Answers 2 - MTGCombos.com

When is this updated? There is no edrazis yet in this list...

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Date Posted: Tue May/18/10 at 8:41am

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updated the list for you

Date Posted: Tue May/18/10 at 1:01pm

The old list was more entertaining

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Date Posted: Tue May/18/10 at 1:02pm

With like: Rock sled, Ali from Cario, and albatross

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Date Posted: Tue May/18/10 at 8:28pm

LOL... Maybe post the old version too... below the new version that way, we have a great reference for old and new creature types...

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Date Posted: Wed May/19/10 at 3:09pm

Is there a black or blue aura or possibly an equipment that allows a creature to block as many creatures as you want?

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Date Posted: Wed May/19/10 at 9:04pm

Entangler is the only spell that does that :(

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Date Posted: Thu May/20/10 at 4:30am

I thought there was also a wall that can block any amount of creatures

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Damn...

Date Posted: Thu May/20/10 at 4:47am

Lightsteel

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Date Posted: Thu May/20/10 at 4:59am

Can someone explain the ruling for Fog Patch? What will happen to the combat damage from non-trample creature? How about the tramplers?

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Date Posted: Thu May/20/10 at 5:02am

Lightsteel

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I do not think any damage carries over. They arebjust blocked

Date Posted: Thu May/20/10 at 5:06am

How about the tramplers? Will their full damage be carried over?

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Date Posted: Thu May/20/10 at 5:10am

Lightsteel

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I don't beleive so but ask gericault or turbine to check

Date Posted: Thu May/20/10 at 12:31pm

A card that simple blocks a creature, effectively puts a non-existant 0/0 blocker in front of it. Because the creature doesn't exist, abilities like flanking don't activate, but cards that say, "when the creature becomes blocked" do. Creatures with trample just blow through it like it wasn't there. Cards that can choose to deal their combat damage directly to target player can still do that. Normal creatures deal their full power to the non-existant creature.

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Date Posted: Thu May/20/10 at 12:32pm

but because the creature doesn't exist, the combat damage isn't actually dealt, so lifelink doesn't trigger.

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Date Posted: Thu May/20/10 at 2:17pm

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WTF is a Thalakos?

Date Posted: Thu May/20/10 at 7:05pm

its a creature pulled to rath but never made it all the way, now stuck between worlds and caught in the middle of a war, the species has gone mad

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Date Posted: Thu May/20/10 at 9:21pm

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Date Posted: Thu May/20/10 at 10:03pm

What is the story of those creatures?

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Date Posted: Fri May/21/10 at 1:11am

in a nutshell, Rath was an artifical plane created to serve as a spring board for the dominara invasion As it grew, parts of it overlaid with dominara pulling it to rath, the lands occupied by the soltari, dauthi, and thalakos were pulled to rath as a part of this, however, the overlay was unstable at that point and they never made it all the way to rath they got stuck in the doorway between the worlds like a nether world, however they were able to see into both rath and dominara however could not interact in either, though there was a soltari that could for short periods like a ghost. this state they were in caused the thalakos and dauthi to go mad over the centuries, while the soltari were able to keep there sanity through the use of storytelling and tradtions. To make matters worse the soltari and dauthi were at war with each other with the thalakos areas in between the two.

And that is preatty much all we know the only ones encountered in the book was the soltari and they mentioned about the others. The solatri were later able to escape the nether world they were in when they went through the portal to mercadia with the weatherlight ship, though I don't recall if they became solid again, part of me says they did not, but they were free to move about.

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Date Posted: Sat May/22/10 at 1:24pm

Who is Urza's apprentice?

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Date Posted: Sat May/22/10 at 1:41pm

I don't think he has one. . .

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Date Posted: Sat May/22/10 at 1:52pm

I don't think he had one offically, gerrad could be considered his apprentice, as could karn by a strech. there was that sleeper agent that hung out with him for while, xanchetia or something like that.

I assume a card prompted you to ask what card was it? It might help determine who its talking about

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Date Posted: Sat May/22/10 at 7:57pm

Could you destroy Emrakul, the Aeons Torn with a Royal Assassin?

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Date Posted: Sat May/22/10 at 8:05pm

as long as he is tapped yes, he only has protection from spells not abilities

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Date Posted: Sat May/22/10 at 8:11pm

That's what I thought...

Since the owner of Emrakul shuffles their library when he hits the graveyard, is there time you could play, for instance, Haunting Echoes, and remove the graveyard from the game with it still in the graveyard? Or, does it happen instantly and you aren't able to react?

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Date Posted: Sat May/22/10 at 9:26pm

Since Emrakul (and the other legendary eldrazi) shuffle grave is a triggered ability that triggers when that eldrazi goes into the grave, it can be responded to while the eldrazi is in the grave, before the ability resolves. so while you can not use a card like haunting echos since it is a sorcery (unless you quicken it), you can use an instant or an ability, like Tormods crypt, to exile the library with the eldrazi in it before its shuffled back into the library. you can also stifle or trickbind the triggered ability so that it doesn;t shuffle back in and then you can cast haunting echoes to remove other copies of the eldrazi

Tormod's Crypt

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Date Posted: Sun May/23/10 at 2:52am

Geericault, you rule, thank you for clearing that up.

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Date Posted: Sun May/23/10 at 6:07am

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LOL... Nice...

Date Posted: Sun May/23/10 at 6:17pm

Is there a card like Megrim for black or blue that deals damage to an opponent every time a card hits their graveyard, instead of dealing damage for discarding?

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Date Posted: Sun May/23/10 at 10:24pm

I think there is no such card... But if there is one, sorry for this post...

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Date Posted: Sun May/23/10 at 10:40pm

JMDin83

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Date Posted: Sun May/23/10 at 10:47pm

Oh,lose life was the keyword... I search in gatherer with damage as a keyword...

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Date Posted: Mon May/24/10 at 9:50am

JMDin83

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well with alot of errata, it counts as the same, only that damage can be prevented.

Date Posted: Mon May/24/10 at 10:13am

Not quite.

Damage causes loss of life. That is the difference.

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Date Posted: Mon May/24/10 at 7:01pm

Awesome! Thank you!

Edit: I looked at the new errata for Liability and it reads like this: "Whenever a nontoken permanent is put into a player's graveyard from the
battlefield, that player loses 1 life."

So, for my mill deck, this isn't going to work.

However, Bloodchief Ascension will.

Thanks again!

[Edited by scottymandingo on 24/May/10 at 7:03PM]

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Date Posted: Mon May/24/10 at 8:50pm

What will happen to this?

When i make an aura into a creature (example, using March of the machines + Mycosynth Lattice) and then disenchant Mycosynth Lattice... Will the Aura go back to the original creature that it enchants?

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Date Posted: Tue May/25/10 at 12:36am

no cause it never makes it that far-auras can not exist off of the enchanted whatever (this is the reason opalsence specifys non-aura enchantments) once the aura becomes a creature state based effects will send it to the grave

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Date Posted: Tue May/25/10 at 2:45am

You mean, auras will die the moment the March of the Machine + Mycosynth Lattice combo take effect?

[Edited by shakii23 on 25/May/10 at 3:28AM]

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Date Posted: Tue May/25/10 at 7:08am

GOGO comp rule powers:

303.4d An Aura can't enchant itself. If this occurs somehow, the Aura is put into its owner's graveyard. An Aura that's also a creature can't enchant anything. If this occurs somehow, the Aura becomes unattached, then is put into its owner's graveyard. (These are state-based actions. See rule 704.)

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Date Posted: Tue May/25/10 at 8:58am

DuffCapers

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I've seen some things around the combo boards that have me wondering what the hell is going on - lemme explain, and ask for some clarification.

I see this being stated, in different forms, but same technical situation.

IN PLAY 1
Prodigal Sorcerer
IN PLAY 2
Royal Assassin

Player 1's turn - he pokes the assassin for one and then passes priority for the stack. Player 2 taps assassin to kill prod. Stack resolves, and BOTH die??

Question: I keep seeing stuff added to the stack, but when the stack resolves the source has been removed but the effects still take place - the Parallax discussion is a prime example of this. Upon resolution of the stack the first thing to happen is the Parallax is sacced to the Claws of Gix - how then can the rest of the 'fading counters' resolve if the Parallax has been taken out of play. I thought it worked that if the parallax was taken out of play the abilities it added to this stack were null and void...

Another example

IN PLAY 1
Untapped Nevinraals disk

IN PLAY 2
Prodigal Sorcerer x6 (different forms and whatnot)

Player 2's turn: He taps all 6 prods to do one damage each to player 1, then passes priority. Player 2 puts the disk on the stack. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENS?? It was always my understanding that all 6 prods were killed before they could do their damage, and therefore Player 2 took no damage, and all prods went to the yard.

That damn Parallax combo has me proverbially 'questioning the ways of life'. Please help before my brain explodes and my wonderful fiance has to clean up brain matter from my keyboard....

Date Posted: Tue May/25/10 at 10:01am

As somone on this site appidly put in the last answers thread. "think of using abilities like throwing grenades. when you throw the grenade, it doesn't matter if you get shot, the grenade still blows up." Basically, you don't get a chance to react to activating a creature ablitiy, by you get a chance to do things before it triggers ie: you can't stop the person from throwing the grenade, but you have time before it explodes. An example of this is sacrificing a creature so vein drinker doesn't do any damage to it, thus doesn't get her counters.

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Date Posted: Tue May/25/10 at 10:56am

* Puts on his teacher's cap *

Duffcapers, this report card is atrocious - your grades are slipping and you are in serious need of a remedial course in
Activated Abilities and The Stack. Pay attention, this will affect your final grade.

Activated Abilities 101:

An
activated ability is any ability which takes the form 'Cost: Effect'.

For
example:
Tap: Prodigal Sorcerer deals 1 damage to target creature or
player.
U: Untap Horseshoe Crab
Sacrifice a creature: Nantuko
Husk gets +2/+2 until end of turn.

Unless otherwise stated, an
Activated Ability can be used at any time you have priority.

Activated
Abilities which have Tap or Untap in their cost may not be used if the
permanent they are on is a creature and has Summoning Sickness, unless
it also has Haste (Summoning Sickness is an informal term meaning 'you
have gained control of this since the start of your last turn' and
applies to all permanents - it only affects creatures though)

The
process of playing an ability is to declare you are using the ability
and to declare it's targets. If there are no legal targets you cannot
play the ability (e.g. you control a Royal Assassin and there are no
untapped creatures, you cannot target anything with the Assassin's
ability).

The part before the : is the Cost and must be met as
part of putting the ability on the stack. If you cannot meet the cost,
the ability is removed from the stack. If you have paid part of the cost
already, it is un-done (e.g. if the cost is 3 mana and Tap, if you tap
to use the ability and realise you only have 2 mana, you untap).

The
important thing about costs is THEY HAPPEN IMMEDIATELY! So for example,
if the cost is to sacrifice a creature, it goes to the graveyard
straight away. If the cost is to remove a counter, it is removed now.

Once
all the costs have been paid, the ability goes ON THE STACK and waits
to resolve. You regain priority and may play another ability should you
choose to, and your opponents may respond with their own abilities or
spells. Once all players have passed, the topmost ability on the stack
RESOLVES, meaning it's effect happens (i.e. Prodigal Sorcerer deals it's
damage). More on the stack later.

EXCEPTION: Any activated or
triggered ability which produces mana is a Mana Ability and does not use
the stack. They resolve immediately - and may even be used in the
middle of paying costs for abilities!

Once an ability has been placed on the stack, it exists independently of
the permanent which generated it. This is informally known as the
'Soldier and Grenade' rule - shooting a Soldier has no effect on a
Grenade he has already thrown.

If, when an ability tries to
resolve, ALL of it's targets are no longer legal (e.g. the permanent you
target is no longer in play) it will FIZZLE (Fizzle is an informal term
meaning 'do nothing'). e.g. Drana, Bloodchief's ability is XBB: Target
creature gets -0/-X until end of turn. Drana gets +X/+0 until end of
turn. This ability has only one target (the other creature) - if that
creature is exiled in response to Drana's ability, the ability fizzles
and Drana does not get the power bonus.

The Stack 101:

The stack is one of the six 'zones'
defined by Magic (the others are Hand, Graveyard, Library, Battlefield
and Exile). It is used to track spells and abilities as they are played,
and the order in which they resolve.

When a spell or ability is
played, it goes on the stack. The player who played it immediately
regains priority and may play another spell or ability, paying the costs
and placing the new ability on top of the stack. They do this until
they wish to pass, which gives priority to their opponent (in
multiplayer, the next player) who may then play abilities and spells,
until they pass, and so on.

If all players pass in a row, the
topmost ability on the stack resolves as above. Then the active player
(the player whose turn it is) regains priority to play further spells
and abilities. This sequence is followed for everything on the stack
until it is empty.

If all players pass on an empty stack, you
proceed to the next part of the turn and the active player regains
priority. (i.e. if everyone passes during the upkeep step, move onto the
main phase).

Most spells have timing restrictions on when you
can play them - Creatures, Enchantments, Sorceries and Artifacts may
only be played on an empty stack during your own main phase. (Lands have
their own restrictions and are never considered spells)

The main
things to remember about the stack are that it operates in
first-in-last-out order (FILO) and that removing the source of an
ability does not stop it (Soldier and Grenade).

Test Cases:

You posted three examples (including your confusion about the Parallax
Wave combo) - we shall examine these.

'IN PLAY 1 Prodigal Sorcerer

IN PLAY 2 Royal Assassin

Player
1's turn - he pokes the assassin for one and then passes priority for
the stack. Player 2 taps assassin to kill prod. Stack resolves, and
BOTH die??'

Your assertion here is correct. Player 1 has priority and declares he is
using the Sorcerer's ability targeting the Assassin. As a cost, the
Sorcerer is tapped, making him a legal target for the Assassin. Once
Player 1 has passed, Player 2 gains priority and declares he is playing
the Assassin's ability, targeting the now tapped Sorcerer. This goes on
the stack also.

Once both players have passed, the Assassin's ability resolves and kills
the Sorcerer. However, this does nothing to the Fireball the Sorcerer
has already thrown, which kills the Assassin (assuming no other
circumstances change).

The only ways to save the Assassin are to either make him an illegal
target for the Sorcerer (e.g. bouncing him back to your hand or giving
him shroud or protection), counter the Sorcerer's ability (e.g. play
Voidslime) or to increase the Assassin's toughness so 1 damage cannot
kill him (e.g. Giant Growth).

Example 2:

'IN PLAY 1

Untapped Nevinraals disk

IN PLAY 2

Prodigal
Sorcerer x6 (different forms and whatnot)

Player 2's turn: He
taps all 6 prods to do one damage each to player 1, then passes
priority. Player 2 puts the disk on the stack. WHAT THE HELL
HAPPENS?? It was always my understanding that all 6 prods were killed
before they could do their damage, and therefore Player 2 took no
damage, and all prods went to the yard.'

Your understanding is dead wrong. As in the above example, destroying
the Sorcerers using the Disk does nothing to the fireballs they have
already hurled. Take your 6 damage and man up.

Example 3:

Parallax Wave and Claws of Gix

This is slightly more advanced than the above. For ease of the example,
we shall assume that all other players will pass priority and both
permanents are already in play.

The trick to it is to retain priority and play the abilities in sequence
to use the FILO nature of the stack.

Essentially, you target a creature with the Parallax Wave's ability (the
Fade Counter comes off immediately as a cost) and while this is on the
stack, use the ability again on another creature - repeat until you have
targeted 5 creatures (as you only have 5 counters). Do not let any of
this resolve yet.

While the abilities are on the stack, use the Claws of Gix's ability to
gain 1 life, and as the cost sacrifice Parallax Wave. This causes the
Triggered Ability of the Wave to go on the stack ABOVE the Claws. The
stack now looks like:

7: Triggered Ability of Parallax Wave: Return all creatures exiled with
Parallax Wave to play

6: Activated Ability of Claws of Gix: Gain 1 Life

5: Activated Ability of Parallax Wave: Exile target creature

4: Activated Ability of Parallax Wave: Exile target creature

3: Activated Ability of Parallax Wave: Exile target creature

2: Activated Ability of Parallax Wave: Exile target creature

1: Activated Ability of Parallax Wave: Exile target creature

The first ability to resolve is the top one - Parallax Wave returns all
creatures it has exiled to play. However, at this stage it has not
exiled anything - those abilities have not resolved yet! It will return
nothing to play.

Continuing down the stack, you gain 1 life, then exile those 5 creatures
in sequence. QED.

Further Reading:

Magic the Gathering Rules: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Article.aspx?x=magic/rules

Homework:

For your homework this evening I require a 50 word essay on the Cost and Effect of Activated Abilities, and why Doubling Season doesn't combo as well with Planeswalkers as many new players think it does.

(OK, taking the teacher analogy a bit far there, feel free to ignore the homework)

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Date Posted: Tue May/25/10 at 10:57am

Bah, the formatting of that post went a bit weird, don't have time to correct it now, you'll have to make do...

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Date Posted: Tue May/25/10 at 12:42pm

DuffCapers

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Thank you very much - explained thoroughly, and precisely.

I've been perusing the comprehensives but don't speak lawyer very fluently yet so the format and wording therein is quite complicated and confusing.

Oh, and while we're on the subject...doubling season doesn't work with Planeswalkers because the counters aren't put there by an effect, but by a cost, and therefore don't get doubled by doubling season. No, didn't look it up - so if I'm wrong let me know.

I'm actually fairly well versed in MTG, and phases and whatnot - this whole "priority" thing is new to me, but I'm sure we've actually used it, just in a more informal sort of way. The fact that I've had stack usage wrong for so long really makes me angry...

Off to learn more - buh bye

Date Posted: Tue May/25/10 at 12:48pm

Priority is new in 2010, as for the planeswalkers, I don't know for sure, but I think doubling season doesn't work on them, also I know that when they come into play, if you have doubling season out, they come into play with x2 counters.

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Date Posted: Tue May/25/10 at 4:07pm

Correct - Doubling Season only works on Planeswalkers when they come into play - the abilities on them add counters as a cost and aren't doubled.

Afraid you're wrong about Priority Lin, the current stack's been around since 1999 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Sixth_Edition

Technically Priority was very similar before then, but you had Batches. Essentially once both players passed, everything resolved and no-one regained priority until the stack was empty again.

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Date Posted: Tue May/25/10 at 8:28pm

Wow, I learned another one... Thanks for the lesson, Teach...

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Date Posted: Thu May/27/10 at 7:31am

You know I liked it better when only interrupts could go on the stack, made the game much simplier, and less bullshit moves could be pulled.

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Date Posted: Thu May/27/10 at 4:01pm

Yeah, that the hell happened to Interrupts...

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Date Posted: Thu May/27/10 at 4:20pm

And also, a question about Annihilator. If something has Annihilator 1 and you enchant it with say Eldrazi Conscription, does it have Annihilator 3, or does it just go to Annihilator 2?

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Date Posted: Thu May/27/10 at 4:25pm

Wolfclan14

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Joined: 23-Jan-10

I think it should have 3.

But I really don't know.

Date Posted: Fri May/28/10 at 10:00am

It has both Annihilator 1 AND 2 - both will trigger when it attacks. In most cases this is the same as Annihilator 3 but there may be shenanigans with persist creatures etc.

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Date Posted: Fri May/28/10 at 10:13am

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Zark is right

Date Posted: Fri May/28/10 at 12:51pm

Does anyone else think that Zark has too much time?

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Date Posted: Fri May/28/10 at 4:42pm

Says the one with over 1000 posts. . .

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Date Posted: Sat May/29/10 at 6:36am

Hell no, I have nowhere near enough free time. I just pop on here when I have about enough time to make a few posts rather than getting on with any of my (many) projects.

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Date Posted: Mon May/31/10 at 12:16pm

Icuonuez

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Joined: 02-Mar-10

I have a question that I've been needing answered for a while. I figure Turbine or Gericault will get this one easy. If a friend has Quicksilver Amulet out, and he pays 4 and taps for, lets say, Platinum Angel. I have Soot Imp on the field. Would he lose one life? I would figure not because he isn't technically casting Platinum Angel, but I need to be sure.

Date Posted: Mon May/31/10 at 12:21pm

Icuonuez

Posts: 241
Joined: 02-Mar-10

Also I'm not really sure Twogunkid's question was answered near the top, so I'll go ahead and answer it. There is Where Ancients Tread. It deals 5 damage to a player when a creature with power 5 or greater comes into play. That's all I know of right now.

Date Posted: Mon May/31/10 at 3:49pm

Soot Imp will not cause you to lose any life; when you put a creature onto the battlefield using the Quicksilver Amulet you are not casting it, it just enters the battlefield as part of the resolution of the ability (as an aside this means your opponents cannot wait to see what creature you wish to bring in before deciding whether to counter the ability). Same goes for similar effects such as Tooth and Nail (though you will lose life for playing Tooth and Nail itself) or Elvish Piper.

[Edited by Zark-the-Damned on 31/May/10 at 3:50PM]

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Date Posted: Tue Jun/01/10 at 1:45pm

I post short things. Zark manages to fit 5 pages of information in.

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Date Posted: Tue Jun/01/10 at 3:26pm

he copy/pastes from the rules. . .

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Date Posted: Wed Jun/02/10 at 2:23am

Well, at least Zark's post is meaningful and informative...

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Date Posted: Wed Jun/02/10 at 5:14pm