How do Reins of Power and Homeward Path interact?

Asked by Chandrian 7 years ago

I was looking a bit more into the Grouphug precon EDH deck of 2016 and noticed it contains Homeward Path and Reins of Power... and 2 related question came to mind:

1) If I exchange control of creatures by casting Reins of Power, and then use Homeward Path, will I be able to attack with both the creatures I borrowed from him and the ones I got back?

2) And if I don't do lethal damage to my opponent, do all the creatures I controlled go under his control at the end of turn?

BlueScope says... Accepted answer #1

Reins of power exchanges control of all creatures two players control, independent of who owns them (or in other words, in who's deck they started the game in). Homeward Path on the other hand returns control of each creature back to it's owner, regardless who controls it and who doesn't.

In your first scenario, if both players only control creatures they own, Reins of Power will switch control, then Homeward Path will switch it back (however the creatures will all still have haste and will now be untapped). Either way, you would have to cast and activate both of those before or after declaring attackers, as you can't cast or activate anything while doing so, which means you only get to attack with one set of creatures. (Also, creatures changing controllers will be removed from combat, meaning if you declared attackers and then cast Reins, no player would have attacking creatures).

As for your second question - Homeward Path, if resolving last, creates a control-changing effect without a duration. If the player survives the end of turn, all creatures will stay where they are, as Homeward Path is the most recent control-changing effect, which overwrites Reins of Power's until-end-of-turn effect.

October 31, 2016 9:50 a.m.

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