This forum can't answer questions about speculated or custom cards. There are no rules to handle split permanents, and no intention to make split cards with permanents on them specifically to avoid having to create rules to cover this. So basically, it's a made up card, make up whatever rule you'd like.
Most cards with a creature type are creatures. The only exception to this is the old card type "Tribal", which was added to other card types (Like Artifact and Sorcery) to give them creature types. Very few Tribal cards exist, and they're almost all from Lorwyn block, so as a general rule, the only things that have creature types are creatures.
The word Dragon appearing anywhere on the card other than the type line (like the name) has no mechanical meaning.
You are correct about both of these things. Carnophage can be tapped in response to its trigger, leaving no reason to pay the life. And when a creature holding equipment stops being a creature, the equipment becomes unattatched.
No, there are no official rulings on the challenge decks, as they are not official formats and were only meant as casual challenges. However, given the rules as written, I would say that it's clear that casting spells every turn is a rule of the format and not an inherent ability of Xenagos, and so yes, if you transform their God into an elephant, his confused supplicants will continue you to swarm you and exact their vengeance from you until you find some way to convince them that you've won.
This isn't an official answer, but it's basically the closest you're likely to get.
I don't know if this is already known, but I haven't seen it anywhere. Just some new art posted on the Planeswalker profile pages on the mothership. Some of it is probably story-only art, but Ajani's presence along with the rest of the Gatewatch hints at the culmination of the story (possibly in/leading into Aether Revolt). Of course, just because he appears in the story doesn't mean he'll get a card. Changed the title to not spoil people due to forum peek-through - Jay13x
At competitive, if the cards that moved from a public zone could be identified, then they can be returned to the proper zone. If there was really doubt over which types of lands were in play, in a case like this it could be reasonable to try and compromise in figuring out what ought to be returned. If it's actually impossible to tell (say, a morph creature got shuffled in, or for whatever reason neither player has any idea what number or type of lands were shuffled), then unfortunately they just stay where they got shuffled.
This is not correct, I'm afraid. Close, but Melee checks whether you've attacked players, and Myriad tokens come into play attacking, but they were never declared as attackers (This is a weird element of anything that puts tokens into play attacking: they are attacking, but they never "attacked"). So not only will the token's Melee abilities not trigger, the original creature won't count them for its Melee bonus.
Not really. Tokens names are their creature type (unless otherwise specified), and Hidden Agenda requires you to name a Magic CARD, so the only tokens you can name are those that share names with Magic cards (currently, only Splinter and Illusion, I believe).
4.8: Removed Example G which outlawed 3-pile shuffling to undo a suspected manaweave.
However, it's still a gray area and could get you into trouble. What it comes down to is: If you believe that a pile shuffle will impact the composition of a deck in a significant way then by extension you believe that the deck isn't sufficiently randomized. The proper thing to do in that case is to randomize it further yourself or call a judge about it.
I was curious about this as well - if I suspect a mana weave (or a perfect double nickle - a 4 card pile shuffle and a 5 cards pile shuffle) and split them into 3 piles and call a judge to inspect - do I get a penalty if I'm wrong? My roommate told me a story of when he mana wove and then shuffled his deck thoroughly afterwards and his opponent called a Judge on him, and the Judge saw the deck was random and DQ'd the guy who called him (This was before Magic: Online was a thing - when the cards had different frames, so IDK)
I was testing ways to detect and prove double-nickling (regardless of # of piles used) when I stumbled on the fact that a 2-card pile shuffle clumps the deck nearly every time even when riffle shuffled.
There's either more to that story, or the judge made the wrong call. DQs are hard to earn, and usually the domain of cheating, collusion or aggressive behaviour. If you are concerned that your opponent's deck is not properly randomized, you should call a judge. If the judge investigates and finds that it isn't, they'll either issue a warning for insufficient randomization (if they determine that it was unintentional), or a DQ for cheating (if they determine that it was intentional). If they determine that it was random, they shouldn't be issuing you any penalty. As with anything, it's possible to get a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct if you're fishing for penalties, but for that we're talking about things like calling a judge to inspect their deck after every single time they shuffle, or other antagonistic behaviour in the way you interact with your opponent. You should never get penalized for calling a judge because you have a genuine question or concern. That's what we're here for.
That being said, if you think your opponent's deck is in any way stacked, you should call a judge without trying to alter it. The temptation to have them mulligan by un-mana-weaving their deck may be strong, but getting them a DQ would be better, and if it wasn't intentional, even a warning allows us to track their conduct over the tournament and find out if they're benefiting from it against other players.
I think this excellent post sums up everything that could have been left to say about this topic and that it will conclude this overly long and overly long-lived thread nicely.
-MadMage
nope. if one of the targets of a life exchange is not there anymore when it resolves (since the frog is a completly new creature) it fizzles and nothing happens.
the only thin you could do is to lower the life of the tree to 1 someway different, and than twitch it with the opponent. that would work.
Turn to Frog does not make the creature a new object. You're correct that killing the tree in response will prevent the exchange from happening; blinking it would make it a new creature and no exchange would happen, but Turn to Frog is just altering its P/T. Removing its ability once it's already on the stack doesn't do anything.
Opening a money mythic in a pack, and needing another mythic for it to work seems miserable.
This mechanic is terrible.
That is a good point I didn't see coming. Maybe there are non-specific Meld cards?
This assumption buys into the "more words" fallacy that trips people up every spoiler season. People rating cards assuming they're only ever using every single ability on the card: Figure of Destiny is still a good card if you don't activate its third ability, Planeswalkers are still good even if you don't ultimate them. Adding the Graf Rats text to a Mythic doesn't guarantee that Mythic can't also be independently good. Yes, it loses text box space, but for all we know, Gisela could fit "Flying, Doublestrike" as well as that text, and be costed as an aggressive angel that's playable without Bruna. A theoretical 5/5 doublestrike flier for 5 does not need another Mythic to work, just because it has a bunch of extra text on it (that means it works EVEN BETTER with another Mythic).
This is one of the reasons Wizards curates their spoiler season: If MaRo's preview tomorrow is Gisela and Bruna, and both are sweet cards in the own right and an even sweeter meld, people probably wouldn't be on here complaining about worthless rares and impossible draft strategies. But instead we got a couple of mediocre draft commons first, so of course everything's the worst.
People who are complaining (I scoff at the notion that they will listen to me, but here I go) need to realize that both of these cards are cards that Wizards would print in a regular limited environment. Black has had 2 mana 2/1s, and 5 mana bad 3/3 Gravediggers before. If these two cards were spoiled when the set spoiler went up, and they didn't have any abilities, you'd just accept them and move on. Limited fodder, meh.
That's what these cards are, limited fodder, with marginal upside. We can't know how much payoff you'll get for drafting both halves, but the reason Soulbond was so good in AVR was because that format had no removal. We already have plenty of removal in SOI that can kill a 3/3. They've done a fine job of putting this mechanic on two otherwise printable limited fodder cards specifically so that you don't have a dead card if you open this and can't draft the other half. It stands to reason that the other commons with this ability will be priced the same, giving you a nice bonus if you assemble the combo, not hamstringing you if you can't. Also, since these are double faced cards, you should be able to see who opens what at your table and draft accordingly.
I imagine the rares will have much more upside, because there's little to no chance of you drafting two particular rares or mythics in a set, so any constructed applications will be entirely separate from the limited filler cards. Rarity plays such a huge part of this mechanic that you really can stick it on mediocre commons and powerful rares.
I would rule the game as a draw, unless either player wanted to take an action that caused the game state to meaningfully change. I will admit to having been looking for better justification for this position than 104.4b, and this is a rare enough situation that it's not really covered under the wording of policy, but extreme situations like this require judgement calls (I'm also reminded of the question about how to correctly resolve a Scrambleverse with 10 million tokens in play), and if no player is taking a game action that meaningfully advances the game state (which includes drawing a card), then I'm comfortable declaring that a draw.
The only person losing out on this decision is the player who doesn't want the game to end, and while angling for a draw isn't necessarily Stalling, I'm not comfortable enforcing any ruling that requires a player to sit at their table for 40 minutes without doing anything, or concede (Which is precisely why we have rules to cover if one player is going off with an infinite combo, they're still obligated to be moving towards a new, and presumably winning, game state).
Watcher in the Web's ability is permissive; normally creatures may only block one creature, Watcher may block 8.
If Watcher had a restriction on how many creatures it could block (ie. one or eight), that would be spelled out on the card. It has the option of blocking seven additional creatures, which may be exercised in part or in full. So it can block up to eight creatures.
Worth noting that Bushwhacker's Surge ability, Genesis Chamber, and Beck all trigger at the same time and you can stack them as you like. So you can resolve the Myr token and the card draw first, and it will get haste.
The word Dragon appearing anywhere on the card other than the type line (like the name) has no mechanical meaning.
This isn't an official answer, but it's basically the closest you're likely to get.
Changed the title to not spoil people due to forum peek-through - Jay13x
In short, no.
There's either more to that story, or the judge made the wrong call. DQs are hard to earn, and usually the domain of cheating, collusion or aggressive behaviour. If you are concerned that your opponent's deck is not properly randomized, you should call a judge. If the judge investigates and finds that it isn't, they'll either issue a warning for insufficient randomization (if they determine that it was unintentional), or a DQ for cheating (if they determine that it was intentional). If they determine that it was random, they shouldn't be issuing you any penalty. As with anything, it's possible to get a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct if you're fishing for penalties, but for that we're talking about things like calling a judge to inspect their deck after every single time they shuffle, or other antagonistic behaviour in the way you interact with your opponent. You should never get penalized for calling a judge because you have a genuine question or concern. That's what we're here for.
That being said, if you think your opponent's deck is in any way stacked, you should call a judge without trying to alter it. The temptation to have them mulligan by un-mana-weaving their deck may be strong, but getting them a DQ would be better, and if it wasn't intentional, even a warning allows us to track their conduct over the tournament and find out if they're benefiting from it against other players.
I think this excellent post sums up everything that could have been left to say about this topic and that it will conclude this overly long and overly long-lived thread nicely.
-MadMage
Turn to Frog does not make the creature a new object. You're correct that killing the tree in response will prevent the exchange from happening; blinking it would make it a new creature and no exchange would happen, but Turn to Frog is just altering its P/T. Removing its ability once it's already on the stack doesn't do anything.
This assumption buys into the "more words" fallacy that trips people up every spoiler season. People rating cards assuming they're only ever using every single ability on the card: Figure of Destiny is still a good card if you don't activate its third ability, Planeswalkers are still good even if you don't ultimate them. Adding the Graf Rats text to a Mythic doesn't guarantee that Mythic can't also be independently good. Yes, it loses text box space, but for all we know, Gisela could fit "Flying, Doublestrike" as well as that text, and be costed as an aggressive angel that's playable without Bruna. A theoretical 5/5 doublestrike flier for 5 does not need another Mythic to work, just because it has a bunch of extra text on it (that means it works EVEN BETTER with another Mythic).
This is one of the reasons Wizards curates their spoiler season: If MaRo's preview tomorrow is Gisela and Bruna, and both are sweet cards in the own right and an even sweeter meld, people probably wouldn't be on here complaining about worthless rares and impossible draft strategies. But instead we got a couple of mediocre draft commons first, so of course everything's the worst.
That's what these cards are, limited fodder, with marginal upside. We can't know how much payoff you'll get for drafting both halves, but the reason Soulbond was so good in AVR was because that format had no removal. We already have plenty of removal in SOI that can kill a 3/3. They've done a fine job of putting this mechanic on two otherwise printable limited fodder cards specifically so that you don't have a dead card if you open this and can't draft the other half. It stands to reason that the other commons with this ability will be priced the same, giving you a nice bonus if you assemble the combo, not hamstringing you if you can't. Also, since these are double faced cards, you should be able to see who opens what at your table and draft accordingly.
I imagine the rares will have much more upside, because there's little to no chance of you drafting two particular rares or mythics in a set, so any constructed applications will be entirely separate from the limited filler cards. Rarity plays such a huge part of this mechanic that you really can stick it on mediocre commons and powerful rares.
The only person losing out on this decision is the player who doesn't want the game to end, and while angling for a draw isn't necessarily Stalling, I'm not comfortable enforcing any ruling that requires a player to sit at their table for 40 minutes without doing anything, or concede (Which is precisely why we have rules to cover if one player is going off with an infinite combo, they're still obligated to be moving towards a new, and presumably winning, game state).
If Watcher had a restriction on how many creatures it could block (ie. one or eight), that would be spelled out on the card. It has the option of blocking seven additional creatures, which may be exercised in part or in full. So it can block up to eight creatures.