The concept of milling and reanimating
General forum
Posted on June 22, 2013, 12:13 a.m. by SevenSeasAgo
I was doing a lot of thinking about the concept of milling and reanimating spells. Your library is supposed to represent the different spells you know, and when you mill, you're taking that knowledge away from someone. When you reanimate something (lets say we're using Reanimate ), you are taking a corpse of a creature you already created, and giving it life again. Now think about if you mill a creature away. Your opponent is taking your knowledge of the creature spell, and making you forget it. You didn't create that creature, therefore there is no corpse of that creature. And if there's no corpse, there's nothing to give life to. But you can still reanimate something that was milled, even though it never died.
Spells in your deck represent things you already knew, and each represents an instance of applying that knowledge into an effect.
If you mill off a creature, I don't forget what that creature is or how it works, you've removed my ability to execute the bit of previously prepared summoning magic I was going to fire off.
June 22, 2013 12:16 a.m.
SevenSeasAgo says... #4
I would agree with you both if cards like Rise from the Grave didn't exist. Cards like that are implying that you're animating the corpse, and as we all know, an animated decayed corpse is known as a zombie.
June 22, 2013 12:20 a.m.
Perchance the memory of how to summon the creature is corrupted by the forcible removal of the memory, so when you access the creature from the graveyard, it gets a body... but it comes back wrong?
June 22, 2013 12:22 a.m.
SevenSeasAgo says... #6
Perhaps, but I would say that's kind of stretching it. This is a fun theory to think about :)
June 22, 2013 12:23 a.m.
ponderthewonder says... #7
ideas are milled, So the causing factor or source learns what those are in order to mill them to exile or your library.
Basically any card that is not a valid permanent in play under a controllers control. It is a discarded revealed card
Any card that has been used becomes revealed and removed from play.
any card can be targeted
June 22, 2013 1:08 a.m.
ponderthewonder says... #9
once a card is revealed in any way rather it be a summoning effect, creature ability, combat, Sorcery, Instant, or exile etc etc etc. It is revealed and an open card that can be targeted by any source or cause and effect source.
due clause Alpha/Beta
June 22, 2013 1:30 a.m.
I think you missed the point of this thread, ponderthewonder.
We're talking in pure flavor here. We're trying as hard as possible not to resort to "the rules say you can target stuff in graveyards no matter where they came from" line of reasoning. Instead, we are trying to come up with an In-Universe explanation as to why a creature that never got a body can Rise from the Grave as a zombie.
June 22, 2013 2:02 a.m.
There are never really corpses either, to my understanding. Like Erebel said, the creature spells are ideas of those creatures, and you can't cast them once they've been killed or milled, and reanimating them is is giving you knowledge of the lost creature once again.
June 22, 2013 2:06 a.m.
ponderthewonder says... #13
Well then if you want to play by the golden rule which the game was founded one
their would be in fact 3 graveyards
Regular graveyard for spell effects and combat damageExiled graveyard from player opponent cards that cause an exile effectAnd also a Third graveyard for the cards opponents milled for the knowledge taken clause. (In which cards here are only playable or affected by that player which caused the effect) And no other opponents
erabel thank you for your insight but I was fully aware of the point of the thread, you would just have to make a casual rule for yourself and your friends to play by.
June 22, 2013 2:08 a.m.
Again, you're missing the point, I think (and I'm sorry if I'm coming off a bit strong here).
We are not talking about gameplay.
We are talking about a specific disconnect between lore and gameplay; namely, "How can a creature that entered the graveyard without having a body be 'brought back' with a body?". We then, using lore-based descriptions of hands, libraries, spells, and graveyards, have attempted to justify this strange phenomenon IN LORE.
The only reason the gameplay was brought up was to highlight the disconnect. As far as I know, none of us are intending on implementing casual rules or changing our play styles whatsoever.
June 22, 2013 2:29 a.m.
ponderthewonder says... #15
Ok then something does not have to have a body to be reanimated, reanimated just constructs with the materials at hand around the spell effect area.
Does that sum it up? or am I still off base.
June 22, 2013 2:32 a.m.
Sounds as good as any explanation.
Sorry that I've been shooting down your contributions... It's late where I'm at, and I get irritable without sleep (Not that it's an excuse). I'll probably be nicer in the morning (and be able to discuss this some more).
June 22, 2013 2:42 a.m.
ponderthewonder says... #17
Oh, No its ok I was not sure where the prebase for the concept was being conceptualized from.
He was just asking if in fact by the card definition by playing a mill card before a Reanimate would the player that plays the Reanimate card he would not have the knowledge of it like it was a spell book of knowledge for example. He was stating that if you used a MindSluge type card for example that makes you discard would that effect not erase the knowledge from the player it was taken from, Being the controller who casted the Reanimate to use that creature card which represented a knowledge to cast that creature spell in the first place.
@ Ringleader Yes by the golden rule in fact you would have to make a third library to discard Mind Delve card effects or milling effects, But that is only for casual play MTG does not recognize this in tournaments and general standard formats. one of the few golden rule exceptions. But only certain types of discard effects would be able to be played that way. Im using Mindsluge as an example
@ erabel That should sum up the confusion between everyone here and answer all questions.
erabel says... #2
'Tis an interesting bit of flavor, this.
I see the graveyard more as a realm of forgotten ideas (and by extension, exile as a realm of ideas not to be touched); it makes sense to be able to dig up a bit of forgotten memory, as long as it's somewhere accessible (say, a pile of discarded/milled cards) and you've got the means to access it (say, Reanimate ).
Cards ain't the creatures. They're the IDEAS of creatures. And you can give these ideas bodies as much as you want, even if they never got a chance to have one in the first place.
June 22, 2013 12:16 a.m.