Here you have the last Judge Article of 2013. Happy New Year!

This thread is for discussing the article Enter the Arena by Daniel Kitachewsky and James Do Hung Lee.

I think the Rusted Relic scenario needs either some adjustment, or a
disclaimer to say that it describes what would happen if Rusted Relic
somehow gained devour 5.

Under normal circumstances, Rusted Relic can't gain devour 5 from the Jund
plane – it's not black, green, or red. Moreover, I believe that Rusted
Relic is always just an artifact on the stack, never an artifact creature,
even when you have metalcraft.

(The rules stipulate that an ability that works “only if certain conditions
are met” can't be a CDA, so a metalcraft ability could never be
characteristic-defining. Additionally, the CDA rules specifically say CDAs
can only define an object's “colors, subtypes, power, or toughness” – CDAs
are apparently excluded from defining an object's types.)

First - thank you, James and Daniel, for tackling this topic & removing (at least most of) the shroud of mystery. EtB replacement effects have tripped up many of us over the years, and inspired more than their share of guru-level debates…

As I read through this, my twisted mind concocted a scenario - and I'll confess, I'm not exactly sure how this plays out.
Jeff controls Imposing Sovereign, and Master Biomancer with a +1/+1 counter.
Dave casts Prime Speaker Zegana and Jeff responds with Gather Specimens.
Once the dust settles, what does the Prime Speaker look like?

(I also considered Tidewalker, with a different number of Islands on each side of the battlefield - but PSZ is more familiar.)

I'm thinking that:

• PSZ will not be tapped, because we apply the control-changing effect before the Sovereign's?
  
• PSZ will have six +1/+1 counters on it, because that control-changing effect means we look at Jeff's permanents, not Dave's, when applying PSZ and MB's replacement effects?
  

Again, thanks - I'm going to find a way to save this on all my mobile devices; it just might come in handy!

d:^D

Paul: Good catch! Those are good points about the Rusted Relic/Jund scenario. If Daniel or James have an answer or suggestions, I'd be more than happy to update the article.

Thank you for this article!

I especially like how it digs into 614.12 with examples and reasoning for the clauses.

One question on the Essence of the Wild + Phyrexian Metamorph example…

>In the end you always end up with a plain Essence of the Wild.

If we had the Phyrexian Metamorph's copy effect happen first, and choose a non-creature like a Gilded Lotus, then Essence of the Wild's effect wouldn't have anything to replace (because it's not a creature anymore), and we'd just have a Gilded Lotus, right?

If so, maybe clone would make for a more concise example.

*Phew!*

Thank you to everyone for reading and for your critiques. I don't think that Daniel and I thought we could slog through this arcane topic without tripping up somewhere along the line. Even during the writing, we had to really dig to find obscure examples to use and did not want to beat Erebos to death while doing so.

In regards to Rusted Relic, Paul is right, in our original writing we were still using Erebos and made some examples changes later and forgot about the Jund colour issue as well as how Rusted Relic would never trigger Jund. I don't even think Rusted Relic's Metalcraft ability counts as a characteristic-defining ability per 604.3a given that it does not satisfy the fifth criterion, “it does not set the values of such characteristics only if certain conditions are met.”

Given the timing of the article's release and the complexity of the examples, please give us a few days to work out and alternative as well as to answer some of the fun questions posed in this thread.

Evan, if it would not be too much trouble, perhaps you could publish a disclaimer noting the errors pointed out by Paul for the Rusted Relic example in the article while we work on producing a viable alternative?

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

As I read through this, my twisted mind concocted a scenario - and I'll confess, I'm not exactly sure how this plays out.
Jeff controls Imposing Sovereign, and Master Biomancer with a +1/+1 counter.
Dave casts Prime Speaker Zegana and Jeff responds with Gather Specimens.
Once the dust settles, what does the Prime Speaker look like?

(I also considered Tidewalker, with a different number of Islands on each side of the battlefield - but PSZ is more familiar.)

I'm thinking that:

• PSZ will not be tapped, because we apply the control-changing effect before the Sovereign's?
  
• PSZ will have six +1/+1 counters on it, because that control-changing effect means we look at Jeff's permanents, not Dave's, when applying PSZ and MB's replacement effects?
  

d:^D

You are correct, Scott. Rule 616.1 gives priority to control-changing replacement effects when they impact objects entering the battlefield.

Originally posted by Chris Nowak:

One question on the Essence of the Wild + Phyrexian Metamorph example…

>In the end you always end up with a plain Essence of the Wild.

If we had the Phyrexian Metamorph's copy effect happen first, and choose a non-creature like a Gilded Lotus, then Essence of the Wild's effect wouldn't have anything to replace (because it's not a creature anymore), and we'd just have a Gilded Lotus, right?

If so, maybe clone would make for a more concise example.

Good catch! I think if Daniel agrees, this example could be entirely deleted from the article. In retrospect, this is only an aside about how replacement effects work generally and does not really address the specifics of enters-the-battlefield replacement effects. So, I would simply delete this entire paragraph from the article:

It can also work the other way around: replacement effects can disappear as you apply other replacement effects. If you control an Essence of the Wild and cast a Phyrexian Metamorph, you can choose either effect to be applied first; but if you apply Phyrexian Metamorph first, then Essence of the Wild’s effect still applies and you end up with a copy of the Essence, whereas if you apply Essence of the Wild’s effect first, your permanent now has no other abilities anymore and we stop here. In the end you always end up with a plain Essence of the Wild.

Per James' Request, the paragraphs on Rusted Relic on the Jund Plane and Phyrexian Metamorph/Essence of the Wild examples are being removed pending revision. I'll post an update in this thread when the authors have made a decision!

Awesome article! I agree this is one of the most unintuitive parts of the rules.

There is one part at the beginning that seems incorrect or I'm parsing it wrong:

This example, directly from the rules, demonstrates how we do not evaluate continuous effects that would apply to the card in the graveyard as the card is no longer in that zone when it is entering the battlefield.

But you say later on, “And, in addition, get used to the idea that as an object enters the battlefield, it is not strictly on the battlefield, but still in the zone from which it came, despite the fact that the game no longer considers effects affecting that object in the previous zone.” and also with the Reveillark/Mulldrifter example, it is in that zone.

Another common example of this in Commander is a Exhume-like card into The Mimeoplasm.

Edited Toby Hazes (Jan. 1, 2014 08:54:57 PM)

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 propose the following, replacement example to the highly-flawed Rusted Relic example:

“Now, let us look at one more example. You are playing on the plane of Jund which reads, ”Whenever a player casts a black, red, or green creature spell, it gains devour 5.“ Your opponent controls Imposing Sovereign. You control 3 Nylea's Disciple. Now you cast Nylea, God of the Hunt. When Nylea goes to resolve, you devour one of your Disciples. What happens?

”Your Nylea, God of the Hunt will enter the battlefield tapped with 5 +1/+1 counters and be a Legendary Enchantment but not a Creature. This happens because replacement effects, so long as they do not chain or preclude each other, all happen simultaneously with the event they affect. In this case, we evaluate Nylea as she would exist on the battlefield at the moment the enters-the-battlefield replacement effects would apply. We see that you have sufficient devotion to green in this moment for her to be a creature so Imposing Sovereign would apply causing her to enter the battlefield tapped. At the same time, the Jund trigger allows you to sacrifice any number of creatures for Devour. Both of these replacements happen at the same time and do not preclude each other. Once the dust has cleared, however, and Nylea is on the battlefield, your devotion to green is no longer sufficient and her type-changing ability applies."

Fine with this!

Thanks,

Daniel

Nylea's disciple's cost is 2GG, so if you controlled three at the start of the example, you would need to devour more than one of them. Otherwise, when Nylea enters the battelfield you will have a devotion to green of 5 and she would be a creature.

Aaaargh!

Thank you, Kim. I knew it would be a good idea to post here so that more objective, clearer eyes would look at it before it went to press. It takes a village to get things right. Thank goodness we have such a smart one!