In my community I had an issue dealing with color indicators(CIs) and color-defining characteristic-defining abilities(CDAs). Let me make it short… Someone brought a question which is;
"I control
Muraganda Petroglyphs,
Dryad Arbor, and
Sphinx of the Guildpact. Which creature would get +2/+2 and why?"
As you know, when CI is created it replaces every color-defining CDA(by oracle text errata), and affected creatures with only CDA in it's oracle text becomes vanilla, including
Dryad Arbor and
Transguild Courier.
Dryad Arbor now have a CI{G} replacing CDA{G}, and so is
Transguild Courier.
And Ravnica Allegiance came out with
Sphinx of the Guildpact. Officials at first tried to make CI for all colors but in the end they just returned once-obsolete(my think) color-defining CDA for all colors, just for the sphinx. And eventually
Transguild Courier got its ability back. Now the golem is not vanilla, which is a sad story for
Muraganda Petroglyphs.
Yes, my answer was “Both Dryad Arbor and the Golem does not get +2/+2. CI is not ability, but CDA is, but Dryad Arbor has a mana ability, you know.”
At this point I am caught up by unsolved agonies. Many players get confused in that CI and color-defining CDA works exactly the same, and even once CIs totally replaced such CDAs, but Dryad Arbor gets +2/+2 and Golem does not.
Is CI is technically replacing color-defining CDA? Or is CI only for one, two, or three colors because now there are only such cases? (there is no 4-color CIs, CIs for all colors, CIs for colorless) Should I just depend on the official oracle text of Gatherer for this one?
Edited Youjin Choi (June 24, 2019 03:34:02 AM)