I have a question about Elvish Archdruid and Master Biomancer.

If I control a Biomancer and cast an Elvish Archdruid, with how many counters does he enter the Battlefield?

What bothers me is the following rule:

614.12. Some replacement effects modify how a permanent enters the battlefield. (See rules 614.1c-d.) Such effects may come from the permanent itself if they affect only that permanent (as opposed to a general subset of permanents that includes it). They may also come from other sources. To determine which replacement effects apply and how they apply, check the characteristics of the permanent as it would exist on the battlefield, taking into account replacement effects that have already modified how it enters the battlefield (see rule 616.1), continuous effects generated by the resolution of spells or abilities that changed the permanent's characteristics on the stack (see rule 400.7a), and continuous effects from the permanent's own static abilities, but ignoring continuous effects from any other source that would affect it.

So we are checking what effects to apply with the permanent like it is on the battlefield.
Static abilities are taken into account if they come from that permanent. But do we only take into account their effects on that particular permanent or do we take into account who that permanents static abilities affect other permanents? This will decide, if the replacment effect from the Biomancer seems himself als 2/4 or 3/5 creature.

Elvish Archdruid will enter the battlefield with 2 counters.

Replacement effects are normally processed entirely based on the situation before the event would happen (because you need to know what the event is before carrying it out), modified by other replacement effects which already affect this event.

For the “enter the battlefield” event, we also consider:
- static abilities of the permanent, if those affect the permanent itself, but not if they affect a group of permanents (i.e. Diregraf Ghoul enters the battlefield tapped because it talks about itself, Orb of Dreams enters untapped because it affect a group)
- continuous effects that modified that permanent on the stack (if you control Bramblewood Paragon, cast a Runeclaw Bear, and cast Artificial Evolution on the Bear on the stack changing Bear to Warrior, it will enter the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter)

Notice that we never consider how the would-be permanent affects anything on the battlefield. We are still before it enters the battlefield when we look at the permanent. In our situation, Master Biomancer is a 2/2 at this time and so Elvish Archdruid will enter the battlefield with two counters.

Daniel Kitachewsky
L3, Paris, France
Rules Netrep