Avatar, although your answer is mostly correct, I fear the first and last sentences might confuse players somewhat into thinking that tapping something like Drowner of Secrets with an outside source could make its ability "go off on its own", while it isn't true at all.
The answer to Apathy's question isn't "Not generally", it's "No, never.". If you let the ability of, say, Icy Manipulator resolve without responding with anything, your creature becomes tapped and nothing happens. What you can do is respond to Icy Manipulator's activation targeting your Heritage Druid or Drowner of Secrets by activating their own ability. Just as with an ability with a in the cost, it's still an activated ability that you have to activate purposefully.
The only type of ability that would go off when the permanent with it is being tapped by an outside source are the triggered ones worded "Whenever [this] becomes tapped, [something happens]" such as the one on Grimoire Thief, but that's pretty obvious.
Great article again Andrew ! A draft walktrough from you is refreshing, although I have to admit I hoped more for an update on your Merfolk deck with the fantastic new cards Harm's Way, Merfolk Sovereign, and Sleep. I guess it'll be for next week ! For that matter, have you checked the list Adrian Sullivan used to win a Nats grinder last weekend ? It's just been published by BDM in The Week that Was on the mothership. Seems very solid and almost exactly what you would build yourself.
Although your draft went very well indeed, your p1p1 was way off IMO. You don't seem to have played Mirrodin Limited much to have let go Magebane Armor... If you did, you'd know that efficiently costed equipment is the absolute stone nuts in Limited. In that format, good players picked Vulshok Morningstar over great removal all day, and rightfully so. Magebane Armor is even better with the +4 toughness. Recurring pump, which can make every small creature you play into a real threat and every big creature you play into an even bigger, even more unsolvable threat, is one of the strongest type of effects in Limited, and so fortunately is a lot more scarce than removal. In the late game when you have plenty of mana, moving the equipment from an attacker to a blocker each turn is just too great. Also, equipment normallly is colorless (outside of Alara Reborn), so it is a first pick with no commitment at all, that you're certain to play. Sure enough, you ended up not playing Bolt as red was less abundant than green and black, but you would have played the armor if you picked it. Well, I sure hope you would have, unless you underestimate it so much that you would have sent it to the SB because it could make your banshees lose flying.
Here's the thing about the loss of flying : it can be midly annoying, especially when you'd want to block fliers with bigger fliers, but on the attack, your armored creature generally is too big to be profitably blocked anyway, so it's rarely a big deal even if the best target you have for it is a flier, which generally isn't the case anyway.
Ok, so it's only protected from something like Pacifism?
Or if somehow an enchantment is also a creature it can't be blocked or dealt damage by it?
The rules meaning of the word 'enchanted' is "having an aura attached". Nothing else.
Since this seems to confuse you, I suggest a slight improvement over DEBT, DABT (unlike debt, it's not a real word, but o well). You simply replace the E referencing 'enchanted or equipped' by a A which means 'attached'. It has the added benefit of including fortifications, which also can't be attached to, say, a land with protection from artifacts.
Proto wasn't asking about what protection from enchantments would do.EDIT : Yes he was, I somehow lost track that the card he was asking about was Azorius First-Wing. Sorry !. As answered above, he wasn't sure about the meaning of the word 'enchanted'. It is true that a creature with protection fromwhite or from enchantments can't be tapped by Glare of Subdual because it Targets, nor damaged by Powerstone Minefield because its Damage is prevented, but this has nothing to do with the E ("enchanted") part of the DEBT acronym.
Both players choose wether to keep their card on top or to put it on the bottom of their library, no matter if one of them won the clash.
What happens in a tie is that no one wins the clash. For the player who played the spell or ability with Clash, this is pretty much the same thing as losing, as you need to win it to get the additional effect.
After your creature has assigned and dealt its combat damage, both you and your opponent have at least two occasions to play spells and abilties such as Condemn before the combat phase actually ends and your creature stops being an attacking creature. First, you must both pass priority in succession for the combat damage step to end after damage is dealt, and then, there is one whole other step, called the end of combat step, where you must both again decline to play stuff for the game to process to the second main phase.
It doesn't have "as Clone enter the battlefield" though. It has a "you may have clone enter the battlefield as" , if clone already resolved would you still be able to use CIPT effects if you only choose your target after resolving?
True, but it means the same thing. Clone enters the battlefield as the creature it's copying, so yes, abilities that would trigger off the creature coming into play trigger off the Clone-"something".
You choose upon resolution, as indicated by the wording "As Clone enters the battlefield" which has basically the same meaning as "As Clone resolves". The only choices you make when casting a spell is modes, the value of X for spells that have X in their cost, additional costs, targets, and how effects will be divided between targets. Every other choice happens on resolution at the earliest.
There is no pass of priority between the moment you announce what creature you're copying and the moment Clone actually is in play as a copy of that creature. There is no moment where Clone is in play as a 0/0 (unless you didn't choose to copy something).
No. The word "Lord" in the way you've seen it used is just a slang term that refers to creatures that pump other creatures of a creature type. That's because it used to be a creature type itself that was often used on such creatures, but it doesn't appear on cards anymore. Anyway, there never were rules attached to that term as there are rules attached to the supertype Legendary, and formerly to the creature type Legend.
You are right that your opponent could not do that. Targets for an activated ability are chosen before costs (in this case, tap) are paid, which means that Royal Assassin can never be a legal target for himself. The ability does use the stack, but it's not what matters here.
You eliminated Steamflogger Boss without giving it much thought because it was concepted as a red herring and its ability wasn't meant to do anything at first, but it's been told by Mark Rosewater (quite possibly as a joke, but still) that designers were actually trying to make contraptions work. I was thinking that the concept of a rigger might fit in a world of treasures (artifacts) to be harvested... Granted, it's early for the contraption mechanic to be actually showcased in a set right now since they could only start working on it 2 years ago, but it's not completely impossible IMO.
Layering effects is still one of the most complex things in this game, and they didn't do anything about that. It certainly confuses players more than someone saying "ok, after damage goes on the stack..."
If they were so dedicated to making the game more accessible and easier to understand (the polite terminology for "dumbing down," why not go after something that really did need fixing instead of making slight cosmetic changes?
Dude, they did simplify the layering system with the new comprehensive rules. It's quite possible you don't know about it because it wasn't mentionned in the original annoucement by Mark Gottlieb and Aaron Forsythe, but it was explained in Gottlieb's July 2009 update bulletin. See the new rules 612.1 and 612.3 in the new CR themselves or on this page.
Oh, seems comments are available just now after all ! Why not putting up the link to this thread in the article headline ?
That was an interesting piece of opinion on the rules changes, that seemed objective and wise. However, the link to cube drafting specifically was perhaps a bit thin, except for the part where you name some cards that will go out of your cube for being too much powered down. I fear it might be like that a lot of the time with Hip to be Square, as a recurring column on cube drafting with new content relevant specifically to cube drafting each time doesn't look like something easy to write.
In the article cited above, Mark Gottleib posits, "In 99.9% of Magic games, of course, you'll never even notice mana burn is gone." My response is, "then why get rid of it?" It's the principle of the thing.
Because mana burn is a rules element that R&D thinks is unecessary for the game, precisely because it doesn't come up in 99.9% of Magic games. They realized it was soemthing that is not needed for all cards to function within the rules (I didn't say to be good or to work as originally intended, I said to function), so they removed it to somewhat counter complexity creep. You may agree or not (as for myself I'm pretty neutral on the issue), but that's how they rationalize it anyway.
Pump spells look to become worse. Giant Growth and similar spells are inviting a two-for-one. Consequently, burn and removal become even better. You can wait for a trick like Giant Growth, and then blast the creature with Lightning Bolt or Terror. You could before, of course, but Giant Growth no longer saves a creature with damage on the stack. A removal spell now is more of a dagger than it was before. If you see them in your packs, keep this in mind; they might be worth taking a couple spots earlier than normal.
A lot of players exagerrate pump spells' loss of power with M10. You're far from the worst of them (you're only saying they look to become worse, and explain the implications well) but I still think you're giving a little too much importance to it. Personally, I don't think pump spells became strictly weaker, or even weaker at all in general. Here's my reasoning :
The only real interaction there was pre-M10 between damage using the stack and pump spells was boosting THOUGHNESS with damage on the stack. Boosting power at that moment was irrelevant, because damage was already locked in. The vast majority of pump spells that one would want to play boost power, and this is the very reason why most people play them : so that their creatures can deal more damage. Thus, they almost always played such spells and abilities in the declare blockers step, just as they will post-M10. That's an opportunity for the opponent to make a 2-for-1 with a removal spell, of course, but it's been that way for more than a decade, and it still is the right play the majority of the time, because the occasions where you only need the thoughness pumping with combat damage on the stack are relatively rare.
On the other hand, pumping became better in the situation of multiple blocks, thanks to the new Conga Line of Doom system (a change that you didn't adress directly in your article, by the way). If after your opponent has chosen the order in which its attacker will damage to your blockers, you pump the first one in line, you may end up saving both of your creatures, where you would only save the pumped one before.
The fact is thoughness pumping got better in the situation of multiple blocks, and got worse in the situation where two creatures would trade, where you only need thoughness pumping to save yours, and where your opponent has removal. I'd venture that the first situation actually comes up a little more often than the second, but anyway, they at least balance each other out in my book.
The one thing besides creatures with sacrifice abilities that actually got truly worse with the new combat rules is low damage prevention ("prevent the next [1 to 3] damage that would be dealt to target creature"), but those effects were already very borderline playable and were for the most part only used in some Limited formats. Notice that they stopped reprinting Samite Healer and Healing Salve in M10 for that reason.
A: Yeah, it'll do that. This card was originally templated by a Vorlon, which explains a lot.
Hmmm, I wonder how many of your readers know what a Vorlon is, considering how old and obscure Babylon 5 got... but still, I'm all for Babylon 5 references over bland Star Trek ones at least once in a while ! Somethings tells me the idea of this reference was triggered by the word "Ambassador" in the card's name...
The answer to Apathy's question isn't "Not generally", it's "No, never.". If you let the ability of, say, Icy Manipulator resolve without responding with anything, your creature becomes tapped and nothing happens. What you can do is respond to Icy Manipulator's activation targeting your Heritage Druid or Drowner of Secrets by activating their own ability. Just as with an ability with a
The only type of ability that would go off when the permanent with it is being tapped by an outside source are the triggered ones worded "Whenever [this] becomes tapped, [something happens]" such as the one on Grimoire Thief, but that's pretty obvious.
Although your draft went very well indeed, your p1p1 was way off IMO. You don't seem to have played Mirrodin Limited much to have let go Magebane Armor... If you did, you'd know that efficiently costed equipment is the absolute stone nuts in Limited. In that format, good players picked Vulshok Morningstar over great removal all day, and rightfully so. Magebane Armor is even better with the +4 toughness. Recurring pump, which can make every small creature you play into a real threat and every big creature you play into an even bigger, even more unsolvable threat, is one of the strongest type of effects in Limited, and so fortunately is a lot more scarce than removal. In the late game when you have plenty of mana, moving the equipment from an attacker to a blocker each turn is just too great. Also, equipment normallly is colorless (outside of Alara Reborn), so it is a first pick with no commitment at all, that you're certain to play. Sure enough, you ended up not playing Bolt as red was less abundant than green and black, but you would have played the armor if you picked it. Well, I sure hope you would have, unless you underestimate it so much that you would have sent it to the SB because it could make your banshees lose flying.
Here's the thing about the loss of flying : it can be midly annoying, especially when you'd want to block fliers with bigger fliers, but on the attack, your armored creature generally is too big to be profitably blocked anyway, so it's rarely a big deal even if the best target you have for it is a flier, which generally isn't the case anyway.
The rules meaning of the word 'enchanted' is "having an aura attached". Nothing else.
Since this seems to confuse you, I suggest a slight improvement over DEBT, DABT (unlike debt, it's not a real word, but o well). You simply replace the E referencing 'enchanted or equipped' by a A which means 'attached'. It has the added benefit of including fortifications, which also can't be attached to, say, a land with protection from artifacts.
Proto wasn't asking about what protection from enchantments would do.EDIT : Yes he was, I somehow lost track that the card he was asking about was Azorius First-Wing. Sorry !. As answered above, he wasn't sure about the meaning of the word 'enchanted'. It is true that a creature with protection from white or from enchantments can't be tapped by Glare of Subdual because it Targets, nor damaged by Powerstone Minefield because its Damage is prevented, but this has nothing to do with the E ("enchanted") part of the DEBT acronym.Still hope that helps.
What happens in a tie is that no one wins the clash. For the player who played the spell or ability with Clash, this is pretty much the same thing as losing, as you need to win it to get the additional effect.
True, but it means the same thing. Clone enters the battlefield as the creature it's copying, so yes, abilities that would trigger off the creature coming into play trigger off the Clone-"something".
There is no pass of priority between the moment you announce what creature you're copying and the moment Clone actually is in play as a copy of that creature. There is no moment where Clone is in play as a 0/0 (unless you didn't choose to copy something).
Dude, they did simplify the layering system with the new comprehensive rules. It's quite possible you don't know about it because it wasn't mentionned in the original annoucement by Mark Gottlieb and Aaron Forsythe, but it was explained in Gottlieb's July 2009 update bulletin. See the new rules 612.1 and 612.3 in the new CR themselves or on this page.
That was an interesting piece of opinion on the rules changes, that seemed objective and wise. However, the link to cube drafting specifically was perhaps a bit thin, except for the part where you name some cards that will go out of your cube for being too much powered down. I fear it might be like that a lot of the time with Hip to be Square, as a recurring column on cube drafting with new content relevant specifically to cube drafting each time doesn't look like something easy to write.
Because mana burn is a rules element that R&D thinks is unecessary for the game, precisely because it doesn't come up in 99.9% of Magic games. They realized it was soemthing that is not needed for all cards to function within the rules (I didn't say to be good or to work as originally intended, I said to function), so they removed it to somewhat counter complexity creep. You may agree or not (as for myself I'm pretty neutral on the issue), but that's how they rationalize it anyway.
A lot of players exagerrate pump spells' loss of power with M10. You're far from the worst of them (you're only saying they look to become worse, and explain the implications well) but I still think you're giving a little too much importance to it. Personally, I don't think pump spells became strictly weaker, or even weaker at all in general. Here's my reasoning :
The only real interaction there was pre-M10 between damage using the stack and pump spells was boosting THOUGHNESS with damage on the stack. Boosting power at that moment was irrelevant, because damage was already locked in. The vast majority of pump spells that one would want to play boost power, and this is the very reason why most people play them : so that their creatures can deal more damage. Thus, they almost always played such spells and abilities in the declare blockers step, just as they will post-M10. That's an opportunity for the opponent to make a 2-for-1 with a removal spell, of course, but it's been that way for more than a decade, and it still is the right play the majority of the time, because the occasions where you only need the thoughness pumping with combat damage on the stack are relatively rare.
On the other hand, pumping became better in the situation of multiple blocks, thanks to the new Conga Line of Doom system (a change that you didn't adress directly in your article, by the way). If after your opponent has chosen the order in which its attacker will damage to your blockers, you pump the first one in line, you may end up saving both of your creatures, where you would only save the pumped one before.
The fact is thoughness pumping got better in the situation of multiple blocks, and got worse in the situation where two creatures would trade, where you only need thoughness pumping to save yours, and where your opponent has removal. I'd venture that the first situation actually comes up a little more often than the second, but anyway, they at least balance each other out in my book.
The one thing besides creatures with sacrifice abilities that actually got truly worse with the new combat rules is low damage prevention ("prevent the next [1 to 3] damage that would be dealt to target creature"), but those effects were already very borderline playable and were for the most part only used in some Limited formats. Notice that they stopped reprinting Samite Healer and Healing Salve in M10 for that reason.
That's my original answer, but...
D'oh, there were at least three answers to my question ! I'm a bad trivia maker, decidedly !
D'oh, there is more than one answer to my question ! Here's hoping there is no third one...