Cipher question
Asked by DancesWithGoblins 12 years ago
The text on Call of the Nightwing says that when the encoded creature does combat damage you may cast a COPY of that spell. That suggests to me that the copy would include the cipher that's on the original. Am I correct?
Nope. Cards you encode onto a creature get exiled, and then copies of the exiled card are cast. And since you need to exile a card when order to use cipher, the exiled copy would cease to exist, and therefore be incapable of making more copies.
I'll try to simplify it.
The original has to exist and have an encoded creature in order to make copies. The copy works like a token, so when you exile it, it disappears and can't make more copies.
May 1, 2013 1:10 p.m.
@aavb132: that's slightly incorrect. You can't cipher not because the copied spell functions as a token, but because the copied spell isn't a card. It's like how Progenitor Mimic 's token copies have the "if this isn't a token, create a token copy" line on them, it just doesn't function because they're not cards.
Absinthman says... Accepted answer #1
You are correct that the copy includes the cipher ability. You can't use it though, because the cipher ability states "you may exile this spell card". This basically means "if this spell is represented by a card, you may exile it". When you copy the spell, it is not a card, it's just a copy. Therefore, you are not allowed to encode it again.
May 1, 2013 1:06 p.m.