Animate Dead (new wording issue)

Asked by scholar 13 years ago

The new wording on Animate Dead from Premium Deck Series: Graveborn has me really, I mean REALLY, confused. In all honesty, the older wordings made so much more sense.

The new wording is as follows:

Enchant creature card in a graveyard

When Animate Dead enters the battlefield, if it's on the battlefield, it loses "enchant creature card in a graveyard" and gains "enchant creature put onto the battlefield with Animate Dead." Return enchanted creature card to the battlefield under your control and attach Animate Dead to it. When Animate Dead leaves the battlefield, that creature's controller sacrifices it.

Enchanted creature gets -1/-0.

The first thing the card tells you is: "Enchant creature card in a graveyard". With that being said, is the card literally telling you to place place this very card in your graveyard attached to a creature? I mean if you play Animate Dead and place it directly onto the battlefield, it never had a chance to enchant any creature, according to the new wording.

Ahhh! Can someone please help clear this up for me?

Thanks so much in advance.

burkek says... #1

It does the exact same thing it did with the old wording. It just doesn't fall off when the creature comes into play.

February 22, 2012 4:34 p.m.

Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #2

When an aura spell resolves, it enters the battlefield, no exceptions. Though almost all auras only attach to other objects also on the battlefield, there's nothing that says they have to. For example, "enchant player" auras are attached to an object that isn't in any zone, and Spellweaver Volute sets a precedent for being attached to an object in the graveyard.

When Animate Dead first resolves, it enters the battlefield attached to a creature card in a graveyard. Then, it has an ETB triggered ability. As that resolves, the creature card gets moved to the battlefield, and Animate Dead has to change its own abilities so that it's allowed to be attached to the creature it brought back.

February 22, 2012 4:44 p.m.

Rhadamanthus says... #3

I forgot to answer part of the question. The reason Animate Dead is worded like this now is because except for the 5th Edition printing, every version of the card has been an aura (previously known as a "local enchantment"), and revising it to be an aura again restores this functionality. There are several cards in the game that care specifically about auras, and now Animate Dead interacts with them again.

February 22, 2012 4:49 p.m.

scholar says... #4

@Rhadamanthus, thanks for the awesome explanation, it is quite clear now! One thing though, couldn't the oracle wording just fix the fifth edition printing, restoring it to aura status?

February 22, 2012 6:32 p.m.

Rhadamanthus says... #5

That's exactly what this update did. The reason the rewrite looks the way it does is because "enchant dead creature" doesn't mean anything in the current version of the rules, and making Animate Dead work this way is the only way to make it work at all as an aura card.

February 22, 2012 8:59 p.m.