At the beginning of the card where it says "...and separate them into two piles." in my mind those are two independent clauses. The first would happen then the sorting into the two piles.
And you're right, those are two separated actions performed in sequence. However, this in no way means the piles are somehow "secret", or that "revealing" something means showing it up and then hiding it again.
I'm still fairly new to magic and don't have a full grasp of the rules yet, so i didn't know if after the cards were reveled they would then be face down or something when sorted and the opponent wouldn't know which cards were in which pile but knew what threats were possibly out there.
701.13a. To reveal a card, show that card to all players for a brief time. If an effect causes a card to be revealed, it remains revealed for as long as necessary to complete the parts of the effect that card is relevant to. If the cost to cast a spell or activate an ability includes revealing a card, the card remains revealed from the time the spell or ability is announced until it the time it leaves the stack.
So, if the first instruction is to reveal the cards, and the following instructions also involve the cards (separating them in piles, choosing, moving them to hand/graveyard), they stay revealed during these actions.
Battalion cares about how many creatures attack (that means "are declared as attackers in the beginning of declare attackers step"). Brimaz's cat soldier token is a creature that entered the battlefield already attacking but never attacked ( = wasn't declared as an attacker), so they don't count for Battalion.
EDIT: On the other hand, if you have Brimaz, Medic and a third creature (maybe a token created in a previous combat), and you attack with those three, both Brimaz's ability and Medic's battalion trigger at the same time, so you can order them to have the new token be created first, and then make it indestructible with Medic's battalion.
I expect that in JOU we will see most if not ALL cards in the set are enchantments because of all of this. Not unheard of that we may get Enchantment Lands. It's also POSSIBLE that we may get COLORED lands, as Devotion becomes tangible.
Just some food for thought.
Impossible to have ALL cards be enchantments. At the very least, the remaining two temples (B/G and U/R) and the Planeswalker¹ are not going to be enchantments.
Mimic Vat has a "dies" triggers, so it works based on what the card was as it last existed on the battlefield. You'll get to imprint Purphoros if your devotion to red was 5+ counting Purphorosat the moment the god died
No. Phantasmal Image does not copy the level counters, so it will be a 0-level Coralhelm Commander. You'll need to use the illusion's own Level Up to upgrade it.
The cliche phrase is, "creatures don't pull their punches". The combat rules say the creatures deal damage equal to their power - and no rule says a creature can't receive more damage than its toughness.
So yes, the Adephage deals 7 damage to the Reckoner, whose ability deals 7 back to you. The 10/10 deals 10 damage to the 1/1, so its controller gains 10 life.
510.1a. Each attacking creature and each blocking creature assigns combat damage equal to its power. Creatures that would assign 0 or less damage this way don't assign combat damage at all
302.7. Damage dealt to a creature by a source with neither wither nor infect is marked on that creature (see rule 119.3). If the total damage marked on that creature is greater than or equal to its toughness, that creature has been dealt lethal damage and is destroyed as a state-based action (see rule 704). All damage marked on a creature is removed when it regenerates (see rule 701.12, "Regenerate") and during the cleanup step (see rule 514.2).
Kiora is looking for Giant Sea Monsters, not other merfolk. I don't think she would spend that much time in Lorwyn, and non-native green walkers tend to hate Ravnica as soon as they arrive (see Garruk and Nissa).
Any encounter with merrows or simics would be incidental, and won't matter that much for her.
An activated ability is something you manually activate when you want to have its effect.
It's not something that happens automatically just because you did an action with it that is like the cost. That would be an triggered ability and would be written like Fallowsage instead.
The Adept and the Myr have activated abilities. To use it you need to pay the activation cost only for it, so you can't tap them to attack and to activate their abilities, it's one or the other.
Mutavault has two activated abilities. You can tap it to generate mana. You can also pay mana to make it a creature. It's not an "either or" because nothing says you can't use both in the same turn (for example, turn it into a creature, block an attacker, and later that turn tap for mana to cast an instant).
Are split cards 2 cards then?
Like.. if an effect says draw 2 cards, and you hit a split card, do you stop?
It is still just one card. One card with two names, two costs, and so on.
Quote from foobar »
I guess Im not understanding why in one case its "2 and 6" and the other its "2 + 6"
Because of the way you cast spells and pay costs.
To cast a spell, you perform these actions in order:
* Move it to the stack.
* Make choices such as modes, if you will use alternative or optional costs, and the value of X.
* Choose target.
* Calculate total cost
* Generate mana if needed
* Pay the cost
Now the spell is considered cast and will resolve later, after players have passed priority.
So when casting Blazing Shoal, you first choose a value for X and declare you'll use its alternative cost. Then, you choose a creature for target. And then you pay the cost, exiling from hand a card whose CMC is equal to X. When Shoal resolves later, it will give +X/+0 to the target.
If the spell has two CMCs, one of them must be equal to the chosen value of X. You can only use Boom/Bust if you chose X to be 6 or 2, not 8.
X is not calculated from the card you exiled; instead, the value of X you want will determine what card you can exile! So it's actually more like the Bloodbraid Elf example than the Dark Confidant's one.
Bloodbraid Elf's Cascade will stop at it, because one of its CMCs is less than 4. You may cast either half of it for free.
Dark Confidant will make you lose 2 life and 6 life, for a total of 8 life lost. Blazing Shoal will give +2/+0 and +6/+0 to the targeted creature, for a total of +8/+0 wrong, see other posters.
The M19 planeswalkers are Ajani, Tezzeret, Liliana, Sarkhan and Vivien. Of those, Tezzeret and Liliana are aligned with Bolas, while Sarkhan and Vivien have reasons to oppose him, so my guess is Ajani is recruiting them.
And you're right, those are two separated actions performed in sequence. However, this in no way means the piles are somehow "secret", or that "revealing" something means showing it up and then hiding it again.
701.13a. To reveal a card, show that card to all players for a brief time. If an effect causes a card to be revealed, it remains revealed for as long as necessary to complete the parts of the effect that card is relevant to. If the cost to cast a spell or activate an ability includes revealing a card, the card remains revealed from the time the spell or ability is announced until it the time it leaves the stack.
So, if the first instruction is to reveal the cards, and the following instructions also involve the cards (separating them in piles, choosing, moving them to hand/graveyard), they stay revealed during these actions.
EDIT: On the other hand, if you have Brimaz, Medic and a third creature (maybe a token created in a previous combat), and you attack with those three, both Brimaz's ability and Medic's battalion trigger at the same time, so you can order them to have the new token be created first, and then make it indestructible with Medic's battalion.
Impossible to have ALL cards be enchantments. At the very least, the remaining two temples (B/G and U/R) and the Planeswalker¹ are not going to be enchantments.
¹
The chosen opponent decides if the Tribute goes on or not. The other opponents can't affect this choice.
Yes, Mimic Vat may end up creating a non-creature token. And yes, the token is still exiled at the end step.
So yes, the Adephage deals 7 damage to the Reckoner, whose ability deals 7 back to you. The 10/10 deals 10 damage to the 1/1, so its controller gains 10 life.
510.1a. Each attacking creature and each blocking creature assigns combat damage equal to its power. Creatures that would assign 0 or less damage this way don't assign combat damage at all
302.7. Damage dealt to a creature by a source with neither wither nor infect is marked on that creature (see rule 119.3). If the total damage marked on that creature is greater than or equal to its toughness, that creature has been dealt lethal damage and is destroyed as a state-based action (see rule 704). All damage marked on a creature is removed when it regenerates (see rule 701.12, "Regenerate") and during the cleanup step (see rule 514.2).
New card from BNG.
Any encounter with merrows or simics would be incidental, and won't matter that much for her.
It's not something that happens automatically just because you did an action with it that is like the cost. That would be an triggered ability and would be written like Fallowsage instead.
The Adept and the Myr have activated abilities. To use it you need to pay the activation cost only for it, so you can't tap them to attack and to activate their abilities, it's one or the other.
Mutavault has two activated abilities. You can tap it to generate mana. You can also pay mana to make it a creature. It's not an "either or" because nothing says you can't use both in the same turn (for example, turn it into a creature, block an attacker, and later that turn tap for mana to cast an instant).
It is still just one card. One card with two names, two costs, and so on.
Because of the way you cast spells and pay costs.
To cast a spell, you perform these actions in order:
* Move it to the stack.
* Make choices such as modes, if you will use alternative or optional costs, and the value of X.
* Choose target.
* Calculate total cost
* Generate mana if needed
* Pay the cost
Now the spell is considered cast and will resolve later, after players have passed priority.
So when casting Blazing Shoal, you first choose a value for X and declare you'll use its alternative cost. Then, you choose a creature for target. And then you pay the cost, exiling from hand a card whose CMC is equal to X. When Shoal resolves later, it will give +X/+0 to the target.
If the spell has two CMCs, one of them must be equal to the chosen value of X. You can only use Boom/Bust if you chose X to be 6 or 2, not 8.
X is not calculated from the card you exiled; instead, the value of X you want will determine what card you can exile! So it's actually more like the Bloodbraid Elf example than the Dark Confidant's one.
Bloodbraid Elf's Cascade will stop at it, because one of its CMCs is less than 4. You may cast either half of it for free.
Dark Confidant will make you lose 2 life and 6 life, for a total of 8 life lost.
Blazing Shoal will give +2/+0 and +6/+0 to the targeted creature, for a total of +8/+0wrong, see other posters.