EDIT 11-4-2020: This is solved now by the changes to 613.1A detailed here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/comprehensive-rules-changes-2020-04-10
This essentially introduces ‘layer 1.5’


So this is a pretty far-fetched theoretical discussion but I can't quite figure out some stuff about why face-down permanents work the way they do.

The summary of the issue is:
It's fairly established that if you turn a face down card into a copy of some other card (let's say Goblin Guide) that it's now a Goblin Guide that still has it's characteristics modified by it's face down status. This effectively makes it a 2/2 with no abilities, no name etc. If you were to somehow turn it face up (Break Open) it will start behaving like a regular Goblin Guide.
If you have your face-down Goblin Guide and you give it +1/+1, it will now be a 3/3 with no abilities.

I can't find the part of the comprehensive rules that supports the fact that we apply the copy effect to the front face of the card (the one currently facing the table) but we apply the p/t altering effect to whichever side is currently up.

I will now elaborate more on each part of the paragraph above.

"It's fairly established that if you turn a face down card into a copy of some other card (let's say Goblin Guide) that it's now a Goblin Guide that still has it's characteristics modified by it's face down status. This effectively makes it a 2/2 with no abilities, no name etc."

This is how I've always learned this, and this is also consistent with rulings found here:
https://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/24426/
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-rulings/magic-rulings-archives/262721-mirrorweave
and probably in many other places.

I however have trouble fitting the ‘if something has face-down status it’s a 2/2 nothing' effect into the layers system.

The CR has the following to say on this ‘it’s a 2/2 nothing' business:

From the rules on Morph:
702.36a Morph is a static ability that functions in any zone from which you could play the card it’s on, and the morph effect works any time the card is face down. “Morph ” means “You may cast this card as a 2/2 face-down creature with no text, no name, no subtypes, and no mana cost by paying {3} rather than paying its mana cost.” (See rule 707, “Face-Down Spells and Permanents.”)

This seems to say that it gets these characteristics as it's being cast, and that these then carry over to the permanent in becomes when it resolves.

From the rules on Manifest:
701.33a To manifest a card, turn it face down. It becomes a 2/2 face-down creature card* with no text, no name, no subtypes, and no mana cost. Put that card onto the battlefield face down. That permanent is a manifested permanent as long as it remains face down. The effect defining its characteristics works while the card is face down and ends when it’s turned face up.

This paragraph feels more like this is an effect that is applied to the card (notice the ‘it becomes’ which feels like how effects are often worded, and of course the use of the word ‘effect’ in the last sentence.


For me the 2/2 nothing-ness of face-down permanents feels a lot like it would be something that it just is before we even start doing layers (I will refer to this as ‘layer 0’), even though this is not mentioned in the layers rules:

613.1. The values of an object’s characteristics are determined by starting with the actual object. For a card, that means the values of the characteristics printed on that card. For a token or a copy of a spell or card, that means the values of the characteristics defined by the effect that created it.

If we act as though 2/2-nothing-ness is in here, we run into problems.

Let's pretend we have a face-down Scornful Egotist that has been Cytoshaped into Llanowar Elves.

Layer 0: It's a 2/2 nothing
Layer 1: It's a Llanowar Elves
Layer 2-7: No effects

This would result in a Llanowar elves that functions like a llanowar elves and not like a 2/2 nothing because the face-down-ness got applied before the copy effect. So this can't be the answer.

Another option would be that each part of the face-down ‘effect’ applies in its appropriate layer. As a reminder, we're trying to fit this “no text, no name, no subtypes, and no mana cost”:

Layer 0: It's a scornful Egotist
Layer 1: It's a llanowar elves
Layer 2: No effects
Layer 3: It has no text, no name and no mana cost (due to face down status. Wiping name and mana cost are supported by text changing abilities see rules 612.5 and 612.6. Wiping the text results in it having no abilities, wiping the mana cost results in it having no color).
Layer 4: It has no subtypes (due to face down status)
Layer 5: No effects
Layer 6: No effects
Layer 7: It's a 2/2 (due to face down status)

This results in a permanent that does indeed function like the 2/2 nothing we know and love, and if we end the face down status, this would eliminate the effects in layers 3-7, so we would also end up with the face-up card with some blue stuff printed on the front that behaves like a llanowar elves that we expect.

However here we run into problems when we add more effects in the same layers that the face-down effects would operate in. For example, under Humility we add “It's a 1/1” to layer 7, we end up with either 1/1s or 2/2s depending on the time stamps. While I think the ‘obviously correct’ answer is that they are always 1/1s.

In addition, when reading 706.2 it seems that text changing effects are explicitly NOT copiable values, while turning something into a copy of a face down morph does result in the copy becoming a 2/2 nothing. (And the rules on copiable values include ‘as modified by its face down status’). This suggests that a model where the face-down status modifications are interpreted in part as text changing effects (by putting them in that layer) is not intended.

A third option: I heard someone explain it as ‘layer 1.5’ which results in the consensus answers but seems conjured out of thin air from a theoretical perspective.

So how DOES this work? Where does ‘it’s a 2/2 nothing due to face down status' plug into the layer system?



FAQ:

Q
But what about these rules?
“707.10. If a face-down permanent becomes a copy of another permanent, its copiable values become the copiable values of that permanent, as modified by its face-down status”

A
Copiable values are not the same as an objects characteristics. Copiable values are the thing that we look at when we need to make another object a copy of this thing. It is NOT layer 0, it is what gets plugged into the Layer 1 of the ‘victim’ permanent.
For example, when something becomes a copy of something else, its copiable values change. (706.2. When copying an object, the copy acquires the copiable values of the original object’s characteristics . The “copiable values” are the values derived from the text printed on the object , as modified by other copy effects, by its face-down status, ). An effect that applies in layer 1 can have an effect on something's copiable values, so copiable values is definitely not layer 0.



*It seems weird that manifest would talk about becoming a ‘creature card’ because it definitely does not turn instant cards into creature cards, it turns instant cards into creatures. But I digress.


Credits:
Many thanks to Asger Skovbjerg and Florian Horn for their input on this line of reasoning.


EDIT: Looking at this https://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/44135/ I guess I'm about to see the rules underpinning this question change any second now…

Edited Anniek Van der Peijl (April 11, 2020 02:58:17 AM)