Oona, Queen of the Fae - The controller is the only one who can play her ability. Therefore, only you will ever get to mill/remove and make Fae. (There are cards out there that allow all players to use their abilities, et al.)
I think the question was whether or not you can activate Oona's ability when she is summoning sick. The answer is yes, because summoning sickness only prevents abilities with the tap or untap symbol in the cost from being played.
Painter's Servant's second ability is a static ability. Such an ability is in effect only as long as the permanent with it stays in play. If Painter's Servant leaves play, then the cards are not of the chosen color anymore. It's the same as with Glorious Anthem : if it leaves play, the creatures lose the bonus immediatly.
I think what confuses you is the first ability, the one that makes you choose a color. All it does is set a choice for Painter's Servant, and it is linked to its static ability. It ceases to have any meaning if the Servant leaves play.
EDIT : It is very different from a triggered ability that sets an effect like Oblivion Ring's, with which the removed card would stay removed if it wasn't for the second ability.
You can play Mossworth Bridge's ability in response to Wrath of God. If you do, the ability is gonna resolve first. When it does, you have the possibility of playing the "hidden" spell right now or not at all. The said spell will go on the stack above *** and will resolve before it. This means that if said spell is a creature spell, the creature will be in play when *** resolves, and is likely to be destroyed. There is no way for you to wait until *** resolves before playing the hidden spell. You can always activate the Bridge's ability, but it won't do anything if the condition is not met when it resolves.
it's an activated ability. you choose when to activate it. i believe you can only play spells/abilities only if the conditions are fully met, i might be wrong about hideaways.
you can activate the ability anytime during the turn that the conditions are fully required, but you must play the hidden spell immediately after resolution of the ability, or not at all. you would have to wait another time for the conditions to be met.
Darkasekas is right. You can play the ability anytime you have priority, you just be won't allowed to play the RFG card if the condition is not met. The condition is only checked on resolution. If you could only play the ability when the condition is met, the wording would include the phrase "play this ability only...". See Ashen Ghoul for an example.
Okay, so would it work like this?:
Giant Growth my Guy
Swerve your Giant Growth
Swerve your Swerve
My Swerve resolves, I change the target of his Swerve to the only valid target, itself
His Swerve now says "Change the target of this Serve to something else"... but by then it has resolved... ????
No.
Ok, let's try it this way : The first Swerve played, your opponent's, is Swerve A. The second one played, yours, is Swerve B.
1) You Giant Growth your guy.
2) He targets your Giant Growth with Swerve A.
3) You target Swerve A with Swerve B.
4) Swerve B resolves. You change the target of Swerve A from Giant Growth to Swerve B. This is legal, because Swerve B is still on the stack as it resolves.
5) Swerve A resolves, but its target, Swerve B, isn't there anymore, so it is countered by lack of target (it "fizzles").
6) Giant Growth resolves on your guy.
Targets are declared when you play the spell.
You cannot change it to target the same spell it targetted. that is not changing it.
No spell can target itself.
The only legal change is to Swerve his Swerve to target your Swerve...
... effectively countering the first Swerve (his), because the second Swerve (yours) will have resolved and thus won't be on the stack anymore and will be an illegal target. With Swerve, you can change the target to Swerve itself, because it is still on the stack while it is resolving. Just to clarify.
He plays Serve and declares his target as my Giant Growth. But does he declare what he is DOING to Giant Growth? Does he say "I'll Swerve Giant Growth" or "I'll Swerve Giant Growth, changing the target to X."?
The choice as to what the new target of Giant Growth will be isn't made until Swerve's resolution. The only choice you have to make while playing Swerve is its target.
Yes, you can use Convoke to pay for the X part of Chord of Calling's cost.
Before paying costs, you have to determine those costs. That's when you choose what X will be. Then, when you pay, Convoke offers you its alternate payment method, which may cover part or all of X.
There is nothing wrong ruleswise in froffenhoffer's post, except that ''fast effects'' is an obselete term (he means [usually instant] spells and activated abilities that can be played any time you have priority). However, I believe it would be useful to add more detail here.
In the declare blockers step, the first thing that happens is declaring blockers. You choose to not block the Figure. Then, since your opponent is the active player, he has priority to play spells and abilities. If he activates the Figure right now, you can respond by playing Bant Charm, and he will have wasted 3 mana. If he doesn't activate Figure's ability right now and instead passes priority to you, and you don't play anything, then it means both players passed priority in succession, so the game processes to the combat damage step, and Figure of Destiny puts 2 damage into the stack. If he passes priority to you, and then you play Bant Charm, he most likely won't activate the ability.
Thus, unless your opponent activates Figure right after you declare no blockers, you will either take 2 damage, or your opponent can keep his mana. It all comes down to you and your opponent's strategic decisions as to what the outcome is.
Oh, yeah, another factor that led to this change: New players had trouble in Limited formats, since they had little experience in building sealed decks and decks for draft, so they made this product to help them, making the new "open dueling" format in large events.
They've been doing Open Dueling at prereleases using classic Theme Decks since Lorwyn, if I recall correctly, so no, Intro Packs were not specifically created in conjunction with that format.
For a primer on a standard tournament, you instantly omitted the top tier decks based on them being "nearly block", which isn't true at all, and thus missed a lot of detail in this coming Standard. I was rather disappointed at this.
I think the main reason why JodoYodo omitted those decks is the fact that they've already been heavily discussed by other writers. If you've read any other good article about the new Standard (like the one from Mike Flores on mtg.com two weeks ago), you assuredly know all there is to know about these archetypes and what the format rotation changes about them. That they all were Block and Standard decks before only adds to the fact that how they basically function and win has been repeatedly explained in the last few months. Personally, I really like that he chose to use all his time and word count to talk about interesting new rogue decks and decks like Jund Tokens which were not discussed enough for my tastes in articles of popular sites. It interests me a lot more than yet an other article basically saying "Faeries, Kithkin, RDW and 5-color control are the dominant decks" would.
manaplasm only gets the dramatic bonus of 5. dramatic puts the primus into play. you are NOT playing the primus so no extra bonus of 8. generally "play" means it's coming from your hand. hideaway lands actually play the spell.
you can broken ambitions for 0 if you want. it just won't counter anything. but you'd still get to clash after.
While you correctly answered the question, I'd like to point out that "play" doesn't mean it's coming from your hand at all. For this very question, saying that can be confusing because the Primus is actually coming into play from the player's hand. Playing a spell means going trough all steps described in rule 409 : announcing, choosing modes, choosing targets, choosing how effects are divided between targets, determining total cost, paying those costs. It can be done from any zone other than the in-play one, and it can be done from other zones than the hand as long as the rules text of the card or an effect allows it (for instance, the hideaway lands allow you to play spells from the removed-from-the-game zone).
To be legal in tournaments, a card must have the original Magic card back and either black or white borders. I guess you're talking about gold-bordered cards; these are not legal.
A player leaving a multiplayer game, either by losing or otherwise, doesn't leave his or her permanents' leaves-play triggered abilities on the stack, even if they do trigger by his or her departure. This is covered in the very same rule you quoted, by the phrase "Then, if there are any objects still controlled by that player, those objects leave the game". An ability on the stack is an object.
The example I see most often for this is with Oblivion Ring. The permanent(s) removed by a leaving player's Oblivion Ring(s) stay removed from the game.
You are both right and I know this. However, since Ghitu Encampment comes into play tapped, in order for it to block during its first turn after you play it you have to untap it with some outside effect. Summoning sickness also matters if you take control of the encampment with something like Annex rather than playing it, but that's even more complicated. I thought explaining those possibilities wasn't necessary for answering DisturbedZen's question. But thanks for bringing it up anyway, that's just more stuff for him and other readers to discover.
It can be even more than that, but it needs to be a finite number.
I think the question was whether or not you can activate Oona's ability when she is summoning sick. The answer is yes, because summoning sickness only prevents abilities with the tap or untap symbol in the cost from being played.
I think what confuses you is the first ability, the one that makes you choose a color. All it does is set a choice for Painter's Servant, and it is linked to its static ability. It ceases to have any meaning if the Servant leaves play.
EDIT : It is very different from a triggered ability that sets an effect like Oblivion Ring's, with which the removed card would stay removed if it wasn't for the second ability.
Darkasekas is right. You can play the ability anytime you have priority, you just be won't allowed to play the RFG card if the condition is not met. The condition is only checked on resolution. If you could only play the ability when the condition is met, the wording would include the phrase "play this ability only...". See Ashen Ghoul for an example.
No.
Ok, let's try it this way : The first Swerve played, your opponent's, is Swerve A. The second one played, yours, is Swerve B.
1) You Giant Growth your guy.
2) He targets your Giant Growth with Swerve A.
3) You target Swerve A with Swerve B.
4) Swerve B resolves. You change the target of Swerve A from Giant Growth to Swerve B. This is legal, because Swerve B is still on the stack as it resolves.
5) Swerve A resolves, but its target, Swerve B, isn't there anymore, so it is countered by lack of target (it "fizzles").
6) Giant Growth resolves on your guy.
Got it ?
EDIT : Sarnath'd ! Glad you got it
... effectively countering the first Swerve (his), because the second Swerve (yours) will have resolved and thus won't be on the stack anymore and will be an illegal target. With Swerve, you can change the target to Swerve itself, because it is still on the stack while it is resolving. Just to clarify.
The choice as to what the new target of Giant Growth will be isn't made until Swerve's resolution. The only choice you have to make while playing Swerve is its target.
Before paying costs, you have to determine those costs. That's when you choose what X will be. Then, when you pay, Convoke offers you its alternate payment method, which may cover part or all of X.
In the declare blockers step, the first thing that happens is declaring blockers. You choose to not block the Figure. Then, since your opponent is the active player, he has priority to play spells and abilities. If he activates the Figure right now, you can respond by playing Bant Charm, and he will have wasted 3 mana. If he doesn't activate Figure's ability right now and instead passes priority to you, and you don't play anything, then it means both players passed priority in succession, so the game processes to the combat damage step, and Figure of Destiny puts 2 damage into the stack. If he passes priority to you, and then you play Bant Charm, he most likely won't activate the ability.
Thus, unless your opponent activates Figure right after you declare no blockers, you will either take 2 damage, or your opponent can keep his mana. It all comes down to you and your opponent's strategic decisions as to what the outcome is.
They've been doing Open Dueling at prereleases using classic Theme Decks since Lorwyn, if I recall correctly, so no, Intro Packs were not specifically created in conjunction with that format.
I think the main reason why JodoYodo omitted those decks is the fact that they've already been heavily discussed by other writers. If you've read any other good article about the new Standard (like the one from Mike Flores on mtg.com two weeks ago), you assuredly know all there is to know about these archetypes and what the format rotation changes about them. That they all were Block and Standard decks before only adds to the fact that how they basically function and win has been repeatedly explained in the last few months. Personally, I really like that he chose to use all his time and word count to talk about interesting new rogue decks and decks like Jund Tokens which were not discussed enough for my tastes in articles of popular sites. It interests me a lot more than yet an other article basically saying "Faeries, Kithkin, RDW and 5-color control are the dominant decks" would.
While you correctly answered the question, I'd like to point out that "play" doesn't mean it's coming from your hand at all. For this very question, saying that can be confusing because the Primus is actually coming into play from the player's hand. Playing a spell means going trough all steps described in rule 409 : announcing, choosing modes, choosing targets, choosing how effects are divided between targets, determining total cost, paying those costs. It can be done from any zone other than the in-play one, and it can be done from other zones than the hand as long as the rules text of the card or an effect allows it (for instance, the hideaway lands allow you to play spells from the removed-from-the-game zone).
Technically true, but it will never resolve.
A player leaving a multiplayer game, either by losing or otherwise, doesn't leave his or her permanents' leaves-play triggered abilities on the stack, even if they do trigger by his or her departure. This is covered in the very same rule you quoted, by the phrase "Then, if there are any objects still controlled by that player, those objects leave the game". An ability on the stack is an object.
The example I see most often for this is with Oblivion Ring. The permanent(s) removed by a leaving player's Oblivion Ring(s) stay removed from the game.