Olivia Voldaren and Olivia, Mobilized for War at the same time on the battlefield?
Asked by Bantha1342 7 years ago
I know this has been asked several times, but I keep getting conflicting answers from the forums and also from opponents at FNM, so I just need clarification once and for all. Maybe the rules differ depending o he format, but I am referring to those which apply to EDH Commander.I have a tribal vampire deck I am playing and using Olivia Voldaren as my commander (General). I also have Olivia, Mobilized for War as a creature in my library. I understand the rule concerning not being able to use two planeswalkers with the same name at the same time, but that is a different rule. My understanding is that the "legends Rule" does not apply to creatures with different card titles and I would be able to have Olivia Voldaren and Olivia, Mobilized for War on the battlefield at the same time? Again, I know this question has been asked before, but I keep finding contradicting answers in the forums and the internet. Any clarification would be appreciated. Thanks
*Olivia, Mobilized for War card is creature card in all zones, it's creature only in battlefield and creature spell only on stack.
Then to the actual question. "Legend rule" aka 704.5k says: "If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners graveyards. This is called the legend rule." Then we need to know what is name of card and how to compare whether they are same or not.
201.1 tells us: "The name of a card is printed on its upper left corner." and 201.2a tells us: "Two objects have the same name if their names are identical." and else comes from 201.2c: "Two or more objects have different names if there are no names that both objects have in common."
That should be enough rules to solve the problem. Let's look at upper left corner. There we can see "Olivia Voldaren" as a name of Olivia Voldaren and "Olivia, Mobilized for War" as a name of Olivia, Mobilized for War. "Olivia Voldaren" is different string of characters than "Olivia, Mobilized for War". They are only names of those cards so they fulfill condition for 201.2c, which means they have different names.704.5k checks for same name so it does not hit Olivia Voldaren and Olivia, Mobilized for War.
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #1
You can have both on the battlefield at the same time.
The "Planeswalker Uniqueness Rule" and the "Legend Rule" work differently from each other. The Planeswalker rule is based on subtype and the Legend rule is based on the name of the card. Olivia Voldaren and Olivia, Mobilized for War don't have the exact same English name, so that means the Legend rule won't apply if they're both on the battlefield at the same time.
July 20, 2017 10:27 a.m.