This is just a quick public service announcement about the Invert half of the card Invert//Invent in the upcoming GRN set, which could cause problems at prereleases and other limited events.

For those who don't know the card, here is it's printed text:


This card has three problems that are likely to occur.

The first, and perhaps most important, is that this card has already received errata to have a duration, and will likely read “Switch the power and toughness of each of up to two target creatures until end of turn.”
(source: https://twitter.com/mtgaaron/status/1040007433874100224 )

The second is the ambiguous wording. When the average player casts this targeting their Kraul Harpooner and their opponent's Niv Mizzet, are they expecting a 5/5 Kraul and a 3/2 Niv, or a 5/5 Niv and a 2/3 Kraul? These are vastly different effects and the hint is the words “up to”, this card will not exchange the power and toughness of two creatures, it will switch each creature's power with it's toughness.

The third is the interaction with effects like these and other effects that modify power and toughness. We (should) all know that Giant Growth effects apply in layer 7c and p/t switching effects apply in layer 7e, but we can't expect our players to know that. Here's a question I've been asking a lot of my locals:
AP controls a Hammer Dropper (a 5/2), NAP casts an Artful Takedown on it, choosing the -2/-4 mode. AP responds by Inverting their Hammer Dropper. How big is it?

If we apply Artful Takedown in layer 7c, it's a 3/-2, then Invert in layer 7e, it's a -2/3. Almost every player I've asked has told me it's a 0/1, however, as they've learned to apply effects in reverse casting order. Considering Artful Takedown is a common and Invert is an uncommon, it's not unlikely that these two cards could be seen on the stack together in many limited games. There are other similar uneven p/t modifying cards in the set as well, so these interactions are even more likely to occur. That's without even going into the uncommons, where we find Crackling Drake.


I recommend letting your players know that this is a problem card before the prerelease. Tell them that it's received errata, what is actually does to the two creatures, and that they should apply ALL power and toughness modifying effects before Invert, regardless of what order they were cast. I'll be posting a modified version of this to the facebook page of a couple of groups, if you want it to paste into yours, let me know.

Edited Tyrone Phillips (Sept. 20, 2018 07:17:09 AM)

Great info Tyrone! I'll share the information on the local pages in Europe North.