Just once. It's okay for a creature to have negative power, there are even a couple who have been printed that way: Char-Rumbler, Spinal Parasite. That negative number can be used to do math or be compared to other numbers for higher/lower decisions, but if it's used to determine a result of something like damage, drawing cards, number of tokens, etc. then the result defaults to zero.

You can only apply Mirrormind Crown to one of those triggers, specifically the first one that resolves.

Additional triggered abilities are their own separate triggers from the original trigger. They get responded to separately, they resolve separately and they interact with other effects separately. This is different from replacement effects that double things (Doubling Season etc.), as they just double the result of the original event rather than creating additional events.

If a spell has targets, you have to choose them as part of the casting process, even before you pay the costs. Everyone will know what Explosive Singularity is targeting when other players are given a chance to respond after you cast it.

Consider that if you didn't choose targets until a spell started resolving, then cards like Keep Safe or Redirect Lightning wouldn't be able to work properly.

To be clear for anyone who comes along later: there aren't any state based effects/actions happening here. They're all triggered abilities (start with "when/whenever/at"), and a triggered ability will trigger whenever its condition is met. The End phase of a turn is still happening during that turn and triggered abilities can trigger from any event that happens during that phase.

rockgobbler: Since it appears you got a satisfactory answer to your question and there don't seem to be any follow-ups or corrections that need to be made, I marked it as the "Accepted answer" so this topic can move out of the list of unanswered questions. In the future you can take care of this yourself using the "Mark as Answer" button on the response that you feel is the most helpful answer to your question.

You can use double square brackets around a card's name to create a reference link: Skill Borrower, Ancient Den. It's the best way to help make sure everyone understands what's going on in the question.

Yes, Skill Borrower can tap for mana in that example. Skill Borrower's ability will work with any kind of artifact and any kind of creature. If it were just meant to work with cards with only the "artifact" type and nothing else or only the "creature" type and nothing else then it would be written in a more specific way to make that clear.

Example of a goad effect for reference: Besmirch

You'll have to send the Dreadmaw at opponent B. When dealing with different requirements and restrictions on how you declare attackers, a legal attack is one that satisfies the maximum number of requirements without breaking any restrictions. The one restriction here is B's Crawlspace, so you can't send more than two creatures B's way. Goad sets up two requirements: the creature has to attack and it has to attack someone other than the player who goaded it if possible. Sending Dreadmaw at A and two creatures at B only satisfies one requirement from goad, but sending Dreadmaw at B (with a friend or not) satisfies two requirements of goad, so that's how you have to declare attackers.

Type-changing effects are applied in an earlier layer than ability granting/removing effects, so that's why Ashaya's effect still gets applied.

I think I understand more of your question about Clone. Clone's ability to copy something is not, in itself, a copy effect. It's a static ability with a replacement effect that modifies how Clone enters the battlefield and it creates a copy effect as it's applied. Xu-Ifit is removing Clone's static ability at the time it would normally be applied, so the copy effect is never created. When Clone gets to the battlefield and you start going through the steps of layers to determine Clone's characteristics, there's nothing in layer 1 (the copy effect layer) to consider, so it's just a 0/0 Skeleton of itself with no abilities.

Backing up what Neotrup said, there was also a rulings note added to Xu-Ifit's Oracle/Gatherer entry late last year to clarify this and other interactions:

2025/10/01 If a permanent returned to the battlefield by Xu-Ifit's ability has an ability that triggers "when" it enters, it will lose that ability before it can trigger. If it has an ability that causes it to enter tapped, it will lose that ability before it can apply. The same is also true of any other abilities that modify how it enters the battlefield, such as abilities that would cause it to enter with some number of counters, or apply "as" it enters, such as Famished Worldsire's devour land ability or Clone's ability that causes it to enter as a copy of a creature on the battlefield.

I admit I would have initially assumed the result you laid out in your original question, but I suppose this has to do with the particular way the effect is worded. It's not a series of instructions that tells you to put it onto the battlefield, then change its type and then remove its abilities. It's an instruction to put it onto the battlefield with a number of changes to its characteristics as you do that.

They get reset. Exchanging text boxes is a special kind of text-changing effect where each the text on each object gets completely replaced by the text of the other. The new text on each card represents a different ability from the one that was there before (even in a case like this where they happen to have all the same words) and is also separate from the ability that existed on the other card it was brought in from.

You're going to risk confusing yourself more if you think about things "targeting" when they don't actually target, because the word "target" has a specific rules meaning and whether or not something actually targets matters a lot for various card interactions and rules interactions. Declaring an attacking creature does not target. Any effect that does not specifically use the word "target" in its rules text (either printed on the card or packed into the rules for a keyword ability on the card) does not target.

The easy way to remember the full effects of protection is with the letters DEBT:

• Damage is prevented
• Enchanting/Equipping is not allowed (or Fortifying, but that's just one weird card from Future Sight)
• Blocking is not allowed
• Targeting is not allowed

The reminder text on Absolute Virtue summarizes the above and leaves out blocking since it doesn't matter (you, the player sitting there in real life, can't attack so it's irrelevant whether something can block you).