Commandeer on a spell without references

Asked by Delphen7 1 year ago

My opponent cast Temporal Mastery. I Commandeered on it. Who takes the extra turn?

The ruling that we found on Commandeer says this:

After Commandeer resolves, you control the targeted spell. Any instance of “you” in that spell’s text now refers to you, “an opponent” refers to one of your opponents, and so on. The change of control happens before new targets are chosen, so any targeting restrictions such as “target opponent” or “target creature you control” are now made in reference to you, not the spell’s original controller. You may either change those targets to be legal in reference to you, or, if those are the spell’s only targets, the spell doesn’t resolve for having illegal targets. When the spell resolves, any illegal targets are unaffected by it and you make all decisions the spell’s effect calls for. (2006-07-15)

The issue we ran into is it doesn't say how to resolve a spell that references no players, such as Temporal Mastery.

Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #1

You take the extra turn.

The key thing to know is that the text of a spell or ability is always talking to its controller. If you take control of Temporal Mastery while it's on the stack, it's talking to you now. That's what the ruling you found for Commandeer is saying, but it's not specifically necessary for the word "you" to appear in the text in order for the ruling to apply.

May 25, 2022 5:16 p.m.