How does one interpret "and/or" in mtg?
Asked by Legendxp 2 years ago
Let's say I cast Ghostly Flicker. Does this mean I can flicker two artifacts, two creatures, AND two lands? Obviously not right?
However, according to "Kaalia, Zenith Seeker",
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=466964
which says "(You may reveal an Angel card, a Demon card, and/or a Dragon card from among them and put them into your hand.)", you can get all three types of cards from this ability.
So which is it? Does and/or mean you can choose AND or do you have to choose "OR"?
What does this mean for cards that have X in their effect, like Mass Manipulation or Heliod's Intervention? (That's where this originally came up, another player was saying that they could destroy four permanents for four mana at instant speed by playing Heliod's Intervention.)
Also, I was trying to find the exact ruling in the actual rulesbook but I couldn't find it. An official ruling would be appreciated as well.
This is an English language question more than a Magic one. sergiodelrio is right here. In Kaalia, Zenith Seeker's ability, each item gets its own article a/an, which denotes that you consider them separately, not as a group.
Let's compare it to the original Kaalia of the Vast, which has similar but crucially different wording: "...you may put an Angel, Demon, or Dragon creature card from you hand onto the battlefield..." Here, there's only one article. You may put a card into the battlefield, and the types tell you what kind of card it can be.
Ghostly Flicker is the same. You pick two targets, and "artifacts, creatures, and/or lands" lets you know that you can pick any combination of those types for your targets, even the same type twice.
November 30, 2021 7:02 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #3
Legendxp: Answers to your question have been up for a while. Since there don't seem to be any follow-ups or corrections to be made, I marked one of them 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 best answers your question.
sergiodelrio says... Accepted answer #1
The answere lies not in the and/or formulation.
Notice how Ghostly Flicker lists: 2x (x, y and/or z) - the number is in front of the list.
Compare to Kaalia: (You may reveal AN Angel card, A Demon card, and/or A Dragon card from among them and put them into your hand.)
That formulation has a (admittedly somewhat hidden) number in front of each element of the list.
That's why Ghostly flicker ends up picking a total of two while Kaalia ends up picking a total of 3 (if possible).
It might become more clear to you when comparing Mass Manipulation and Heliod's Intervention to Release the Gremlins
November 30, 2021 4:47 a.m.