Subject: [O] April Rules Team Rulings (general) (repost) From: Paul Barclay Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:50:14 +0100 Message-ID: Note that these are being released March 31st -- no April Fools... April 1998 _Magic_ Rulings & Errata A Summary of Recent, Significant Rulings compiled by Beth Moursund General Rules The following are meant to clarify the rulebook and how the game in general works. 1) There is no such thing as "infinity" in _Magic (R)_. Most so-called "infinite combinations" are completely under the control of a player. For example, the Earthcraft - Wild Growth - Sacred Mesa loop allows a player to generate as many Wild Pegasus tokens as he or she wants, but each one requires a separate action. For all such cases, the player must demonstrate the cycle, then state how many times he or she wishes to perform the action. This may be any positive integer. If the opponent does nothing to interfere, those actions occur the stated number of times. This rule does not apply to loops containing elements not under player control (such as coin flipping or deck shuffling) that the player wants to repeat until some certain condition occurs, rather than a specific number of times. The Rules team has not yet reached any consensus on handling these situations; for now, it will be up to the head judge at a given tournament. 2) In a few cases, conditions in the game generate a loop not under control of the players. For example, if an Ivory Gargoyle is destroyed when AEther Flash is in play, then at the end of the turn it starts an endless cycle of returning to play, taking lethal damage, and being destroyed again. In these cases, after demonstrating the cycle, each player states a number as in (1) above. As always, the active player chooses first. The cycle repeats as many times as the largest number chosen, and then stops. This also resolves certain "impossible" positions, which previously required specific rulings. In the Ivory Gargoyle - AEther Flash case, the Gargoyle will end up in the graveyard no matter how many times the cycle is repeated. Similarly, if one player has Sacred Ground in play and the other has Land Equilibrium, when the first player puts an excess land into play, it triggers a cycle of sacrificing a land and then returning it to play. Ultimately the land will remain in play. 3) Some effects (Humility's in particular, along with those of the "copy cards"--see below) remove abilities but not effects. To determine whether an enchantment or continuous effect grants an ability (which can be removed), look at the specific wording on the source card. If it says that the permanent "gains" something, the source is granting the permanent an ability; if the permanent "loses" something, it is removing an ability. If those key words aren't present, then the card simply produces an effect applying to the permanent--removing the permanent's abilities will not change that fact. For example, Humility will counteract Flight (which grants the flying ability), but not Pacifism (a continuous effect). Note that this reverses a ruling made at Pro Tour - Los Angeles. 4) Destruction caused by a general rule of Magic rather than by a spell or ability is not controlled by any player. In particular, lands destroyed by the "legendary burial" rule or by lethal damage (including reducing their toughness to 0) will not trigger Sacred Ground's ability. 5) Until now, whenever a card asked you to choose a color, land type, card name, or creature type, you had to choose one that actually exists in the set of existing Magic cards. We are relaxing the "creature type" part of this rule. It is now legal to choose any creature type, whether or not it exists in Magic. However, you can only use nouns, and they cannot have another meaning in Magic. For example, you could use Volrath's Laboratory to create Platypus tokens. However, you could not name a token "opponent" or "land." Note that choosing a name that is slanderous, obscene, or otherwise offensive is poor sportsmanship and may result in ejection from a tournament. 6) There are two distinct types of abilities that trigger when a card comes into play. The first type, worded "When comes into play," triggers only on its own card coming into play. After that, the ability is inactive. The second type, worded "Whenever comes into play," creates a continuous effect that lasts as long as its card is in play and watches for anything matching the description. Cards with this second type of ability cannot trigger when they come into play, or when anything enters play simultaneously with them, since they're not yet in play to "see" the event. For example, if two Mogg Bombers enter play simultaneously (say via Living Death), neither one of them will trigger. Errata 1) Cannibalize should read "Choose a player and two target creatures controlled by that player. Remove one of those creatures from the game and put two +1/+1 counters on the other." The original wording was unclear about what should happen if the two creatures were controlled by different players when the spell resolved. With this wording, the spell still affects the creature controlled by the chosen player, but not the other creature. 2) Fungus Elemental should read "When Fungus Elemental comes into play, it gains 'G, Sacrifice a forest: Put a +2/+2 counter on Fungus Elemental' until end of turn." This change removes an odd interaction with phasing. Paul. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Paul Barclay -- DCI level III judge -- MTG-L NetRep -- -- Manufacturing Engineering Group: Mill Lane, Cambridge, England CB21RX -- -- Official MTG-L Network Representative for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. --