Rhadamanthus Q&A Decklord

In Case 1, MTGO was correct. The way Lyra's ability is written, it only affects Angel permanents on the battlefield. It won't affect an Angel spell on the stack. The Shalai spell just has 3 power.

If Case 2 happened on MTGO the way you described, it's a bug. In your example, Knight of Malice enters with 3 power. There's no period of time, not even a very short one, where it's on the battlefield and isn't getting the +1/+0 from its ability.

Either the people who told you that story misunderstood what they were seeing or the judge got it wrong. Only a spell that specifically says "destroy" would actually kill Tarmogoyf before the spell goes to the graveyard and Goyf's P/T gets reevaluated.

If the card was actually Grasp of Darkness, then the Tarmogoyf in your example lives. After Grasp resolves it will be a 0/1.

State based actions are checked right before each time a player gets priority. This means they aren't checked in the middle of a spell or ability resolving, but only after it's completely finished resolving.

In your first example: After Lightning Bolt resolves, the Tarmogoyf will be a 3/4 with 3 damage marked on it. This isn't enough damage to be lethal, so Tarmogoyf doesn't die.

In your second example: After Dismember resolves, the Tarmogoyf will be a -1/0. It's put into the graveyard as a state-based action.

Let me know if I didn't understand your question. I feel like I'm missing something.

Yes, that would be better in most situations. Sadly, I haven't shuffled up this deck in more than a year. I think the list is also inaccurate, as I'm pretty sure I remember removing a couple of the cards still given here (and Fumarole might actually be one of them).

@Shadeslinger: You're thinking of an ability that checks a condition regarding whether or not something happened earlier in the turn, like the Morbid ability on Reaper from the Abyss. In that case, the triggering event for that ability is the end step starting, not the creature dying. The ability only has to exist at the time the end step starts rather than when the creature died in order to trigger properly.

There are certain types of triggered abilities that "look back in time", but it's a limited list: leaves the battlefield, leaves a graveyard, goes from a public zone to the hand or library, phases out, becomes unattached, a player loses control of something, a player loses the game, a player planeswalks. Also, the extent to which they look back is limited to checking whether or not the ability existed at the moment immediately before the triggering event (see 603.10 for more details).

The rules aren't inconsistent with the wording of the card. Together, the specific wording of rule 603.7a quoted above and the specific wording of Duskmantle Guildmage's ability are exactly why it works the way we've explained. I get the feeling you still won't be convinced, but I just want to make it clear for anyone else who may be reading this.

Gidgetimer has the right answer. The abilities trigger in different steps of the combat phase.

You cast and pay for the spells one at a time.

When you discard the cards into exile, the triggered part of the Madness ability ("When you do...") on each card triggers. In your example, the trigger from Alms is on top of the stack. As that trigger resolves you choose to cast Alms and pay . Now the Alms spell is on top of the stack, and you have to finish resolving that before you can move on to the trigger from Temper.

Player 1 is allowed to make that play.

The one place where your explanation goes wrong is saying "the stack resolves". Objects on the stack resolve one at a time, and everyone is allowed to make more responses after each one. They don't have to wait for everything to resolve in order to make more responses. Any new responses they make will be put on top of the stack.

The "Commit" half is your only option. The side with Aftermath can only be cast from a graveyard, not from exile. The full text of the rule uses the word "can't", and "can't" always wins:

702.126a Aftermath is an ability found on some split cards (see rule 708, "Split Cards"). It represents three static abilities. "Aftermath" means "You may cast this half of this split card from your graveyard," "This half of this split card can’t be cast from any zone other than a graveyard," and "If this spell was cast from a graveyard, exile it instead of putting it anywhere else any time it would leave the stack."

In order to answer this question properly it's important for us to know exactly which cards were involved on both sides. Between your original question and the additional details in your comment, it sounds like it's possible that something wasn't being played correctly.

If you feel like your question has been answered, please mark the response that was the most helpful.

A little more clarification: Before the release of Oath of the Gatewatch, the game used the same symbols for generic mana and colorless mana because there weren't yet any cards where it was necessary to make a distinction between the two. However, it became important to separate them with the release of Oath because of cards like Thought-Knot Seer, etc. that have specific colorless requirements in the cost. Every older card that produced colorless mana was updated to use symbols in its rules text to make this more clear, including the Urza lands.

No, it doesn't work that way, and the way it was played out in your example wasn't right either.

First, there's one big problem with the original example: Eviscerate is a sorcery, and can't be cast during combat or as a response to anything without help from other cards. Let's pretend it was a Murder instead.

If Heart of Kiran isn't actually a creature yet then the Murder can't be cast at all. You have to be able to choose legal targets in order to start casting a spell in the first place. However, after the Crew ability resolves everyone will get another chance to respond before the game moves on to the point where the defending player starts declaring blockers. Murder can be cast at this time since the Heart is now a creature.