Do Luminous Broodmoth and Mystic Decree work together
Asked by Doniumbra 4 years ago
Just wondering if this in an interaction that checks out.
Rhadamanthus says... #2
Doniumbra: An answer to your question has been up for a while. Since there don't seem to be any follow-ups or corrections to be made, I marked it as the "Accepted answer" so that this topic can move out of the list of unanswered questions. Please remember to take care of this yourself in the future.
Tylord2894 says... Accepted answer #1
There isn't a clear cut yes/no answer for your question, so I'll talk through an example that will cover most of the cases that could arise.
Let's say you have a Luminous Broodmoth out when your Hill Giant dies. It will come back with a Flying counter. Now, you play Mystic Decree then Wrath of God. The Moth will trigger both for itself and the reanimated Giant because they lost flying due to the Decree. Both will come back with flying counters. Now, the reanimated creatures will still have flying. When determining the characteristics of a permanent, the game uses a system of layers. Both of these effects are applied in Layer 6. Most of the time, we will use "timestamp" (chronological) order to determine how these effects will interact. That is what we will be doing here.
When the original reanimated Giant with a Flying counter was out with the Decree, it didn't have flying. Let's walk through what goes on in Layer 6 for the Giant. The card didn't have any effects to start and then got Flying from its counter. Then the Decree takes Flying away. That's the last of the effects, so the Giant doesn't have Flying. This is similar to what happens to the Moth.
Now, after both creatures get reanimated, what happens in Layer 6? Let's take the Moth as our example this time. The Moth starts out with the abilities printed on its card (so it has Flying). Since Decree was out before the Moth got a counter, the effect from Decree will apply next. The Moth then loses Flying and then gets Flying again from its counter. In the end, the Moth and Giant both have Flying. So, the Moth won't trigger when either creature dies.
There are a couple of things that I want to point out that don't directly pertain to the question at hand. Effects like Mystic Decree are very different from something like Archetype of Imagination's "can't" ability. Second, if you're somewhat familiar with layers, you might think that this is a dependency question. It is not, though. The Decree effect is applied to all creatures, not just the ones with Flying. It would have to say something like "All creatures with Flying lose Flying" in order for this to form a dependency. In that case, the answer to your question would be very different.
To recap, any creatures with flying due to an effect will lose Flying once Decree hits the table. Anything that gains Flying through an effect after Decree is out will have Flying.
Hope this helps!!
August 19, 2020 10:27 a.m.