Originally posted by James Do Hung Lee:

Thank you, Evan. Now I have to hope the article still reads with some degree of reasonable flow while the section is being revised. (Now to find our drafts so we can get back to work!)

Toby, the confusion you are sensing there is one of the main reasons this article was written. Both of those things are true depending on what you, as a player, needs to do to evaluate the outcome of the event. Strictly speaking, the game does not have an in-between game state where a card / object is neither in the zone from which it came nor the zone to which it is going. However, for the purposes of evaluation, we need exactly such an imaginary space in which to assess what will happen. Even though the flawed Rusted Relic example has been removed pending our coming up with a better example, the key elements of this idea remain in the article. So, your examples all work because the game recognizes only the strict states where an object is either in one zone or another so necessary choices can be made. But, the necessary replacement effects that can apply simultaneously when evaluating how an object enters the battlefield can also be determined by understanding that in that moment, that object is neither still where it was nor yet where it is going.

I agree that it helps to have an imaginary space to help determine what applies and what not. However, that first line (“as the card is no longer in that zone when it is entering the battlefield”) doesn't read like an imaginary space but more like a true fact, and because of the ‘as’ reads like a cause/reason instead of a model/construct, which then causes contradiction and confusion with the later parts.
So my beef would be that the sentence doesn't reflect the intent you explain here.
“It is still in the graveyard but some effects do not apply to it anymore” is easier to grok then “It isn't in the graveyard, but it is”.

So for example *I believe an ‘if’ would've helped here:
"This example, directly from the rules, demonstrates how we do not evaluate continuous effects that would apply to the card in the graveyard as if the card is no longer in that zone when it is entering the battlefield."

Edited Toby Hazes (Jan. 4, 2014 09:43:04 AM)

Thank you all for your patience! We've updated the article to remove the 2 examples that were incorrect and added a well-thought-out example for Nylea, devour, and Imposing Sovereign.

Again, thanks to everyone for their feedback in helping to improve the quality of the article. Generous thanks to the authors for their receptiveness and revisions. Enjoy!

I have a question.

If you control Conspiracy naming “Warrior” and Bramblewood Paragon, it won’t help your Bear Cub get any +1/+1 counters: we don’t look at what it was in the previous zone (see Yixlid Jailer interactions above), we don’t look at what it is going to be on the battlefield (see Humility interactions above), but between the two, where Conspiracy doesn’t count.

Filip Söderholm and I discussed this and apparantly Conspiracy doesn't count because:

400.7a: Effects from spells, activated abilities, and triggered abilities that change the characteristics of a permanent spell on the stack continue to apply to the permanent that spell becomes. …and continuous effects from the permanent's own static abilities, but ignoring continuous effects from any other source that would affect it.

Because Conspiracy is a continuous effect, it is disregarded at the Bramblewood Paragon/Bear Cub situation. For me this is not logical at all, even though I will accept it. Why are the rules written like this?

Hi,

When you reanimated a Meddling Mage, you get to choose something for it. A rule was made so that Humility doesn't stop this (to avoid the bizarre situation when Humility is later destroyed). A rule was also made so that Yixlid Jailer doesn't stop this.

Conspiracy has both logics: we don't care about the effect in play or in the graveyard while applying replacement effects. Trying to make it apply to the in-between state would break one of the two scenarios above.

Daniel