This is essentially the same question as this thread's, regarding whether a static ability creating a continuous effect can apply to objects that stop qualifying for the effect after the effect has been applied. The answer is yes, this works. The way continuous effects are applied, the game decides what objects are affected by the effect first, and once that determination has been made, the qualifier ceases to matter.
I'll use Conversion again as the proof that this works - the effect "All Mountains are Plains" makes Mountains stop being Mountains, and the only way this card can work is if it can lock in what objects it applies to and stop caring whether they qualify after the effect has been applied.
The thing to watch out for (and likely the reason we don't see effects like this on actual cards much) is that this sort of effect is highly likely to create dependencies, which are an area of the rules that tend to be pretty unintuitive. For instance, if you had a Knight of the Masses and a Glorious Anthem on the field, a Glory Seeker would be a 3/3 regardless of the timestamp order of the effects; this is because applying Anthem's effect can change what objects the Knight's effect is able to apply to, which creates a dependency and forces Anthem's effect to apply first. Additionally, because power and toughness changing effects from continuous effects are applied before power and toughness changes effects from counters (the former is layer 7c, the latter is layer 7d) you would apply the Knight's effect before the effect of counters - for example, a Champion of the Parish gets the bonus even if it has half a dozen +1/+1 counters on it, while a Kitchen Finks that has persisted would not get the bonus even though it's a 2/1 creature.
Continuous effects don't invoke themselves repeatedly. Knight of the Masses wouldn't make a 0/1 creature into a 3/1 creature for the same reason that Glorious Anthem doesn't turn all your creatures into Infinity/Infinity creatures.
If i end the turn with glorious end before blockers are declared after attacking would i still cast the spell from hand
Glorious End
No. "Attacks and isn't blocked" triggers specifically trigger during the Declare Blockers step if the creature in question is still an attacking creature at that point in time and nothing is declared as blocking it. If the Declare Blockers step doesn't happen at all, the ability won't trigger.
More or less on-topic: How would this work for cards like Escaped Shapeshifter (which specifies in the errata that it only cares if another creature with a different name has these abilities)? As far as I know, a card which simply reads "This creature has flying as long as another creature you control has flying" wouldn't really work, since if you had two in play they wouldn't have flying until one gained flying, in which case they would always have flying because the other one does.
Are you still referring to the originally proposed "Muraganda Prowessglyphs" card idea? This is actually pretty straightforward.
Assuming that the card added flying: If the only creature affected is Escaped Shapeshifter, it will have flying as long as the Glyphs are around. If there are other creatures that don't natively have flying, Shapeshifter will have flying - I think this could create a dependency where Glyphs has to apply first because it changes whether Shapeshifter's effect applies, but since they're both trying to add flying it doesn't make a big difference. Ending the Glyphs effect would cause Shapeshifter to lose flying since both the effect trying to give it flying directly and its own effect that looks at the other creature won't see flying anymore. If there's another creature that natively has flying, Shapeshifter will just use that - there's another dependency that forces Shapeshifter's effect to apply before Glyph's.
I ask because I, like everyone, really want WotC to just print a creature with "This creature has all keyword abilities of other creatures on the battlefield" or something to that effect instead of the Soulflayers and Odric, Lunarch Marshals that we keep getting. Is that something they don't print only for being unintuitive, or does it actually not work as-intended?
There would have to be a rules update that defines what it means for something to have all keyword abilities, because some of them have costs (Echo), variables (Rampage, Bushido), or other related defining information (Champion). The logical solution is to have it copy the values from the thing it's inheriting the ability from, so the creature would have, say, echo 3WW, bushido 5, and champion a Faerie if you have Karmic Guide, Konda, Lord of Eiganjo, and Mistbind Clique on the field. But the rules don't actually support this at the moment.
There are other keywords that have unintuitive effects that, while not something that breaks how the rules work, would still be problematic. This creature would have Bloodthirst while on the battlefield, but not before, so it wouldn't actually get counters from entering because the game cares about whether it has the ability before it enters. And if the creature inherits Morph and then gets turned face down, it can't unmorph because in its face-down state it doesn't natively have Morph and its ability-inheriting ability isn't active.
Also, it's not clear how "this creature has all keyword abilities" would play with abilities where multiple instances are cumulative. If multiple creatures have Extort, does this creature have that many instances of Extort or just one? Same with Bushido again.
And really, do you want your creature to have Defender, Shadow, and Fading?
Your opponent's tokens will be untapped (and your token will be tapped.)
As with any other ability, Terastodon's effects are carried out in the order written. First the targeted permanents are destroyed - and the instant this happens, Vedalken Shackles' control-change effect ends and your opponent regains control of Thalia - and then the tokens are created. So Thalia is under your opponent's control at the point that the game is deciding whether any replacement effects apply to the token creation.
1. A blocking requirement such as the one created by Sisters of Stone Death's ability only has any effect during the turn-based action of declaring blockers, and that only happens once per combat (this is the first thing that happens during the Declare Blockers step.) Creating a blocking requirement after blockers have been declared does nothing.
2. The question as asked doesn't really apply since you can't do what you asked in question 1, but to answer the next closest question: If you create a blocking requirement before the Declare Blockers step and your opponent blocks with the creature that has to, nothing stops them from also blocking with more creatures.
Basically, there's no way (without outside help) to force exactly one creature to block Sisters.
So, is that how all non-combat damage is dealt to planeswalkers, then? We target the player then redirect the damage?
Any time a source would deal noncombat damage to a player, and that player is an opponent of the player who controls the source of damage, the source's controller can choose to have that damage get dealt to a planeswalker that player controls instead. This is a replacement effect and so it's subject to any other replacement effects that may interfere with it (there's a recent thread here that deals with how Delaying Shield plays with this). Since it's a replacement effect, it doesn't target and you don't make the choice until the moment damage would be dealt. So you could cast Lightning Bolt targeting a player who controls potentially multiple planeswalkers, and you don't have to say whether you're redirecting the damage until Bolt resolves.
There are also a few cards that explicitly damage planeswalkers directly (e.g. Chandra's Defeat from the new set) so strictly speaking, this isn't how all noncombat damage gets dealt to planeswalkers, but the redirection mechanic is the most common method.
You are correct.
Putting a -1/-1 counter on a creature as a result of Grim Affliction's first instruction and putting another one on the creature as part of proliferating are two separate actions, even though it's the same spell doing it.
The reason why this is different from the case described in the Gatherer rulings has to do with the timing of state-based actions (and also which things are state-based actions.)
If a resolving spell or ability deals lethal damage to Exquisite Archangel and enough damage to take its controller to 0 or less life - whether this damage is dealt simultaneously isn't actually relevant, as long as it's all one spell or ability - this sets up the game state such that two SBAs need to happen the next time the game checks for them (right after that spell/ability is done resolving): Destroying the Archangel and making its controller lose the game. Archangel's ability is still able to replace the player's loss because all SBAs are performed simultaneously, and replacement effects apply before the event that they replace occurs.
Conversely, Unlicensed Disintegration destroys the Archangel as one of its effects. This takes place immediately, rather than waiting for the spell to be done resolving and letting SBAs handle it. As a result, when Disintegration is done resolving, there is only the one SBA to handle - the player losing the game - and Archangel has already been removed and thus can't help.
Just to cover our bases, the interaction as described above only applies to noncombat damage that would be dealt to an opponent. Combat damage is dealt to planeswalkers directly as an outcome of attacking the planeswalker, and can't be replaced by Delaying Shield.
This is also true of spells and abilities that would deal noncombat damage directly to a planeswalker such as Magmaquake or Chandra's Defeat - if the damage isn't headed for the player first, Delaying Shield will do nothing.
Perfect, so in order for me to do what I want, I would have to attack with a creature like Roon of the Hidden Realm and say: "In response to the end of combat step, I activate Reconnaissance targeting Roon of the Hidden Realm." Then I would use its ability and then I can say: "In response to the creature being exiled, I activate Reconnaissance targeting Roon of the Hidden Realm." and can do it again? I just wanna make sure I have the timing correct that would allow me to do such a thing.
You can only untap Roon once per combat using Reconnaissance. To break down how you described it:
1. Combat damage is dealt
2. When you get priority, you activate Recon's ability, and hold priority.
3. You activate Roon's ability, and hold priority.
4. You activate Recon's ability.
5. The ability from step 4 resolves, untaps Roon, and removes it from combat.
6. You activate Roon's ability again.
7. The ability from step 6 resolves and exiles the targeted creature.
8. The ability from step 3 resolves and exiles the targeted creature.
9. The ability from step 2 is countered on resolution because its target is illegal. (Recall, Roon is removed from combat in step 5, making it no longer a legal target for "target attacking creature you control.") Roon remains tapped.
For the first scenario, it depends on whose turn it is. Dictate and Sharpshooter both have triggered abilities that would try to go onto the stack at the same time. When multiple players have triggers that want to go onto the stack at the same time, they are put onto the stack in turn order starting with the ones controlled by the active player.
So, if it's A's turn, the Dictate trigger will go onto the stack, then Sharpshooter's, allowing Sharpshooter to untap (and thus potentially ping more things) before B is forced to sacrifice something. If it's B's turn, they go the other way around, and B will have to sacrifice a creature before Sharpshooter untaps.
Second scenario: Once Dictate's triggered ability is on the stack, it exists independently from its source. Even if the opponent responds with removal, they will still have to sacrifice a creature when the ability resolves.
This gets a little bit more interesting if we're talking about a situation where the opponent might not be able to sacrifice the creature in response to removal (perhaps because the removal spell is Krosan Grip, or because their sacrifice outlet is Birthing Pod.) because then it's relevant who gets to act first. In these situations, this comes down to turn order again, because the active player gets priority first after something has resolved. If player A casts the Dictate during their own turn, they will get priority first after it resolves and can sacrifice a creature, triggering the ability, before player B is able to do anything. If A casts Dictate during B's turn, B will get priority first and can cast Krosan Grip before A is able to cast a spell or activate an ability that involves sacrificing a creature. (Exception: If the ability is a mana ability, e.g. Ashnod's Altar or the ability Eldrazi Scions have, they can still get around Krosan Grip's split second ability.)
Third scenario: Each player on a team is a separate opponent of the other team. They will each have to sacrifice a creature.
The controller of a copy of a spell is the player who controlled the effect that instructed them to create the copy. Therefore, if you cast Radiate, you control the copies of the spell and target legality is determined accordingly when hexproof is involved. You won't get copies of the spell for targets you couldn't legally choose.
Assuming your instant is something like Murder, the ability will still happen. You can't target the creature before it enters the battlefield, and once it does, its ability will trigger and be on the stack before you can do anything. Once the ability has triggered, destroying its source won't stop the ability from resolving.
To keep the ability from happening, you either need to keep the creature from resolving (most likely with something like Cancel or counter the ability directly with something like Stifle.
But if the player knows what he/she is doing they would just go off, or continue on after you cast either of the two spells and kill you before it resolves.
This in turn depends on what timing the OP uses. The vast majority of infinite recursion combos have some window where the opponent can respond and the combo player isn't able to keep performing more of the combo in response to that. In this case, if Ethereal Haze is cast while Redcap is in the graveyard and its Persist ability is on the stack, there's not much the combo player can do about it unless they have another Redcap.
(Of course, they could just do the loop again at the first opportunity on the next turn, after the Haze's effect has ended, so there's that.)
The answer to the primary question is, it depends on how your opponent wants to handle the timing. Matter Reshaper's ability will trigger and go onto the stack above Elder Deep-Fiend. Your opponent can either respond to that triggered ability by casting Censor, or they can pass priority, allow the trigger to resolve, and then cast Censor at Deep-Fiend afterwards while it's still on the stack. Typically it's going to be the first one - a player is assumed to be responding as soon as they can unless they specify otherwise - but it's up to your opponent whether you get to resolve the trigger first or not.
Note, your opponent only gets the option to respond to the trigger or not. They can't let you start to resolve the trigger, flip the card, and then cast Censor after they see the card but before you put it onto the field. Once the ability has started to resolve, no one can take any other actions until the ability finishes resolving.
You are correct in that Inspiring Statuary won't help you dodge Censor. The cost isn't a spell, and there's nothing that can allow Improvise to work.
I'll use Conversion again as the proof that this works - the effect "All Mountains are Plains" makes Mountains stop being Mountains, and the only way this card can work is if it can lock in what objects it applies to and stop caring whether they qualify after the effect has been applied.
The thing to watch out for (and likely the reason we don't see effects like this on actual cards much) is that this sort of effect is highly likely to create dependencies, which are an area of the rules that tend to be pretty unintuitive. For instance, if you had a Knight of the Masses and a Glorious Anthem on the field, a Glory Seeker would be a 3/3 regardless of the timestamp order of the effects; this is because applying Anthem's effect can change what objects the Knight's effect is able to apply to, which creates a dependency and forces Anthem's effect to apply first. Additionally, because power and toughness changing effects from continuous effects are applied before power and toughness changes effects from counters (the former is layer 7c, the latter is layer 7d) you would apply the Knight's effect before the effect of counters - for example, a Champion of the Parish gets the bonus even if it has half a dozen +1/+1 counters on it, while a Kitchen Finks that has persisted would not get the bonus even though it's a 2/1 creature.
Continuous effects don't invoke themselves repeatedly. Knight of the Masses wouldn't make a 0/1 creature into a 3/1 creature for the same reason that Glorious Anthem doesn't turn all your creatures into Infinity/Infinity creatures.
No. "Attacks and isn't blocked" triggers specifically trigger during the Declare Blockers step if the creature in question is still an attacking creature at that point in time and nothing is declared as blocking it. If the Declare Blockers step doesn't happen at all, the ability won't trigger.
Assuming that the card added flying: If the only creature affected is Escaped Shapeshifter, it will have flying as long as the Glyphs are around. If there are other creatures that don't natively have flying, Shapeshifter will have flying - I think this could create a dependency where Glyphs has to apply first because it changes whether Shapeshifter's effect applies, but since they're both trying to add flying it doesn't make a big difference. Ending the Glyphs effect would cause Shapeshifter to lose flying since both the effect trying to give it flying directly and its own effect that looks at the other creature won't see flying anymore. If there's another creature that natively has flying, Shapeshifter will just use that - there's another dependency that forces Shapeshifter's effect to apply before Glyph's.
There would have to be a rules update that defines what it means for something to have all keyword abilities, because some of them have costs (Echo), variables (Rampage, Bushido), or other related defining information (Champion). The logical solution is to have it copy the values from the thing it's inheriting the ability from, so the creature would have, say, echo 3WW, bushido 5, and champion a Faerie if you have Karmic Guide, Konda, Lord of Eiganjo, and Mistbind Clique on the field. But the rules don't actually support this at the moment.
There are other keywords that have unintuitive effects that, while not something that breaks how the rules work, would still be problematic. This creature would have Bloodthirst while on the battlefield, but not before, so it wouldn't actually get counters from entering because the game cares about whether it has the ability before it enters. And if the creature inherits Morph and then gets turned face down, it can't unmorph because in its face-down state it doesn't natively have Morph and its ability-inheriting ability isn't active.
Also, it's not clear how "this creature has all keyword abilities" would play with abilities where multiple instances are cumulative. If multiple creatures have Extort, does this creature have that many instances of Extort or just one? Same with Bushido again.
And really, do you want your creature to have Defender, Shadow, and Fading?
As with any other ability, Terastodon's effects are carried out in the order written. First the targeted permanents are destroyed - and the instant this happens, Vedalken Shackles' control-change effect ends and your opponent regains control of Thalia - and then the tokens are created. So Thalia is under your opponent's control at the point that the game is deciding whether any replacement effects apply to the token creation.
2. The question as asked doesn't really apply since you can't do what you asked in question 1, but to answer the next closest question: If you create a blocking requirement before the Declare Blockers step and your opponent blocks with the creature that has to, nothing stops them from also blocking with more creatures.
Basically, there's no way (without outside help) to force exactly one creature to block Sisters.
There are also a few cards that explicitly damage planeswalkers directly (e.g. Chandra's Defeat from the new set) so strictly speaking, this isn't how all noncombat damage gets dealt to planeswalkers, but the redirection mechanic is the most common method.
Putting a -1/-1 counter on a creature as a result of Grim Affliction's first instruction and putting another one on the creature as part of proliferating are two separate actions, even though it's the same spell doing it.
If a resolving spell or ability deals lethal damage to Exquisite Archangel and enough damage to take its controller to 0 or less life - whether this damage is dealt simultaneously isn't actually relevant, as long as it's all one spell or ability - this sets up the game state such that two SBAs need to happen the next time the game checks for them (right after that spell/ability is done resolving): Destroying the Archangel and making its controller lose the game. Archangel's ability is still able to replace the player's loss because all SBAs are performed simultaneously, and replacement effects apply before the event that they replace occurs.
Conversely, Unlicensed Disintegration destroys the Archangel as one of its effects. This takes place immediately, rather than waiting for the spell to be done resolving and letting SBAs handle it. As a result, when Disintegration is done resolving, there is only the one SBA to handle - the player losing the game - and Archangel has already been removed and thus can't help.
This is also true of spells and abilities that would deal noncombat damage directly to a planeswalker such as Magmaquake or Chandra's Defeat - if the damage isn't headed for the player first, Delaying Shield will do nothing.
1. Combat damage is dealt
2. When you get priority, you activate Recon's ability, and hold priority.
3. You activate Roon's ability, and hold priority.
4. You activate Recon's ability.
5. The ability from step 4 resolves, untaps Roon, and removes it from combat.
6. You activate Roon's ability again.
7. The ability from step 6 resolves and exiles the targeted creature.
8. The ability from step 3 resolves and exiles the targeted creature.
9. The ability from step 2 is countered on resolution because its target is illegal. (Recall, Roon is removed from combat in step 5, making it no longer a legal target for "target attacking creature you control.") Roon remains tapped.
So, if it's A's turn, the Dictate trigger will go onto the stack, then Sharpshooter's, allowing Sharpshooter to untap (and thus potentially ping more things) before B is forced to sacrifice something. If it's B's turn, they go the other way around, and B will have to sacrifice a creature before Sharpshooter untaps.
Second scenario: Once Dictate's triggered ability is on the stack, it exists independently from its source. Even if the opponent responds with removal, they will still have to sacrifice a creature when the ability resolves.
This gets a little bit more interesting if we're talking about a situation where the opponent might not be able to sacrifice the creature in response to removal (perhaps because the removal spell is Krosan Grip, or because their sacrifice outlet is Birthing Pod.) because then it's relevant who gets to act first. In these situations, this comes down to turn order again, because the active player gets priority first after something has resolved. If player A casts the Dictate during their own turn, they will get priority first after it resolves and can sacrifice a creature, triggering the ability, before player B is able to do anything. If A casts Dictate during B's turn, B will get priority first and can cast Krosan Grip before A is able to cast a spell or activate an ability that involves sacrificing a creature. (Exception: If the ability is a mana ability, e.g. Ashnod's Altar or the ability Eldrazi Scions have, they can still get around Krosan Grip's split second ability.)
Third scenario: Each player on a team is a separate opponent of the other team. They will each have to sacrifice a creature.
To keep the ability from happening, you either need to keep the creature from resolving (most likely with something like Cancel or counter the ability directly with something like Stifle.
(Of course, they could just do the loop again at the first opportunity on the next turn, after the Haze's effect has ended, so there's that.)
Note, your opponent only gets the option to respond to the trigger or not. They can't let you start to resolve the trigger, flip the card, and then cast Censor after they see the card but before you put it onto the field. Once the ability has started to resolve, no one can take any other actions until the ability finishes resolving.
You are correct in that Inspiring Statuary won't help you dodge Censor. The cost isn't a spell, and there's nothing that can allow Improvise to work.