Can the once per turn effect on Well Rested reset if you "change" Volrath, the Shapestealer with its activated ability?

Asked by Ev1_ 5 days ago

From the rules: "If Volrath copies a creature with an ability that can be activated only once each turn (such as Chainer, Nightmare Adept), you can activate that ability once. If Volrath then becomes a copy of that same creature, you can activate that ability another time, and so on."

Since Well Rested is granting the ability, will it see Volrath as the same creature and not trigger, or will Volrath become a "new" permanent and reset the once per turn clause?

Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #1

No, that doesn't work, for different reasons depending on the specific situation.

If Volrath, the Shapestealer is the one enchanted by Well Rested, then Well Rested's ability-granting effect is applied on top of the results of Volrath's copy effect. Volrath didn't gain a new instance of the Well Rested ability, so it won't trigger again if it already has this turn.

If the creature Volrath is copying is enchanted by Well Rested, then the ability from Well Rested won't be copied at all. Copy effects only copy an object's "copiable characteristics". For cards, the copiable characteristics are whatever's printed on the card. For tokens, the copiable characteristics are whatever characteristics the token was created with. There are a few other considerations in the detailed rules needed to make certain mechanics work properly, but none of those apply to this example. The ability granted by Well Rested isn't a copiable characteristic of the creature it's enchanting, so Volrath won't get it.

With regards to the ruling you found: When a copy effect is applied to an object, the copiable characteristics overwrite whatever characteristics the object already has, minus any specific exceptions given (like in Volrath's case, it specifically keeps P/T and the copy ability). This means if an object becomes a copy of something, any abilities it gains from the copying process are different abilities from what it had before, even if it was previously a copy of that same thing. However, in this example, Volrath's copy effect isn't causing it to gain the Well Rested ability.

August 7, 2025 11:02 a.m.