Subject: [O] February Rulings and Errata, part b From: Beth Moursund Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 15:33:18 -0800 Message-ID: <199801302333.PAA00932@regency.wizards.com> (continued from previous message) ERRATA 1) The word "base" should appear before power and toughness on all spells and abilities that can turn a permanent into a creature. This means that (a) counters affect the creature, because they apply to the base value, and (b) reactivating the ability after a power- or toughness-altering effect no longer overwrites that effect. For example, if an Assembly Worker blocks a creature with flanking, thereby getting -1/-1 until end of turn, playing the ability that makes the Mishra's Factory a 2/2 Assembly Worker won't reset its power and toughness. 2) Interdict's second sentence should read, "Activated abilities of that permanent cannot be played again this turn." This means a permanent affected by Interdict can still use nonactivated abilities such as flanking or protection's damage reduction aspect. Note that "activated ability" means "ability with an activation cost." 3) On the following cards, "target opponent" should read "an opponent": Cuombajj Witches Cursed Scroll Desperate Gambit Echo Chamber Fatal Lore Forgotten Lore Goblin Bomb Intuition Library of Lat-Nam Nova Pentacle Null Chamber Phyrexian Grimoire Phyrexian Portal Preacher Soul Echo Thran Tome These spells and abilities previously targeted an opponent solely for the purpose of having that opponent make one or more choices for another part of the spell or ability. These errata mean they no longer target the opponent for making those choices. If you have more than one opponent, you must still choose one of them when playing the spell or ability, just as before. But because this choice is not targeted, effects that prevent spells or abilities from targeting a player will not interfere with it. These errata also remove the problem some cards (such as Cursed Scroll) had with the rule prohibiting a spell or ability from targeting something more than once. 4) Time Vault's first activated ability should read "Skip your next turn: Untap Time Vault and put a time counter on it. Play this ability only if Time Vault is tapped and only once each turn." This change brings Time Vault in line with Chronatog and Meditate. SPECIFIC CARD RULINGS 1) If you play an enchantment-moving ability (such as that of Crown of the Ages) on a Licid while it's an enchantment, the Licid remains an enchantment--it doesn't change back to a creature and fall off. This is because the Licid's enchantment status is a temporary effect, not a permanent change. Moving enchantments resets only permanent changes, not temporary ones. 2) If you sacrifice a basic land that counts as more than one land type to pay for Excavator's ability, you must choose one of its types. The target creature gains landwalk of the type you chose. This brings Excavator in line with the rulings concerning Magical Hack and Reality Twist, as well as Mana Flare and Balduvian Trading Post. 3) In the preliminary version of the _Oracle_ judge's reference, the last paragraph of the Eureka entry is wrong. Triggered abilities are not played after each card comes into play, because Eureka's text doesn't contain the word "then." (Instances of "then" separate an effect into discrete events--see August 1997 Rulings and Errata). All triggered abilities are deferred until Eureka is done resolving. 4) When Minion of the Wastes is about to come into play by any means other than being cast, you must choose an amount of life (just as you would choose a form for Primal Clay or a target for Clone) and pay it right before the Minion comes into play. These choices and payments are played as replacement abilities; they immediately precede the event that puts the Minion into play. You may be wondering why Minion of the Wastes is more like Primal Clay than like, say, Krakilin. Both the Minion and Primal Clay read, "When you play [this card], [do something]." If these cards were to make it into play somehow without the "when-you-play" choice being made, then some of the resulting permanents' characteristics would be undefined. Thus the when-you-play effect must be resolved just before such cards come into play in order to give the permanents the necessary characteristics. These types of cards differ from Krakilin, whose characteristics all have defined values. 5) The value of X in Endless Scream's text box is set when the spell is cast and does not revert to zero when the enchantment is in play, even though the {X} mana in its casting cost becomes zero. Moving Endless Scream onto another creature doesn't change the value of X. (As worded, Endless Scream technically doesn't work, but any wording that makes it work correctly is cumbersome and confusing to the average player. The rules team therefore decided to just issue a ruling that makes it to work the way it's meant to.) 6) REVERSAL: Global effects that change one land type to another overwrite all of a card's current land types. For example, Conversion turns Badlands into a plains, not a Badlands that counts as both a swamp and a plains. This ruling eliminates an exception made for the _Revised Edition(TM)_ dual lands; it brings them in line with the normal rule stating that changing a land to a basic type replaces the entire text and name of the land. - Beth "BethMo" Moursund Magic Rules Manager, Wizards of the Coast