The interesting thing about Liliana is that her flip condition is philosophically different from the other 4 flipwalkers. For the other four, their flip condition is all some variation on "My board state is progressing according to plan", and as such your opponent will be happy to fight to prevent it. This obviously applies more interactively to Chandra and Gideon, but grave hate, discard and land disruption and the like do exist to thwart Jace and Nissa.
Liliana's flip condition is something that your opponent kinda wants to have happen anyway, and the only real way to fight it is to kill her before you kill anything else. As "just point a kill spell at it" is a valid way to deal with all of the flipwalkers, it's more interesting to look at the cases where your opponent doesn't have a kill spell handy. In this case, flipping Lilliana aligns with your opponent's game plan of trying to make favorable creature trades. Theoretically all you need to be doing is playing your threats and turning them sideways in moderately intelligent ways, and your opponent will either die or oblige you in flipping Lili.
I don't know if that's enough to make her any good. But I think it's pretty interesting from an analysis standpoint.
Also, the rebound cards are sent to Exile, which is a clearly defined game zone. Placing them in an improper game zone is a no-no, on top of 'don't put cards on top of your deck'.
Do note however that there isn't a physically defined part of the table called the exile zone. While you can't put your rebound cards somewhere that is part of a physically defined zone, such as on top of your deck, you can just slap them out in the middle of the table.
The exile zone is where you want it to be. Make it somewhere obvious while you have a rebound card there.
I don't want to create a new thread for this, but why is this possible? Why would the rules specifically state "spells can't target themselves" instead of "spells can't target themselves or any spells above them on the stack"? Is there any situation in which a spell above the mana leak on the stack would be a legal target by the time the leak resolves?
No - if a spell ends up targeting a spell above itself on the stack, that spell will always end up being an illegal target.
The reason for the 'Spells can't target themselves' rule is due to the order of actions in casting a spell - first you move it to the stack, then you choose targets, etc, then you pay costs. If a spell could target itself, you could cast a counterspell at any time by targeting itself, to get it out of your hand, build up storm count, or whatever. This is counter-intuitive, works differently to every other targeted spell, and could have ramifications for counterspells with other effects, so it's better and safer to not allow it.
Have you ever been in a class or a camp or whatever where they used a 'talking stick'? Only the person holding the stick is allowed to talk, and you pass it around so everyone gets a turn.
Priority works exactly like that. Use a physical button or a stick or something if you really want to. Whoever has the stick can take game actions, and the game doesn't progress until everyone's had a turn with the stick.
So, I hope this isn't off topic - Apologies in advance if it is - but I see this question asked here a lot, and I can't quite figure out what's going on here. I'm a go-to guy for rules questions in my playgroup, and so I'd really really like an explanation as to why this rules interaction needs careful explaining, so that I can be careful to explain it in future, and hopefully in a way that people understand and remember.
See, I look at Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Iona, Shield of Emeria, and mentally interpret the abilities these creatures have very similarly - they each modify they way your opponent can play spells while they're on the battlefield. But I've never seen someone ask if Teferi stops people from playing spells at instant speed for the rest of the game even if you kill him, so clearly there's some other way of reacting to this which I don't understand.
What exactly is it about Iona's wording that tricks people into thinking its a durationless effect, rather than a continuous ability that works exactly like every other continuous ability?
tl dr; I'm worried about leaving people with confusing "Because it does" explanations they don't like when I really want to be teaching them properly.
I'm always a little confused as to why this practice isn't stalling if it isn't cheating.
For a 'mana weave' to not be cheating, the person doing it has to be able to swear that it has no effect on the finished shuffled deck. So... why did they just take a minute to separate everything into piles, weave them together, and *then* start shuffling? Taking time out of a match to perform provably pointless actions sounds like stalling to me.
Of course, if they want to argue that this process wasn't a lengthy waste of time because it does have an effect on the order of the deck after shuffling, that would be admitting to cheating, would it not?
A staggershock that is about to rebound isn't a wise choice for a source of damage - it's just a card sitting innocently in exile, and the game will lose track of it when it changes zones. A stagggershock that has rebounded and is sitting on the stack waiting to resolve is what you want to choose as a damage source for harm's way. Short version - Wait until Staggershock is on the stack to cast your harms way.
It's entirely possible you were choosing the rebound trigger that staggershock creates on the stack instead of waiting for staggershock itself being moved to the stack.
Would having it on the battlefield be appropriate? Much like when you cast a spell, but it just sits there for a little longer (with a marker on it of course).
You can't have it on the battlefield. Exile and the battlefield are different zones.
You can, however, have it out in the middle of the table - while that's usually where everyone puts their cards which is on the battlefield, that's just a convention - there's no rule saying that's where the battlefield is. There's no rule saying that the exile zone has to be contiguous, either. So don't worry about your other exiled cards sitting in a pile beside your graveyard - The exile zone stretches to contain them both
The main confusion here seems to be that the game's zones do not map directly to physical table real-estate. All that's required is that you keep things unambiguous and well defined. Where cards physically are placed is outside the scope of the rules as long as that guideline is observed. This means that trying to balance a card in exile on top of your library is almost certainly a no go, but putting it other easy to remember places should be fine.
Sengir Autocrat was the first comes into play with extra tokens creature, wasn't it? And, look at that, they're 0/1. All that's missing is sacing for mana.
You might be on to something with this Homelands thing.
Getting a bad ability for free does not make a card bad.
I happily played cloudheath drakes in Alara block limited in decks without white. Frostwind invoker isn't worse than that, even if its activated ability was the worst ability ever, because I'm not paying more to have it on the card. (Incidentily, it's ability is actually great.)
Free stuff is great. No matter how bad it is, just remember that it's FREE.
Had someone side Chalice of the Void in against my RDW, and promptly cast it for 0 in an attempt to stop my rift bolts. He was not amused when he found out that didn't work.
Liliana's flip condition is something that your opponent kinda wants to have happen anyway, and the only real way to fight it is to kill her before you kill anything else. As "just point a kill spell at it" is a valid way to deal with all of the flipwalkers, it's more interesting to look at the cases where your opponent doesn't have a kill spell handy. In this case, flipping Lilliana aligns with your opponent's game plan of trying to make favorable creature trades. Theoretically all you need to be doing is playing your threats and turning them sideways in moderately intelligent ways, and your opponent will either die or oblige you in flipping Lili.
I don't know if that's enough to make her any good. But I think it's pretty interesting from an analysis standpoint.
Pretty much every bestow creature is playable in limited, and cards like Boon Satyr are game winning bombs.
It's a great mechanic, and it plays way better than it reads. A nymph riding a crab is going to win you the game.
How is Figure of Destiny a devotion enabler?
Do note however that there isn't a physically defined part of the table called the exile zone. While you can't put your rebound cards somewhere that is part of a physically defined zone, such as on top of your deck, you can just slap them out in the middle of the table.
The exile zone is where you want it to be. Make it somewhere obvious while you have a rebound card there.
No - if a spell ends up targeting a spell above itself on the stack, that spell will always end up being an illegal target.
The reason for the 'Spells can't target themselves' rule is due to the order of actions in casting a spell - first you move it to the stack, then you choose targets, etc, then you pay costs. If a spell could target itself, you could cast a counterspell at any time by targeting itself, to get it out of your hand, build up storm count, or whatever. This is counter-intuitive, works differently to every other targeted spell, and could have ramifications for counterspells with other effects, so it's better and safer to not allow it.
Priority works exactly like that. Use a physical button or a stick or something if you really want to. Whoever has the stick can take game actions, and the game doesn't progress until everyone's had a turn with the stick.
See, I look at Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Iona, Shield of Emeria, and mentally interpret the abilities these creatures have very similarly - they each modify they way your opponent can play spells while they're on the battlefield. But I've never seen someone ask if Teferi stops people from playing spells at instant speed for the rest of the game even if you kill him, so clearly there's some other way of reacting to this which I don't understand.
What exactly is it about Iona's wording that tricks people into thinking its a durationless effect, rather than a continuous ability that works exactly like every other continuous ability?
tl dr; I'm worried about leaving people with confusing "Because it does" explanations they don't like when I really want to be teaching them properly.
For a 'mana weave' to not be cheating, the person doing it has to be able to swear that it has no effect on the finished shuffled deck. So... why did they just take a minute to separate everything into piles, weave them together, and *then* start shuffling? Taking time out of a match to perform provably pointless actions sounds like stalling to me.
Of course, if they want to argue that this process wasn't a lengthy waste of time because it does have an effect on the order of the deck after shuffling, that would be admitting to cheating, would it not?
It's entirely possible you were choosing the rebound trigger that staggershock creates on the stack instead of waiting for staggershock itself being moved to the stack.
You can't have it on the battlefield. Exile and the battlefield are different zones.
You can, however, have it out in the middle of the table - while that's usually where everyone puts their cards which is on the battlefield, that's just a convention - there's no rule saying that's where the battlefield is. There's no rule saying that the exile zone has to be contiguous, either. So don't worry about your other exiled cards sitting in a pile beside your graveyard - The exile zone stretches to contain them both
The main confusion here seems to be that the game's zones do not map directly to physical table real-estate. All that's required is that you keep things unambiguous and well defined. Where cards physically are placed is outside the scope of the rules as long as that guideline is observed. This means that trying to balance a card in exile on top of your library is almost certainly a no go, but putting it other easy to remember places should be fine.
You might be on to something with this Homelands thing.
I happily played cloudheath drakes in Alara block limited in decks without white. Frostwind invoker isn't worse than that, even if its activated ability was the worst ability ever, because I'm not paying more to have it on the card. (Incidentily, it's ability is actually great.)
Free stuff is great. No matter how bad it is, just remember that it's FREE.