrible first impression. ...Am I still welcome here?
Protection has the following meanings, and means nothing else:
702.16b A permanent or player with protection can’t be targeted by spells with the stated quality and can’t be targeted by abilities from a source with the stated quality.
702.16c A permanent or player with protection can’t be enchanted by Auras that have the stated quality. Such Auras attached to the permanent or player with protection will be put into their owners’ graveyards as a state-based action. (See rule 704, “State-Based Actions.”)
702.16d A permanent with protection can’t be equipped by Equipment that have the stated quality [...] Such Equipment [...] become unattached from that permanent as a state-based action, but remain on the battlefield. (See rule 704, “State-Based Actions.”)
702.15e Any damage that would be dealt by sources that have the stated quality to a permanent or player with protection is prevented.
702.16f Attacking creatures with protection can’t be blocked by creatures that have the stated quality.
(I've removed some references to "fortifications", a single-card variant of Equipment from Future Sight, because it's never going to come up and could be confusing. If it somehow comes up, the same logic applies to them and lands as to equipment and creatures.)
Mizzium Mortars can't damage something with relevant protection. Ratchet Bomb can destroy something with relevant protection because it's not damaging, enchanting, equipping, blocking, or targeting it. This is pretty much what the above poster said; I just wanted to get the CR quote in.
As genini1 said, always go by the Oracle text, as reported by Gatherer. That's an official game rule. So the text of this card is "Whenever a player casts a blue spell, you may pay 3. If you do, untap target permanent."
Now, there's exactly one requirement for something to be an activated ability: "Does it start with a cost separated from the rest of the ability by a colon?" The answer here is "no", so it's not an activated ability. A triggered ability is a nonactivated ability that begins with "Whenever" (though I seem to remember a few cards that use "When") or "At" (usually as "At the beginning of <phase>" or similar). This card's ability meets that, so it's triggered. (Anything else is a static ability.)
Some technical points:
-Theoretically anything can be a cost, whether or not it actually seems like one in the common meaning: Quillspike removes -1/-1 counters from your creatures as a cost, for example. As long as it's an action separate from the rest of an ability by a colon, it's a cost. (Other things can also be costs in other contexts - the obvious example is the mana cost for a spell - but this is how they're written for activated abilities.)
-The action of paying a cost happens instantly and does not use the stack.
-A planeswalker's loyalty abilities are activated abilities; adding or removing counters is the cost. (Yes, if you use a +1 ability, adding that counter is considered a cost. There was a hilarious, though apocryphal and almost certainly false, story where a weird combo gave a creature access to a planeswalker's loyalty abilities - except that creature happened to be a Melira's Keepers.) You can tell by looking at the Oracle text, which clearly has a colon; that being said, said Oracle text will still say "-3:" instead of "Remove 3 loyalty counters from ~:" or whatever, but there's a rule to cover that.
-Whether or not an ability is a mana ability has no bearing on whether or not it's activated, triggered, or static.
EDIT: So apparently I pretty much got everything wrong ever and suck a lot. Original contents retained in spoiler for clarity (and so you'll have something to blackmail me with - I was that wrong). I'm sorry.
@EDIT: The above poster, I'm fairly sure, is incorrect about OP's first question. Rule 419.9a states in part "If two or more replacement or prevention effects are attempting to modify the way an event affects an object or player, the affected object's controller (or its owner if it has no controller) or the affected player chooses one to apply." The "affected object" here seems to be the attacking creature, controlled by an opponent unless OP is doing some very strange combo involving Eye for an Eye on his own creature. I'm leaving the rest of my post as it stands.
How does it works with prevent damage effects? If a big creature is attacking, and I cast this and a fog, is the damage unilateral to my opponent or not?
From the Comprehensive Rules:
419.9a If two or more replacement or prevention effects are attempting to modify the way an event affects an object or player, the affected object's controller (or its owner if it has no controller) or the affected player chooses one to apply. Then the other effect applies if it is still appropriate. If one or more of the applicable replacement effects is a self-replacement effect (see rule 419.6d), that effect is applied before any other replacement effects. If two or more players have to make these choices at the same time, choices are made in APNAP order (see rule 103.4). Example: Two permanents are in play. One is an enchantment that reads "If a card would be put into a graveyard, instead remove it from the game," and the other is a creature that reads "If [this creature] would be put into a graveyard from play, instead shuffle it into its owner's library." The controller of the creature that would be destroyed decides which replacement to apply first; the other does nothing.
So the situation is that your opponent attacks you, and you respond with Fog and also with Eye for an Eye targeting one of the attacking creatures. This creates two replacement effects that want to simultaneously apply to the same event, so 419.9a applies. The "affected object's controller" is presumably an opponent, so said opponent chooses the order in which the replacement effects are applied. If he applies Fog's replacement effect first, then Eye for an Eye's replacement effect will not apply at all (nor, for the record, be used up, though that's unlikely to matter) because no damage is being dealt. If he applies Eye for an Eye's replacement effect first, then he takes the damage from Eye for an Eye, and then Fog's replacement effect applies and prevents the damage from the creature. However, barring very strange circumstances, he'd choose the first option first, so no, Eye for an Eye and Fog don't produce a very useful interaction.
The damage dealt by Eye and from the source it targets is dealt at the same time? If I target a source that's lethal for both me ad the opponent who used it I'm gonna kill us both?
If one or more players are at nonpositive life totals, they all lose the game the next time state-based actions are checked. So, yes.
"Casting" has a very specific meaning in Magic. It refers to taking a card, or copy of a card, and moving it to the stack from whatever zone it's in. There are a lot of other steps associated with this process, such as choosing modes and targets (if relevant) and actually paying the costs for the spell. The process for activating an ability is very similar, but it doesn't actually involve putting a card or copy of a card onto the stack. A good, though not strictly-accurate, way to tell is to check if you're doing one of the following:
Casting a card from your hand by paying its mana cost
Casting a card from another zone by an ability defined on the card (Gravecrawler) or elsewhere (Horde of Notions); the word "cast" (occasionally "play", to allow it to be used on lands) will be specifically used
Casting a card for another mana cost using an ability of that card (Force of Will) or another (Fist of Suns), which will specifically use the word "cast" (occasionally "play")
Creating a copy of a spell and then casting that copy; the word "cast" will be specifically used, and the copy of the spell will be created from a zone other than the stack, usually exile (though there may be a few exceptions I'm unaware of)
If you're doing any of those, you're casting a spell. If you're not, you're probably not. Sometimes it'll seem like you are, but often you're instead directly moving the card from one zone to another (command zone to the battlefield, in this case) without the card ever going on the stack. (Also, note that it's important to look at the Oracle text when dealing with older cards. Some things that say "cast" in modern templating don't in older templating - "play" used to be used, and before that things were really wonky.)
If a creature has damage marked on it that equals or exceeds its toughness, it goes to the graveyard the next time state-based actions are checked, barring a relevant replacement effect or having indestructible. That's it. There aren't special rules for permanents that are creatures and also other things. (If there were, killing a Dryad Arbor would do very funky things.)
No. Losing when at zero life is a state-based action. Each time a player gets priority, state-based actions are checked first. In this situation, after the Duskmantle Seer's trigger has resolved, you get priority again, then lose the game as a state-based action.
The same logic, for the record, applies to poison counters: If you have ten of them, you lose as a state-based action the next time they are checked. Losing to mill works in a similar way, but it's slightly more confusing: When state-based actions are checked, if a player has tried to draw from an empty library since the last time they were checked, that player loses.
You are saying: Some As are B (Some people are bad people). Some As are C (Some people are Magic players). Therefore some Bs are Cs (Some bad people are Magic players).
Your conclusion does not logically follow from your premises.
You're applying strict logical principles to casual speech. If you take what he said as a syllogism, it's invalid, but most people don't make sure to make everything they say strictly logical because their interlocutors can fill in the gaps easily enough. It's pretty obvious what he meant - any (sufficiently large) group of people will contain unsavory members; Magic players are people; therefore any group of Magic players will contain unsavory members - and this isn't any kind of formal debate so picking apart the form of his argument isn't valid. Were he making some kind of complex or abstract argument, it would be, but he's not.
For the record, I have studied formal logic. I understand it, but don't think it's always essential, depending on the subject matter and the type of discussion.
The Sphinx is really, really tempting, and I tried to get him in there. But that meant cutting something smaller than him, and I found my early-game survival impaired. Perhaps it's bad playing on my part? I'm still hesitant to add him. I'm also considering Nylea, God of the Hunt for the trample effect; she's also a big creature (assuming sufficient devotion) that'll trigger evolve, and she isn't easy to remove either.
It would only effect your personal creatures, not your team's creatures.
810.5. With the exception of life total and poison counters, a team’s resources (cards in hand, mana, and so on) are not shared in the Two-Headed Giant variant. Teammates may review each other’s hands and discuss strategies at any time. Teammates can’t manipulate each other’s cards or permanents.
Ergo, permanents are not shared; ergo the Whip does not give your ally's creatures lifelink. Sorry!
The reasoning here is the "intervening 'if' clause". Basically, an intervening "if" clause exists in a triggered ability of the form
When X, if Y, Z.
There are two common incorrect interpretations of such a trigger:
(When X, if Y), Z.
When X, (Y, if Z).
The first would only check Y as the ability triggers; the second only as it resolves. It's actually checked at both times. If Y isn't true when X, the ability doesn't go on the stack. If it resolves but Y has become false by then, it resolves, but does nothing. In your Master of Waves example, Y is true when X (a creature entering the battlefield under your control) happens, but once the second counter is placed on it, Y becomes false, and the remaining abilities do nothing when they resolve. On the other hand, if, for example, I drop Cloudfin Raptor then immediately cast Giant Growth on it, it won't evolve my Experiment One, because the ability didn't trigger in the first place. (If it had, I could say "In response to the evolve trigger, Giant Growth on the Raptor", making it large enough to evolve Experiment One.)
Note that replacement effects do not use the stack, and any replacement abilities that modify a creature's P/T as it enters are handled before evolve even sees the creature entering. (The same applies to static abilities in general; a hypothetical enchantment with "Blue creatures you control get +2/+0." would cause Cloudfin Raptor to evolve Experiment One.) So, if you drop Clone and copy some fatty, Clone will be a copy of it in time to trigger evolve (presumably) even though it's printed as 0/0. Likewise, counters from Master Biomancer, Prime Speaker Zegana, and the first ability of Zamek Guildmage will be applied by a replacement effect, and can help trigger evolve.
Note also that those are the only times the if clause is checked. In your Master of Waves example, if you have a Zamek Guildmage out, you could let the first two triggers resolve, then respond to the third trigger with his second ability, removing a counter and drawing a card; the third trigger sees "A 2/1 entered the battlefield, and this is a 1/2", so it puts a counter on the Raptor; it neither knows nor cares that the condition was temporarily false between when it resolved and when it triggers.
Interesting fringe case: If a permanent with "When ~ becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it." (either instrinsicly or due to Dismiss into Dream, etc) or similar is on the field, and a targeted triggered ability with an intervening "if" clause triggers, it can target that permanent and cause it to be sacrificed, even if the intervening "if" clause means it won't actually do anything when it resolves. (Not that it would resolve, presumably, because its target has become illegal.) That's almost never going to come up, but it amused me.
Now you know more than you ever wanted to about evolve.
Had another one a few nights ago. Warning: Long. I'm upset and angry and ranting a bit. A lot of the quotes are paraphrased, but I've recreated them as closely as I can - I have an obnoxiously good memory for things that hurt me. Anyway.
I was on Cockatrice, working on a new deck idea (Simic, built around Ooze Flux but capable of functioning quite well even when I don't draw it); I'd created a game and specified Standard, because if you're testing a Standard deck it makes the most sense to play against other Standard decks. This guy with a username I forget but which had far too many consonants joins and immediately says "it says standard but **** standard this ****s extended that k?" I wanted to say no, but also I didn't want to get into an argument and Extended is fairly close, so I allowed it. Turns out it's some kind of Selesnya beatdown, and not a list I'd seen before but as far as I can tell it was something he'd build in the Innistrad-RTR Standard and didn't want to change. First few turns are fairly uneventful, but then he drops an Armada Wurm. I topdeck a Rapid Hybridization and decide I'll cast it during his attack in whatever way seems best, and spend my turn building up my creatures but leave U open. He drops Restoration Angel, for some reason during his Main 1, and targets Armada Wurm with its ETB; I respond by hitting the Wurm with Rapid Hybridization. He's not too thrilled: (The following is a paraphrase, but I'm not exaggerating his typing style.)
Me: In response to the ETB, Rapid Hybridization.
Him: k, you hybridize the angel, trigger is still on the stack
Me: No, the Armada Wurm. (I'd drawn an arrow from Hybridization to the Wurm.)
Him: ok, then i flicker centaur healer instead
Me: I'm responding to the ETB trigger, so targets have already been declared.
Him: u cant respond to triggers
Me: ...?
Him: i get that ur new but uve got to know the rules lol
Me: ...You... Can...
Him: nope
Me: Look up Burning-Tree Emissary on Gatherer. The rulings mention that you can respond to her ETB.
Him: bkuz its a mana ability lol
Me: ...The rulings specifically say it's not which is why you can respond to it...
Him: oh my b
Him: ill target the angel then, when she reenters then ill flicker the wurm
Me: It says "target non-Angel creature", and you've already declared the target anyway.
Him: oh huh it does
Him: wait ur casting hybridize right? that got erratad
Me: ...?
Him: yup
Him: cant target enemy creatures
Me: ...You're claiming WotC has issued functional errata, and not only that, that they didn't mention it on Gatherer?
Him: yup
Me: Source?
Him: r u calling me a liar
Me: ...Yes.
Him: lol im just messing with u
Him: srsly though going on gatherer in a game is a dick move bro
Him: maybe we should say ur hybridize is countered bkuz of ur bad sportsmanship
Him: or maybe sportsWOMANship lol
Me: ...
Him: lol just messing with u
Later on, he'd insist Plasm Capture doesn't give colored mana because of errata; I didn't press that one because it didn't actually matter at that moment and I was already low on self-confidence. Anyway, the game was pretty evenly matched for a while, but after a while he started telling me to scoop every time he gained any advantage. It got kind of absurd: Once he cast Thragtusk and told me something to he effect of "ur noob skill isnt enough to deal with my SWAGtusk u should scoop and go back to yugioh lol" (...and then I Syncopated it, leading to another argument I'll omit for the sake of brevity - in short he claimed Wizards had errata'd it to cost XUU instead of XU, and then that they'd errata'd it to not work on creatures, and then that they'd errata'd it to not exile things (even though afaik he wasn't running any kind of creature recursion) and made several unfounded claims about my mother and legitimacy). Eventually he got me down to two life and had tramplers out (iirc, another Armada Wurm and its token) and told me to scoop again. I declined, not out of stubbornness but because I honestly thought I had a chance. He told me that he was getting annoyed and that I was being a bad "sportsWOMAN" (yes he capitalized it like that each time) by forcing him to stay in the game. I told him he could always leave; he claimed that he was "litrally [sic]" undefeated and didn't want to mar his record. (Does Cockatrice even track that?) Anyway, I'd topdecked Ooze Flux, and had a Renegade Krasis and a Master Biomancer with at least one +1/+1 counter out. I dropped a Prophet of Kruphix, triggering evolve on my Gyre Sage and Renegade Krasis, and Gyre Sage now gave me enough mana to cast Ooze Flux. Through careful play, and a fortunately-timed topdecking of Simic Charm, I killed him a few turns later. Cue massive rant. Some highlights:
"I SHOULDNT HAVE LET U CHEAT WITH HYBRIDIZE"
"**** UR MOTHER IS A LESBIAN"
"PLASM ****ING CAPTURE DOESNT GIVE COLORS U ONLY WON BKUZ U DONT KEEP TRACK OF ERRATA" (...Remember that I hadn't argued about that because it didn't actually matter? I'd only used a single mana from it and it didn't matter what type it was.)
"DO U LIKE THREESOME?" (...?)
"ok listen i guess u won technically but u forced me to use my extended deck when u were running standard, if u make someone play an inferior format deck u should expect them to be mad when they lose" (Because having access to a wider range of cards makes you deck weaker I guess?)
"so **** u and ur cable modem, peace" (...?)
...Yah. That was the first game that's actually gotten me to break down crying afterwards. It was pretty much stubbornness that got me through it.
Man I have too many of these. Two things to note: I'm extremely shy, and also a rather new player. (Also, I may be getting some details wrong.) These took place over the course of a few months.
Literally my first FNM ever, I actually managed to win quite easily via Delver of Secrets and luck. I kept expecting a Doom Blade or w/e to blow up my Delvers... And apologizing when he didn't draw one and my Delvers got through, which can't have helped. ("I, uh, swing three in the air... Uh, sorry... I mean, uh... Uh, you can go. Sorry.") He scooped in the first few turns of the first game. Second game, I dropped Delver T1, flipped it and hit him with it T2, then Redirected the Doom Blade he topdecked into whatever he'd dropped. He stared at the Redirect and was like "Nope, I'm out. Matt, 2-0 this guy, I'm dropping. ****ing Delvers. Christ." ...And then next week we ended up matched up again and he apologized and we ended up being friendly rivals, but that first night was still really awkward.
Another early story: I tend to explicitly go through every step out loud. It helps me keep track of everything, and at the time it was also a sort of safeguard - if I said something that's not right, my opponent would hopefully catch it. (I still do that, more out of habit than anything.) One guy kind of freaked out at me when I Detention Sphere'd his Fiend Hunters and talked myself through it; he took it as the new kid bragging about a basic understanding of the rules. After a few minutes of me being berated, the game resumed, and after the game I apologized and explained that it helped me keep track of all the triggers. Unlike the previous guy, this one doesn't have a happy ending.
Then there was the time someone tried to flashback Act of Treason on my Geist of Saint Traft's angel token. Yes, he tried to cast a non-flashback sorcery from his graveyard during my combat phase. I pointed this out, and he said, "I have Snapcaster out" (which was true, but obviously irrelevant). I'd been playing badly and didn't argue. And guess who came in second for the evening?
And, in the midst of all this, there was one game against a total new player with a borrowed deck. I felt so bad when I beat him. Especially because I was running control, which just isn't fun to lose to when you're new. And I had to explain to him how werewolves worked because he kept messing up their triggers, and why he couldn't target my Invisible Stalker. I felt like a jerk.
The best, though, was at the M14 prerelease. By this point, I'd developed this reputation as "that shy Johnny kid who apologizes a lot", though my skill had progressed a fair bit over time. I ended up outside the store because there wasn't room; there were a lot more people than usual because of the prerelease. After the game, I didn't exactly want to go inside because it was loud and bright, so I was waiting outside. And this girl - the only female there, and not someone I'd seen before - comes out, crying. I go over and ask what's wrong, and she tries to pass it off as nothing, but then her boyfriend comes out too and she talks (to both of us) about it. There were, as I said, a lot of people who didn't usually come, and some of them had been harassing her. "That's so mediocre", one guy (who wasn't even her opponent, but had come over specifically to mock her) had said. Another was "Good game. Too bad you didn't pick any real cards." She and her boyfriend drive away... And I, the quiet dork who apologizes with every casting of Syncopate or Doom Blade, storm into the store and make my displeasure at that sequence of events extremely obvious. In other words I slammed the door behind me and said something to the effect of "Someone in here decided it would be a good idea to make that girl out there cry. Whoever you are, that's not cool. That's being an *******." Room goes quiet, one guy asks, "What did you just say?" I say "Whoever made that girl so upset she left in tears is an *******," and walk out. ...Next week, I decide to risk it and come back, and have three different people commend me for that, and also one guy tried to give me a Scavenging Ooze. (Long story there.) I haven't been there since because I'm in a different state now, but it was certainly an interesting way to go.
...Okay, that last one's not so much an awkward game as a bizarre experience in general, but I think it's relevant. I hope I haven't come across as bragging too much! I'm honestly still kind of mad about it.
Oh and also there was the kid who kept trying to activate scavenge at instant speed. That was annoying.
EDIT: I've been beaten to the answer, but I'll leave mine here because it's far more in-depth. (Which is not to imply that it's inherently better! I do tend to ramble, after all.)
To answer this question, you have to understand state-based actions, and to understand them you have to understand priority.
At specific points throughout each turn, the active player gets priority. As long as a player has priority, that player may cast spells, activate abilities, or take certain other special actions such as using suspend; these go on the stack in order (except special actions, which don't use the stack). Once the player with priority declines to do one of these things, that player passes priority to the next player, who has the same options. Once every player has passed priority without anyone doing anything else, the object most recently added to the stack resolves, and the whole process repeats. To summarize, when I get priority, it goes like this: "I can stuff. I pass priority. You can do stuff. You pass priority. Repeat until neither of us does stuff. Newest object on stack resolves. Repeat until there's nothing on the stack and we're both done." Usually, applying these rules super-formally doesn't matter, but they're important anyway.
There were a few things left out of that explanation. First were triggered abilities, which go on the stack whenever the triggering condition happens, and resolve as other abilities; they're irrelevant here. Second were state-based actions. Sometimes, the board is in an "illegal" state; state-based actions exist to clean that up. Some common ones include a creature having damage marked on it that equals or exceeds its toughness, an aura not being attached to anything, a planeswalker having no loyalty counters, and a creature having nonpositive toughness. That last one is the important one here. Whenever anyone passes priority, state-based actions are checked; any that are relevant apply, as a single event. So, if you cast Warped Physique during the declaration of blockers, with more cards in hand than the creature has toughness, it will die when you pass priority after Warped Physique resolves. The turn can't advance to the next phase or step until you do, so the creature will die before dealing damage. Casting it during the combat damage step won't work either, because by that point it's already done its damage. Sorry!
(Also, on this forum, and most forums, you can edit your posts after making them; it's generally considered good form to use that to make corrections instead of double-posting, barring certain exceptional cases. Also, there's a convenient BBCode here to link to a card's entry on Gatherer, detailed at http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=402345. Using it makes it more likely that you'll get an answer, because people don't like looking up cards manually. )
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EDIT: I'm not usually this much of an idiot. I've made a horrible first impression. ...Am I still welcome here?
(I've removed some references to "fortifications", a single-card variant of Equipment from Future Sight, because it's never going to come up and could be confusing. If it somehow comes up, the same logic applies to them and lands as to equipment and creatures.)
Mizzium Mortars can't damage something with relevant protection. Ratchet Bomb can destroy something with relevant protection because it's not damaging, enchanting, equipping, blocking, or targeting it. This is pretty much what the above poster said; I just wanted to get the CR quote in.
Now, there's exactly one requirement for something to be an activated ability: "Does it start with a cost separated from the rest of the ability by a colon?" The answer here is "no", so it's not an activated ability. A triggered ability is a nonactivated ability that begins with "Whenever" (though I seem to remember a few cards that use "When") or "At" (usually as "At the beginning of <phase>" or similar). This card's ability meets that, so it's triggered. (Anything else is a static ability.)
Some technical points:
-Theoretically anything can be a cost, whether or not it actually seems like one in the common meaning: Quillspike removes -1/-1 counters from your creatures as a cost, for example. As long as it's an action separate from the rest of an ability by a colon, it's a cost. (Other things can also be costs in other contexts - the obvious example is the mana cost for a spell - but this is how they're written for activated abilities.)
-The action of paying a cost happens instantly and does not use the stack.
-A planeswalker's loyalty abilities are activated abilities; adding or removing counters is the cost. (Yes, if you use a +1 ability, adding that counter is considered a cost. There was a hilarious, though apocryphal and almost certainly false, story where a weird combo gave a creature access to a planeswalker's loyalty abilities - except that creature happened to be a Melira's Keepers.) You can tell by looking at the Oracle text, which clearly has a colon; that being said, said Oracle text will still say "-3:" instead of "Remove 3 loyalty counters from ~:" or whatever, but there's a rule to cover that.
-Whether or not an ability is a mana ability has no bearing on whether or not it's activated, triggered, or static.
@EDIT: The above poster, I'm fairly sure, is incorrect about OP's first question. Rule 419.9a states in part "If two or more replacement or prevention effects are attempting to modify the way an event affects an object or player, the affected object's controller (or its owner if it has no controller) or the affected player chooses one to apply." The "affected object" here seems to be the attacking creature, controlled by an opponent unless OP is doing some very strange combo involving Eye for an Eye on his own creature. I'm leaving the rest of my post as it stands.
From the Comprehensive Rules:
So the situation is that your opponent attacks you, and you respond with Fog and also with Eye for an Eye targeting one of the attacking creatures. This creates two replacement effects that want to simultaneously apply to the same event, so 419.9a applies. The "affected object's controller" is presumably an opponent, so said opponent chooses the order in which the replacement effects are applied. If he applies Fog's replacement effect first, then Eye for an Eye's replacement effect will not apply at all (nor, for the record, be used up, though that's unlikely to matter) because no damage is being dealt. If he applies Eye for an Eye's replacement effect first, then he takes the damage from Eye for an Eye, and then Fog's replacement effect applies and prevents the damage from the creature. However, barring very strange circumstances, he'd choose the first option first, so no, Eye for an Eye and Fog don't produce a very useful interaction.
If one or more players are at nonpositive life totals, they all lose the game the next time state-based actions are checked. So, yes.
If you're doing any of those, you're casting a spell. If you're not, you're probably not. Sometimes it'll seem like you are, but often you're instead directly moving the card from one zone to another (command zone to the battlefield, in this case) without the card ever going on the stack. (Also, note that it's important to look at the Oracle text when dealing with older cards. Some things that say "cast" in modern templating don't in older templating - "play" used to be used, and before that things were really wonky.)
The same logic, for the record, applies to poison counters: If you have ten of them, you lose as a state-based action the next time they are checked. Losing to mill works in a similar way, but it's slightly more confusing: When state-based actions are checked, if a player has tried to draw from an empty library since the last time they were checked, that player loses.
Also, this isn't an article.
You're applying strict logical principles to casual speech. If you take what he said as a syllogism, it's invalid, but most people don't make sure to make everything they say strictly logical because their interlocutors can fill in the gaps easily enough. It's pretty obvious what he meant - any (sufficiently large) group of people will contain unsavory members; Magic players are people; therefore any group of Magic players will contain unsavory members - and this isn't any kind of formal debate so picking apart the form of his argument isn't valid. Were he making some kind of complex or abstract argument, it would be, but he's not.
For the record, I have studied formal logic. I understand it, but don't think it's always essential, depending on the subject matter and the type of discussion.
3 Cloudfin Raptor
4 Gyre Sage
4 Master Biomancer
2 Prophet of Kruphix
4 Renegade Krasis
3 Shambleshark
3 Ooze Flux
3 Ordeal of Thassa
Nonpermanents
3 Give // Take
3 Plasm Capture
3 Rapid Hybridization
2 Syncopate
2 Breeding Pool
3 Temple of Mystery
8 Island
10 Forest
The Sphinx is really, really tempting, and I tried to get him in there. But that meant cutting something smaller than him, and I found my early-game survival impaired. Perhaps it's bad playing on my part? I'm still hesitant to add him. I'm also considering Nylea, God of the Hunt for the trample effect; she's also a big creature (assuming sufficient devotion) that'll trigger evolve, and she isn't easy to remove either.
Ergo, permanents are not shared; ergo the Whip does not give your ally's creatures lifelink. Sorry!
There are two common incorrect interpretations of such a trigger:
The first would only check Y as the ability triggers; the second only as it resolves. It's actually checked at both times. If Y isn't true when X, the ability doesn't go on the stack. If it resolves but Y has become false by then, it resolves, but does nothing. In your Master of Waves example, Y is true when X (a creature entering the battlefield under your control) happens, but once the second counter is placed on it, Y becomes false, and the remaining abilities do nothing when they resolve. On the other hand, if, for example, I drop Cloudfin Raptor then immediately cast Giant Growth on it, it won't evolve my Experiment One, because the ability didn't trigger in the first place. (If it had, I could say "In response to the evolve trigger, Giant Growth on the Raptor", making it large enough to evolve Experiment One.)
Note that replacement effects do not use the stack, and any replacement abilities that modify a creature's P/T as it enters are handled before evolve even sees the creature entering. (The same applies to static abilities in general; a hypothetical enchantment with "Blue creatures you control get +2/+0." would cause Cloudfin Raptor to evolve Experiment One.) So, if you drop Clone and copy some fatty, Clone will be a copy of it in time to trigger evolve (presumably) even though it's printed as 0/0. Likewise, counters from Master Biomancer, Prime Speaker Zegana, and the first ability of Zamek Guildmage will be applied by a replacement effect, and can help trigger evolve.
Note also that those are the only times the if clause is checked. In your Master of Waves example, if you have a Zamek Guildmage out, you could let the first two triggers resolve, then respond to the third trigger with his second ability, removing a counter and drawing a card; the third trigger sees "A 2/1 entered the battlefield, and this is a 1/2", so it puts a counter on the Raptor; it neither knows nor cares that the condition was temporarily false between when it resolved and when it triggers.
Interesting fringe case: If a permanent with "When ~ becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it." (either instrinsicly or due to Dismiss into Dream, etc) or similar is on the field, and a targeted triggered ability with an intervening "if" clause triggers, it can target that permanent and cause it to be sacrificed, even if the intervening "if" clause means it won't actually do anything when it resolves. (Not that it would resolve, presumably, because its target has become illegal.) That's almost never going to come up, but it amused me.
Now you know more than you ever wanted to about evolve.
Later on, he'd insist Plasm Capture doesn't give colored mana because of errata; I didn't press that one because it didn't actually matter at that moment and I was already low on self-confidence. Anyway, the game was pretty evenly matched for a while, but after a while he started telling me to scoop every time he gained any advantage. It got kind of absurd: Once he cast Thragtusk and told me something to he effect of "ur noob skill isnt enough to deal with my SWAGtusk u should scoop and go back to yugioh lol" (...and then I Syncopated it, leading to another argument I'll omit for the sake of brevity - in short he claimed Wizards had errata'd it to cost XUU instead of XU, and then that they'd errata'd it to not work on creatures, and then that they'd errata'd it to not exile things (even though afaik he wasn't running any kind of creature recursion) and made several unfounded claims about my mother and legitimacy). Eventually he got me down to two life and had tramplers out (iirc, another Armada Wurm and its token) and told me to scoop again. I declined, not out of stubbornness but because I honestly thought I had a chance. He told me that he was getting annoyed and that I was being a bad "sportsWOMAN" (yes he capitalized it like that each time) by forcing him to stay in the game. I told him he could always leave; he claimed that he was "litrally [sic]" undefeated and didn't want to mar his record. (Does Cockatrice even track that?) Anyway, I'd topdecked Ooze Flux, and had a Renegade Krasis and a Master Biomancer with at least one +1/+1 counter out. I dropped a Prophet of Kruphix, triggering evolve on my Gyre Sage and Renegade Krasis, and Gyre Sage now gave me enough mana to cast Ooze Flux. Through careful play, and a fortunately-timed topdecking of Simic Charm, I killed him a few turns later. Cue massive rant. Some highlights:
...Yah. That was the first game that's actually gotten me to break down crying afterwards. It was pretty much stubbornness that got me through it.
Literally my first FNM ever, I actually managed to win quite easily via Delver of Secrets and luck. I kept expecting a Doom Blade or w/e to blow up my Delvers... And apologizing when he didn't draw one and my Delvers got through, which can't have helped. ("I, uh, swing three in the air... Uh, sorry... I mean, uh... Uh, you can go. Sorry.") He scooped in the first few turns of the first game. Second game, I dropped Delver T1, flipped it and hit him with it T2, then Redirected the Doom Blade he topdecked into whatever he'd dropped. He stared at the Redirect and was like "Nope, I'm out. Matt, 2-0 this guy, I'm dropping. ****ing Delvers. Christ." ...And then next week we ended up matched up again and he apologized and we ended up being friendly rivals, but that first night was still really awkward.
Another early story: I tend to explicitly go through every step out loud. It helps me keep track of everything, and at the time it was also a sort of safeguard - if I said something that's not right, my opponent would hopefully catch it. (I still do that, more out of habit than anything.) One guy kind of freaked out at me when I Detention Sphere'd his Fiend Hunters and talked myself through it; he took it as the new kid bragging about a basic understanding of the rules. After a few minutes of me being berated, the game resumed, and after the game I apologized and explained that it helped me keep track of all the triggers. Unlike the previous guy, this one doesn't have a happy ending.
Then there was the time someone tried to flashback Act of Treason on my Geist of Saint Traft's angel token. Yes, he tried to cast a non-flashback sorcery from his graveyard during my combat phase. I pointed this out, and he said, "I have Snapcaster out" (which was true, but obviously irrelevant). I'd been playing badly and didn't argue. And guess who came in second for the evening?
And, in the midst of all this, there was one game against a total new player with a borrowed deck. I felt so bad when I beat him. Especially because I was running control, which just isn't fun to lose to when you're new. And I had to explain to him how werewolves worked because he kept messing up their triggers, and why he couldn't target my Invisible Stalker. I felt like a jerk.
The best, though, was at the M14 prerelease. By this point, I'd developed this reputation as "that shy Johnny kid who apologizes a lot", though my skill had progressed a fair bit over time. I ended up outside the store because there wasn't room; there were a lot more people than usual because of the prerelease. After the game, I didn't exactly want to go inside because it was loud and bright, so I was waiting outside. And this girl - the only female there, and not someone I'd seen before - comes out, crying. I go over and ask what's wrong, and she tries to pass it off as nothing, but then her boyfriend comes out too and she talks (to both of us) about it. There were, as I said, a lot of people who didn't usually come, and some of them had been harassing her. "That's so mediocre", one guy (who wasn't even her opponent, but had come over specifically to mock her) had said. Another was "Good game. Too bad you didn't pick any real cards." She and her boyfriend drive away... And I, the quiet dork who apologizes with every casting of Syncopate or Doom Blade, storm into the store and make my displeasure at that sequence of events extremely obvious. In other words I slammed the door behind me and said something to the effect of "Someone in here decided it would be a good idea to make that girl out there cry. Whoever you are, that's not cool. That's being an *******." Room goes quiet, one guy asks, "What did you just say?" I say "Whoever made that girl so upset she left in tears is an *******," and walk out. ...Next week, I decide to risk it and come back, and have three different people commend me for that, and also one guy tried to give me a Scavenging Ooze. (Long story there.) I haven't been there since because I'm in a different state now, but it was certainly an interesting way to go.
...Okay, that last one's not so much an awkward game as a bizarre experience in general, but I think it's relevant. I hope I haven't come across as bragging too much! I'm honestly still kind of mad about it.
Oh and also there was the kid who kept trying to activate scavenge at instant speed. That was annoying.
To answer this question, you have to understand state-based actions, and to understand them you have to understand priority.
At specific points throughout each turn, the active player gets priority. As long as a player has priority, that player may cast spells, activate abilities, or take certain other special actions such as using suspend; these go on the stack in order (except special actions, which don't use the stack). Once the player with priority declines to do one of these things, that player passes priority to the next player, who has the same options. Once every player has passed priority without anyone doing anything else, the object most recently added to the stack resolves, and the whole process repeats. To summarize, when I get priority, it goes like this: "I can stuff. I pass priority. You can do stuff. You pass priority. Repeat until neither of us does stuff. Newest object on stack resolves. Repeat until there's nothing on the stack and we're both done." Usually, applying these rules super-formally doesn't matter, but they're important anyway.
There were a few things left out of that explanation. First were triggered abilities, which go on the stack whenever the triggering condition happens, and resolve as other abilities; they're irrelevant here. Second were state-based actions. Sometimes, the board is in an "illegal" state; state-based actions exist to clean that up. Some common ones include a creature having damage marked on it that equals or exceeds its toughness, an aura not being attached to anything, a planeswalker having no loyalty counters, and a creature having nonpositive toughness. That last one is the important one here. Whenever anyone passes priority, state-based actions are checked; any that are relevant apply, as a single event. So, if you cast Warped Physique during the declaration of blockers, with more cards in hand than the creature has toughness, it will die when you pass priority after Warped Physique resolves. The turn can't advance to the next phase or step until you do, so the creature will die before dealing damage. Casting it during the combat damage step won't work either, because by that point it's already done its damage. Sorry!
(Also, on this forum, and most forums, you can edit your posts after making them; it's generally considered good form to use that to make corrections instead of double-posting, barring certain exceptional cases. Also, there's a convenient BBCode here to link to a card's entry on Gatherer, detailed at http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=402345. Using it makes it more likely that you'll get an answer, because people don't like looking up cards manually.