Can noncreature permanents with activated abilities that refer to "this creature" activate those abilities?
Asked by Yesterday 6 years ago
Hey there.
Say you have a Thassa, God of the Sea on the battlefield as a creature, and cast Defiling Tears on it which resolves. Afterwards during the same turn, you lose devotion and Thassa is a noncreature Enchantment with ": Regenerate this creature."
Can that ability be activated? If so, does it accomplish anything if it resolves (and Thassa doesn't become a creature again during the same turn)?
Assuming it does, what would happen if you were to crank a Bee-Bee Gun targeting the creature Thassa and then activate that ability as a noncreature permanent with power and toughness?
(If it doesn't, then I'll ask the same question if it were to have the hypothetical ability ": This permanent fights target creature.")
Thanks in advance.
Thanks!
I'm a little confused on something, if somebody could clarify. Permanents don't have power and toughness if they're not creatures, even if the card has power and toughness written on the card? So a hypothetical spell with the effect "Exile all permanents with power 0 or greater" would neither exile a noncreature Thassa nor a vehicle that hasn't been animated?
January 4, 2018 2:30 p.m.
Tyrant-Thanatos says... #3
So, effects that say "this creature" or "this artifact" or "this whatever" mean "this object". The object doesn't need to be a creature/artifact/whatever, but in most cases it will be. As for the Bee-Bee Gun, Thassa would retain the ability, but as a non-creature she has no power or toughness. I believe you could still activate the ability, but it would fail to function.
And yes, even if the card has a printed power and toughness, permanents which are not creatures by definition have no power or toughness values.
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #1
The abilities can be activated, but whether or not they do anything depends on the specifics of the effect. The ability from Defiling Tears will be able to create a "regeneration shield" because the rules allow for any type of permanent to be regenerated. The ability from Bee-Bee Gun won't do anything, however, for two main reasons: only creatures have the P/T characteristic, and the full rules for the "fight" keyword action require both objects to be creatures.
Effects written with "this creature" just mean that the object is expected to be a creature under most circumstances. They don't strictly depend on the object remaining a creature unless some other part of the effect specifically says so (like "fight").
January 4, 2018 10:59 a.m.