MTG Salvation

Quote from Ljoss »

But how would Vein Drinker differ from something like, say, Faithless Looting?

Draw two cards, then discard two cards.

It seems like both "draw" and "discard" are action verbs, but the card for some reason includes 'then.' Is it a style situation where including the 'then' is just simpler than saying "Draw 2 cards. Discard 2 cards."?

As far as the rules are concerned, "Draw two cards, then discard...", is no different from wordings such as "Draw two cards. Discard..." or "Draw two cards and discard..." (my comment 2 already explained why). The question of why a particular wording appears on a card rather than another wording is a question that, often, only Magic R&D can answer.

Reconnaissance's ability can target any "attacking creature you control", even after it has assigned combat damage, and even during the end of combat step (C.R. 114.1c). An attacking creature remains an attacking creature for the rest of the combat phase unless it's removed from combat (C.R. 506.4, 511.3; see also C.R. 508.1k); dealing combat damage doesn't remove it from combat, however (C.R. 506.4, 510.2).

For Vein Drinker's activated ability, first Vein Drinker deals damage, then the target creature, rather than both dealing damage simultaneously, because there are two action verbs (here, both "deals") in two different places. Whether or not the word "then" appears in the ability is irrelevant here. In general, each instance of an action verb indicates a separate, sequential action (compare Vein Drinker with Char; under C.R. 608.2c, you "apply the rules of English to the text" of a spell when following its instructions; see also this thread).

If a token that's a copy of Tarmogoyf (or of any other creature card with a characteristic-defining ability) is created due to The Scarab God's second ability, its power and toughness (not: stats) will be 4/4 rather than those defined by the characteristic-defining ability (C.R. 706.9c-d; see also this thread).

There is no card in Magic that makes a creature on the battlefield "unaffected" by abilities. If what you have in mind is shroud or hexproof, which prevent a creature with it from being the target of all spells and abilities or some spells and abilities, respectively (C.R. 702.18a, 702.11b), then my comment 2 applies to both abilities as it does to Vines of Vastwood.

In general, only if Mairsil gains "a pair of linked abilities as part of the same effect" (here, the effect of its second ability) can these abilities work as usual (C.R. 607.5). If Mairsil gains only the second linked ability (the one that refers to an exiled card, for example), that ability won't refer to any action taken or object or player affected due to the first linked ability, let alone due to any other ability (not even the cards exiled due to Mairsil's first ability, for example) (C.R. 607.1), regardless of whether the ability is worded "the exiled card", "a card exiled with ...", or otherwise (C.R. 607.2a applies to Mimic Vat as well as to Soul Foundry).

Therefore:

If Mairsil gains Soul Foundry's activated ability due to Mairsil's second ability, that ability can't be activated since it refers to an undefined value of X (as the exiled card is undefined) (see also C.R. 706.7a) can still be activated with X equal to 0 (C.R. 107.3c applies to that ability, but X would be undefined since the exiled card is undefined; as X is a "number that can't be determined" [under C.R. 107.3, X is a "placeholder for a number that needs to be determined"], 0 is used instead [C.R. 107.2]), but won't do anything on resolution since the exiled card is undefined (see also C.R. 706.7a).

If Mairsil gains Mimic Vat's activated ability due to Mairsil's second ability, that ability can be activated, but it won't do anything on resolution (see also C.R. 706.7a; C.R. 607.2a applies to Mimic Vat as well as to Soul Foundry).

On the other hand, Mairsil will gain both activated abilities of Izzet Chemister and both activated abilities of Pyxis of Pandemonium due to its second ability, rather than just one of each. However, the two abilities making up each pair will be linked only to each other and will refer only to cards exiled due to the first ability of each pair and not to cards exiled due to any other ability, not even the ability Mairsil may gain from Arc-Slogger, Mairsil's first ability, or any other ability that could exile cards (C.R. 607.2a, 607.5).

EDIT (Sep. 14): Material correction in Soul Foundry paragraph.
EDIT (Sep. 14): Small correctness edit after comment 5 was posted.
EDIT (Spe. 16): Clarification.

The ability triggers once for each player whose end step it is (so twice if it's two players' end step; compare with "at the beginning of each end step", which triggers only once for each end step no matter how many players' end step it is) (C.R. 603.2, 603.2c; see also C.R. 700.1), and each ability refers only to that player and to no other players. Therefore, when each ability resolves, only that player draws a card and Fevered Visions may deal damage to only that player depending on the circumstances. (Note that in Two-Headed Giant, damage is dealt to players individually, but "[t]he result is applied to the team's shared life total" [C.R. 810.9]).

EDIT (Dec. 22): Add rule citations; correction ("end step", not "upkeep").

When Clone-turned-The-Scarab-God dies (assuming that permanent isn't a token), you still return the card it became in the graveyard to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step, no matter what card it is (C.R. 603.6c, 700.4; the words "it" and "its" on The Scarab God's last ability refer to that card regardless of its nature [C.R. 400.7h, 400.2]).

EDIT (Nov. 21): Note also that that Clone-turned-The-Scarab-God's last ability looks at the state of the game just before that permanent dies (C.R. 603.10a, 603.10), which is why that ability triggers at all.
EDIT (Feb. 18, 2020): Add rule citations. Minor edit.

Quote from DRay563 »

Mairsil has caged Llanowar Elves
Quicksilver Elemental copies Mairsil's abilities
Quicksilver Elemental copies Elvish Mystic's ability.
Quicksilver Elemental has two identically worded abilities (T: Add G to your mana pool) but one of them has an invisible restriction that allows you to activate it only once per turn since it came from Mairsil.

I'm afraid I must disagree, in part, with your scenario. Here, the ability Quicksilver Elemental gained from Mairsil doesn't have a restriction on when it can be activated. Again, Mairsil's second ability applies only to makes Mairsil gain only "all activated abilities of all cards [Mairsil's controller] own(s) in exile with cage counters on them" (C.R. 109.5). The effect Mairsil has restricting when certain abilities can be activated applies only to certain abilities Mairsil itself has, and doesn't apply if another object acquires those abilities from Mairsil ("each of those abilities" means only "each of the abilities Mairsil has this way"). Moreover, an activated ability another object gains from Mairsil is a separate instance (within the meaning of C.R. 113.2c), and nothing in C.R. 602.5c implies that a "restriction on [an activated ability's] use" necessarily carries over when one object gains an activated ability from another (even when that restriction is not inherent to that ability as is the case with activation instructions [C.R. 602.1b] or loyalty abilities [C.R. 606.3]).

In any case, no other card imposes a restriction on when particular abilities can be activated besides an activation instruction (under C.R. 602.1a-b) on set forth in the text of, or otherwise inherent in, the activated ability itself (for example, loyalty abilities have an inherent restriction to them as they have loyalty symbols in their costs [C.R. 606.2, 606.3]), so that the text "a restriction on its use" on C.R. 602.5c was not very ambiguous, as it is now. It remains to be seen whether a future version of the rules will replace the text "a restriction on its use" on C.R. 602.5c with—

• "an activation instruction imposing a restriction on its use",
• "a restriction on its use, whether it appears as an activation instruction or otherwise", or
• some other clarifying text.

EDIT (Sep. 28): Edited to conform to rule change for Ixalan, which takes effect tomorrow.
EDIT (Oct. 6): Further correctness edits.
EDIT (Jul. 29, 2019): Correctness edit.
EDIT (Jan. 26, 2020): One rule was renumbered with Core Set 2020.
EDIT (Mar. 6, 2021): Correctness edit.

Under C.R. 707.6, which is in the comprehensive rules and thus applies to sanctioned and unsanctioned games, the controller of "multiple face-down spells or face-down permanents" "must ensure at all times that [his or her] face-down spells and permanents can be easily differentiated from each other". That rule also gives ways in which that can be ensured.

Assuming that—

• Dragon was chosen for Mirror of the Forebears,
• Mirror of the Forebears wasn't a Dragon at the beginning of the scenario, and
• you cast a spell or activate an ability that targets Mirror of the Forebears (such as Naturalize, as opposed to Creeping Corrosion, which doesn't target anything [see this thread]),

then Scalelord Reckoner's second ability won't trigger, since Mirror of the Forebears wasn't a Dragon when you cast that spell or activated that ability (C.R. 603.2). It doesn't matter here whether Mirror of the Forebears becomes a Dragon after that point.

Quote from Anachronity »

It then follows that the limitation on when you can activate the abilities Mairsil "has" is not part of the effect which grants those abilities. Instead the abilities Mairsil "has" are limited by another separate ability (which so happens to be the one that granted them). Also worth noting is that Mairsil's "has" ability specifically refers to "those abilities".

C.R. 602.1b, rather, refers to the "text" of the activation instructions setting forth those limitations, not to the limitations themselves. Notably, the sentence "This text is not part of the ability's effect" on C.R. 602.1b doesn't apply to the "You may activate each of those abilities only once each turn" on Mairsil's second ability (a static ability [C.R. 604.1]), which sets forth a continuous effect like any other (C.R. 611.1, 611.3).

EDIT (Dec. 20): Part of the text stricken for correctness.

With the release of Commander 2017, the answer to comment 1 is clearly that the opponent can't choose to draw two cards with Sylvan Library's ability, whether or not they've drawn any cards previously this turn before that ability resolved; this is because the text "you may draw two additional cards. If you do, ..." is expressed as a choice and as a cost (C.R. 121.2b, 603.5, 608.2d, 117.12).

EDIT (Mar. 22, 2019; Mar. 24, 2019): Edited.
EDIT (Apr. 6, 2011): One rule was renumbered in the meantime.

To be clear, in the scenario given in comment 1, assuming you haven't drawn a card yet this turn, you can draw only one card and not more than one, because Wheel and Deal's card drawing isn't optional or a cost (C.R. 120.2b, as will be in effect on August 25).

Note that in your first example with Gleeful Sabotage, you have declared an incomplete shortcut (in this case, you didn't say which target you will choose with Gleeful Sabotage and which target you will choose for its copy) (C.R. 720.2a requires you to specify "a sequence of game choices" called for in the shortcut; compare Gleeful Sabotage with Rack and Ruin, where there would be no ambiguity with respect to "your lands" in this scenario), so that technically speaking, you could reverse that action under C.R. 721.1.

On the other hand, in your second example, saying "Your turn" in that tournament is a shortcut to have the nonactive player act in the end step (for details, see the second bullet point of M.T.R. 4.2; C.R. 720.2a), so that if your opponent accepts it, the game moves to the end step (C.R. 720.2b-c), so that you can't now change your mind.

In general, in a sanctioned tournament, whether you can "take back" a given action is largely a matter of communication and context (see also M.T.R. 4.1). During a sanctioned tournament, if you have any doubt on whether a particular game action is "final" or "confirmed", you should ask a judge for a ruling (M.T.R. 1.7, 1.8). See also this thread.

EDIT (Oct. 17, 2018): Edited to conform to rule changes with Guilds of Ravnica.
EDIT (Jan. 3, 2019): Struck out more text.
EDIT (Jun. 20, 2019): Some rules were renumbered with Dominaria.