Hey Guys! I have a question about the ruling and what takes place at when. As the title says Splatter Thug vs Shock. I was playing in a Modern FNM last Friday and I cast Splatter Thug and unleased it. My opponent cast Shock to destroy it before I added the +1/+1 counter to the Splatter Thug. I was thinking that when I cast the Splatter Thug I had to decide then whether or not to unleash it which would give it the counter before the Shock damage. Would the Splatter Thug stay or would it be killed by the Shock? Thanks for your answers and help with this question!
Splatter Thug enters with an additional counter (if it was unleashed). It is not a trigger, but a replacement effect, so there is no opportunity to shock it in response to adding the counter. Once anyone gets priority, it already has its counter on it.
One thing I noticed is that you can't get Mystic Snake off Collected Company since its CMC is 4, not 3 or less. You already have Spiketail Drakeling and I am not aware of any other good EtB creatures to counter spells. Maybe Wizard Replica.
Otherwise, the deck seems like it would be fun, and could be effective. The only other thing I am thinking is that you don't seem to have much of an end game plan. Is the plan just to overrun them with small creatures after countering everything they try to cast?
For infect, Melira, Sylvok Outcast is the most effective, but spot removal, such as Path to Exile (not in your colors), Dismember, or even straight up burn, works as well since they want to load up one creature. They have protection back up in the form of Apostle's Blessing and Vines of Vastwood but sometimes you can sneak something through. Also, if you go the burn or dismember route, watch out for Wild Defiance.
Urzatron can be hated on with Land Destruction, such as Fulminator Mage or can be shut down with something like Stony Silence (to prevent them from getting to their lands with Expedition Map).
Yes, that looks correct. The actual sequence is this:
Put Banishing Knack ability on the stack by tapping Stonybrook Schoolmaster targetting something
Stonybrook Schoolmaster triggers to create a token
Trigger resolves to create a token
This creates a new trigger on the stack for Intruder Alarm to untap all creatures.
That ability resolves
The stack now has the original "bounce" ability on the stack and there is an untapped Schoolmaster and a token. In response to the existing ability on the stack, you can tap Schoolmaster again to target something (presumably the first target) and continue as much as you want.
Keep in mind that if your board state is just Stonybrook Schoolmaster and Intruder Alarm when you cast Banishing Knack, you need to target Schoolmaster or Intruder Alarm with the initial "bounce" ability as you can't target a token since one doesn't exist yet.
Sure. This is because Madness, at least in part, creates a trigger that can be responded to. Here is the relevant ruling:
702.34a Madness is a keyword that represents two abilities. The first is a static ability that functions
while the card with madness is in a player's hand. The second is a triggered ability that
functions when the first ability is applied. "Madness [cost]" means "If a player would discard
this card, that player discards it, but may exile it instead of putting it into his or her graveyard"
and "When this card is exiled this way, its owner may cast it by paying [cost] rather than paying
its mana cost. If that player doesn't, he or she puts this card into his or her graveyard."
So, in response to the trigger of "When this card is exiled this way ...", you can crack a fetch to search out a land to pay for said cost when the ability resolves.
I was just thinking about this situation with the basics and something crossed my mind that would be kind of cool.
We have gone from a wedge set with fetches to a set with allied colored pairs and 2 cycles of cards with hybrid activations (effectively fitting the wedge theme of Khans and the allied theme of Dragons) to a set with just allied color pairs being a major focus.
When spoiling Fate Reforged basics, they also said they would have ally fetches in the land slot in some packs. These had Khans symbols and collector numbers, so they weren't technically part of Fate Reforged. What if they are simply delaying the announcement of basics for Dragons because they want to do the same thing; basics, with a chance to open an ally color fetch again. I know there isn't a precedent to do this twice in a row, but it kind of makes sense now that we are actually dealing with ally color pairs.
Thee wouldn't show up in the Name and Number crunch because they are still from Khans.
I also realize that the fact that Khans of Tarkir and Dragons of Tarkir rotate at different times with the new rotation schedule could cause confusion in 12 months to open a pack of Dragons to get a land that might not be Standard legal, but that problem would only exist for 6 months before Dragons rotates and the focus would be on the new set at the time.
It may not be highly likely, but is interesting to think about other reasons they have put off showing us the basics for this set besides the possibility of full-art lands.
EDIT:I also realize other posters speculated on alt-art allied fetches, but it always seemed like the conversation was based on the fetches actually being part of Dragons of Tarkir. I am simply guessing that they could do something similar to what they did with fetches in Fate Reforged.
It seems plausible, but why would that necessitate delaying the announcement?
Not a clue, but it seems to make more sense to delay the announcement for something exciting than to wait this long just to end up showing us 15 half-art basic lands.
The most likely scenario is still that we are just getting 15 half-art basics and they haven't spoiled them because they wanted the focus to be on the Dragons, but it is interesting to at least speculate on what might be.
I had the exact same problem. I am running Chrome if it matters.
I ended up just installing an ad blocking app and that fixed it. So it was apparently the ads causing the screen to scroll to the bottom. I was also getting annoyed that some ads would start playing audio on their own, so this solved two problems for me.
I just wanted to say that more than just the OP is experiencing this.
I was just thinking about this situation with the basics and something crossed my mind that would be kind of cool.
We have gone from a wedge set with fetches to a set with allied colored pairs and 2 cycles of cards with hybrid activations (effectively fitting the wedge theme of Khans and the allied theme of Dragons) to a set with just allied color pairs being a major focus.
When spoiling Fate Reforged basics, they also said they would have ally fetches in the land slot in some packs. These had Khans symbols and collector numbers, so they weren't technically part of Fate Reforged. What if they are simply delaying the announcement of basics for Dragons because they want to do the same thing; basics, with a chance to open an ally color fetch again. I know there isn't a precedent to do this twice in a row, but it kind of makes sense now that we are actually dealing with ally color pairs.
Thee wouldn't show up in the Name and Number crunch because they are still from Khans.
I also realize that the fact that Khans of Tarkir and Dragons of Tarkir rotate at different times with the new rotation schedule could cause confusion in 12 months to open a pack of Dragons to get a land that might not be Standard legal, but that problem would only exist for 6 months before Dragons rotates and the focus would be on the new set at the time.
It may not be highly likely, but is interesting to think about other reasons they have put off showing us the basics for this set besides the possibility of full-art lands.
EDIT:I also realize other posters speculated on alt-art allied fetches, but it always seemed like the conversation was based on the fetches actually being part of Dragons of Tarkir. I am simply guessing that they could do something similar to what they did with fetches in Fate Reforged.
The damage from Anax and Cymede will still go through. Attacking creatures can be tapped during combat. Otherwise almost nothing would ever deal damage since they tap to attack.
It doesn't matter what happens during combat in regards to tapping or untapping a creature (attacker or blocker). Once a creature has been assigned as an attacker or blocker, it remains so until the end of combat or until some other effect removes it from combat.
The common dragon that got bumped to uncommon will be colourless.
The "common dragon" is not a single dragon, it is the dragon cycle of the +1/+1 counter on each other dragon when you turn face up the morphed dragon.
Frist designed for common and then moved to uncommon because it was too good
According to this article, there was just 1 common dragon. The uncommon cycle you refer to appears to be the monocolored cycle at uncommon talked about in the article:
On topic, I do believe that full-art lands fit the flavor of landfall. However, it might be good to see it in a set that is not Zendikar, for a couple reasons. First, the art would be different so we don't just have a bunch of art with hedrons in it (though they could probably do art for Zendikar without the hedrons) and second, it otherwise sets a precedent that the only tournament legal set with full art lands is Zendikar. I don't think they should do this, but I suppose they could if they wanted.
It is a cool theory, but as crownclown indicated, they don't realy fit. If the names in the flavor texts would be the names of the cards, the names don't fit as only two come after "Haven" (and only one if you figure the land for Atarka would start with "Arashin", rather than "Shifting").
It looks like we also got Tapestry of the Ages at #246 leaving #247 the correct place for Vial of Dragonfire. This means that Enemy Fetches can now be considered definitely out as there is no room for Arid Mesa, even with only 10 basics.
That leaves the question of why they have done so much to avoid spoiling any of the basics or confirming the number of basics. I suppose it is possible that there is 10 basics and a cycle of rare lands after Haven of the Spirit Dragon. I am guessing there is still something to the lands since both Khans and Fate Reforged had their basics spoiled the last Monday of spoiler weeks (two weeks before the PreRelease). I could be wrong, but it does seem suspicious.
if you see the text on Abrupt Decay it even says "cannot be countered by spells or abilities"
game rules aren't "spells or abilities"
either way, a spell cannot resolve without a legal target, regardless of what the card says.
if the target is not legal, it fizzles...
I don't think there's any exception to this.
This exception exists so the Drake is sacrificed even if the creature the ability targets become an illegal target. If it didn't work this way, someone could sacrifice their creature in response to the ETB ability of Gilded Drake and you would still have a Gilded Drake. This way, if that happens, you sacrifice the Gilded Drake since the exchange didn't take place.
Hi I had a question involving these two abilities triggering together Banding and Exalted. I run a tiny leaders deck with Soraya the Falconeras my leader so an exmaple of the situation would be if I i had Soraya the Falconer along with two birds for example Suntail Hawk and Glint Hawk and banded them but also had Aven Squire on the field. I know with banding that the rwo creatures banding count as one so does that mean exalted would activate and do the 5 damage instead of the regular 4 (4 due to Soraya's effect)? and also one other thing if I banded them with a creature such as [card]Courier Hawk[/card, would both creatures have vigilence due to hawks effect if the other one didn't or would they both just keep flying?
You still attack with 3 creatures in that case, so exalted won't trigger. Being in a band doesn't mean they are now one creature. They just attack and can be blocked as one.
Splatter Thug enters with an additional counter (if it was unleashed). It is not a trigger, but a replacement effect, so there is no opportunity to shock it in response to adding the counter. Once anyone gets priority, it already has its counter on it.
Otherwise, the deck seems like it would be fun, and could be effective. The only other thing I am thinking is that you don't seem to have much of an end game plan. Is the plan just to overrun them with small creatures after countering everything they try to cast?
Spellskite is also really good against infect.
I haven't played against Elves, but I assume something like Pyroclasm, Volcanic Fallout, or Anger of the Gods would work. These might be too slow, so I am not sure.
Urzatron can be hated on with Land Destruction, such as Fulminator Mage or can be shut down with something like Stony Silence (to prevent them from getting to their lands with Expedition Map).
As with any deck, preemptive disruption works too. So, Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize may do what you need.
I don't really play Jund so there may be other options I am not aware of against these decks, but these may be good starting points.
Keep in mind that if your board state is just Stonybrook Schoolmaster and Intruder Alarm when you cast Banishing Knack, you need to target Schoolmaster or Intruder Alarm with the initial "bounce" ability as you can't target a token since one doesn't exist yet.
So, in response to the trigger of "When this card is exiled this way ...", you can crack a fetch to search out a land to pay for said cost when the ability resolves.
Not a clue, but it seems to make more sense to delay the announcement for something exciting than to wait this long just to end up showing us 15 half-art basic lands.
The most likely scenario is still that we are just getting 15 half-art basics and they haven't spoiled them because they wanted the focus to be on the Dragons, but it is interesting to at least speculate on what might be.
I ended up just installing an ad blocking app and that fixed it. So it was apparently the ads causing the screen to scroll to the bottom. I was also getting annoyed that some ads would start playing audio on their own, so this solved two problems for me.
I just wanted to say that more than just the OP is experiencing this.
We have gone from a wedge set with fetches to a set with allied colored pairs and 2 cycles of cards with hybrid activations (effectively fitting the wedge theme of Khans and the allied theme of Dragons) to a set with just allied color pairs being a major focus.
When spoiling Fate Reforged basics, they also said they would have ally fetches in the land slot in some packs. These had Khans symbols and collector numbers, so they weren't technically part of Fate Reforged. What if they are simply delaying the announcement of basics for Dragons because they want to do the same thing; basics, with a chance to open an ally color fetch again. I know there isn't a precedent to do this twice in a row, but it kind of makes sense now that we are actually dealing with ally color pairs.
Thee wouldn't show up in the Name and Number crunch because they are still from Khans.
I also realize that the fact that Khans of Tarkir and Dragons of Tarkir rotate at different times with the new rotation schedule could cause confusion in 12 months to open a pack of Dragons to get a land that might not be Standard legal, but that problem would only exist for 6 months before Dragons rotates and the focus would be on the new set at the time.
It may not be highly likely, but is interesting to think about other reasons they have put off showing us the basics for this set besides the possibility of full-art lands.
EDIT:I also realize other posters speculated on alt-art allied fetches, but it always seemed like the conversation was based on the fetches actually being part of Dragons of Tarkir. I am simply guessing that they could do something similar to what they did with fetches in Fate Reforged.
It doesn't matter what happens during combat in regards to tapping or untapping a creature (attacker or blocker). Once a creature has been assigned as an attacker or blocker, it remains so until the end of combat or until some other effect removes it from combat.
According to this article, there was just 1 common dragon. The uncommon cycle you refer to appears to be the monocolored cycle at uncommon talked about in the article:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/its-about-time-2015-03-02
On topic, I do believe that full-art lands fit the flavor of landfall. However, it might be good to see it in a set that is not Zendikar, for a couple reasons. First, the art would be different so we don't just have a bunch of art with hedrons in it (though they could probably do art for Zendikar without the hedrons) and second, it otherwise sets a precedent that the only tournament legal set with full art lands is Zendikar. I don't think they should do this, but I suppose they could if they wanted.
That leaves the question of why they have done so much to avoid spoiling any of the basics or confirming the number of basics. I suppose it is possible that there is 10 basics and a cycle of rare lands after Haven of the Spirit Dragon. I am guessing there is still something to the lands since both Khans and Fate Reforged had their basics spoiled the last Monday of spoiler weeks (two weeks before the PreRelease). I could be wrong, but it does seem suspicious.
There is one exception:
Gilded Drake
This exception exists so the Drake is sacrificed even if the creature the ability targets become an illegal target. If it didn't work this way, someone could sacrifice their creature in response to the ETB ability of Gilded Drake and you would still have a Gilded Drake. This way, if that happens, you sacrifice the Gilded Drake since the exchange didn't take place.
If you listen to the Dragons of Tarkir trailer, you will hear the narrator (Sarkhan) pronounce it the same way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8UvZBfa0JM
38 seconds in is where he says Ugin's name.