I'm Mike, from The Mana Pool.

I first learned to play around the release of Ice Age (1995-ish) and was strongly involved with playing casually and at local events until early 2020, when I had to back off for obvious reasons. I got back into playing a little bit in 2022 with a few prereleases and casual meet-ups here and there and I still enjoy keeping up with Magic news and new sets.

As a general rule, my deckbuilding is influenced far more than it should be by what I think would be "interesting/fun/funny" instead of what's probably the better choice of cards. The friend who first taught me how to play had a very strong philosophy of "Not every card is good, but pretty much any card can be made good" and the casual groups I spent the most time playing with over the years were always keen on figuring out how to make effective game plans from odd ideas. It was all immensely fun and it's still a big influence on my approach to the game.

I also tend to design and build strictly from my existing collection. If there's a good card for a deck that I don't have in a list, there's a good chance I don't own any, but please suggest it anyway so that maybe I'll remember to go out and find it.

I was a DCI-certified Rules Advisor under older versions of the Magic Judge program and I still keep up with new mechanics and rules changes. I'm the "rules guy" of my casual play group and I like to hang out in the Rules Q&A area here on Tapped Out. If you notice a mistake in one of my responses, don't be shy about pointing it out because above all else, I want whatever question I'm responding to to be answered correctly!

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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.

February 3, 2026 8:56 a.m.

Said on Can I use …...

#2

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.

January 30, 2026 9:52 a.m.

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.

January 30, 2026 9:08 a.m.

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.

January 29, 2026 11:28 a.m.

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.

January 28, 2026 3:07 p.m.

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).

January 27, 2026 10:13 a.m.

Yes, if you stack the triggers correctly. When the original Gary ETBs, both it and the Diviner will trigger. You want to put the Diviner trigger on top so it resolves first and makes the token copy. Since Gary's trigger isn't written specifically to use information from the moment it triggered, it will get information about your devotion to black at the time it resolves, so both Gary triggers will see 8 devotion in your example (as long as no one has responded with any removal).

January 21, 2026 11:40 a.m.

The AI summary results you found were incorrect. With the way a Large Language Model (LLM) works, it's essentially doing a highly sophisticated autocomplete for a discussion about your topic. LLM responses are most reliable on topics with a lot of content represented in the training data. In this case, I get the feeling not enough has been written about effects that give a player "protection from opponents" for the LLM approach to give an accurate answer. It likely gave you results that were based on a combination of what's been written about protection in general as well as things written specifically about True-Name Nemesis, which would have had a lot more content built up over the years than Absolute Virtue has at this point.

January 19, 2026 9:30 a.m.

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Finished Decks 107
Prototype Decks 8
Drafts 2
Playing since Ice Age
Points 467
Avg. deck rating 10.67
T/O Rank 24
Helper Rank 69
Cards suggested / good suggestions 59 / 46
Venues Lucky's Card Shop, The Toy Factory
Cards Added/Fixed 10
Joined 15 years