Xantcha, sleeper agent EDH
Asked by proterran98 5 years ago
I'm playing a multiplayer game of edh with Xantcha, Sleeper Agent as my general.
My opponent loses the game while controlling xantcha. She gets exiled due to my opponent losing the game, can I have her go to my command zone or have I lost my general for the rest of the game?
FancyTuesday says... #2
The owner, as distinct from the controller, always has the option to send their commander to the command zone at any time the commander would move into the exile, hand, graveyard, or library zones.
903.9 If a commander would be exiled from anywhere or put into its owner’s hand, graveyard, or library from anywhere, its owner may put it into the command zone instead. This replacement effect may apply more than once to the same event. This is an exception to rule 614.5.
As to whether or not it's exiled or returned to your control, I suspect Gidgetimer is correct, though Xantcha does present some unique problems. Her control changing ability reads to me as a replacement effect, not a triggered one, so it would be replacing the enters the battlefield under your control event with enters the battlefield under an opponent's control.
Xantcha's never under your control as a creature, control of Xantcha doesn't change after she hits the field it simply is your opponent's, so the layer that determines control for it as an object in the game might not have a "change of control" effect to wipe away. It could, though, because you controlled it for the entirety of it resolving as a spell, it does have to change control between resolving under your control and entering the battlefield under theirs. Furthermore it uses the word "gains", as opposed to the language "enters the battlefield under their control."
I can't find any release notes or rules that make it crystal clear whether, with Xantcha's language, she has a control changing effect in that layer to be wiped away or if that layer is empty because the event of her entering under your control was replaced.
I'll feel better about this when we have some Gatherer rulings to point to.
July 28, 2018 11:06 p.m. Edited.
Rhadamanthus says... #4
@FancyTuesday: It's because Xantcha uses that weird "as this enters, an opponent gains control of it" construction. That makes it a control-changing effect instead of something like Bribery, etc.
July 29, 2018 2:10 p.m.
FancyTuesday says... #5
@Gidgetimer: Thanks for the link. I tried Googling "Xantcha, Sleeper Agent release notes" and all I got were reddit arguments. That does clarify it.
@Rhadamanthus: Aye, I suspected the language "gains control" as distinct from "enters under their control" was important for defining how exactly the ability was operating, but as I couldn't think of any other ability quite like this to compare to I argued myself into believing it could work both ways. I dug and dug into the layer system for exact definitions for when an object* can have effects apply to layers and if this sort of effect can "look back" or see across zone changes and apply them. In hindsight, of course it must for it to work as worded.
*Specifically, a newly created object and the control change layer. Some effects hit layers at all times, as well as innate CDAs, though "control" is not a characteristic.
Gidgetimer says... Accepted answer #1
Neither since control changing effects end before permanents a player who has left the game controlled are exiled. My friend and I had a debate on if Xancha's ability was included in this, but the release notes have the Oracle rulings for new cards and clarify.
In a multiplayer game, if a player leaves the game, all cards that player owns leave as well. If the player under whose control Xantcha entered the battlefield leaves the game, the effect changing control of Xantcha ends.
If someone does control your commander and there is no control changing effect to end (via Threaten into Cloudshift or any of various other ways) then you will always have the option to put the commander into the command zone when it is exiled.
July 28, 2018 6:21 p.m.