Do triggers that refer to their own card separately effect each card that makes up a mutated creature?
Asked by Yesterday 4 years ago
I control a God-Eternal Bontu and have mutated a Dirge Bat under it. That creature dies and is put to the graveyard. Bontu's second triggered ability goes on the stack for the creature.
I can choose to leave both creature cards in my graveyard. I can choose to put both creature cards into my library, in either order, starting third from the top.
Now, is there one triggered ability that applies to each creature cards that made up the mutated creature (in which case, the above two choices are my only option)?
Or, once the creature cards separate, do I get different triggers for each card — or, is there some other way of having the option of moving one of the cards into my library, and leaving another in my graveyard?
I figure it's probably the former, but I haven't found anything solid yet. I've also bothered MaRo on his blog but it's almost as though he's a busy guy or something.
Rhadamanthus says... #2
There's only one trigger, but I think whether you can only put Bontu back in the library or the entire pile still needs to be cleared up.
"Dies" triggers and other leaves-the-battlefield triggers use information from the moment the object was last on the battlefield to determine if and how they trigger. At the last moment your merged creature was on the battlefield, it was only one creature. This is backed up by the following statement from the release notes: "If a merged creature leaves the battlefield, one object leaves the battlefield and each card is put into the appropriate zone. For example, if a merged creature containing three cards dies, one creature died and three cards were put into a player's graveyard."
As the rules stand right now, a zone-change trigger from an object in one zone can find the object it becomes in the zone it moved to. I feel like we still need more clarification to know whether Bontu's ability can only find the single Bontu object in the graveyard or all of the objects that the merged creature became after it died.
April 14, 2020 9:18 p.m.
Tylord2894 says... Accepted answer #3
Ok, a question like this got brought up in one of my judge chats. They got clarifications for Eli Shiffrin (rules manager at WotC). When a mutation pile has an ability that says something like "when [this creature] dies", there is a single trigger; however, the effects from that trigger apply to all the creatures that were in the mutation pile.
So for the example here, when the proposed creature pile dies, there is one trigger. You may choose to put the whole pile third from the top (i.e. there will be two cards then the pile) or you don't put the pile on top. You get to choose the order in which the cards get put into your library.
There are some notable exceptions. Any creatures that didn't stay in the graveyard don't return. This might be either because they never reached the grave like Blightsteel Colossus or because they moved due to an effect like Scavenging Ooze.
Lastly, this is only for triggers on a creature that references its own death. There are more exceptions for other death triggers like Nightmare Shepherd. Since that is not what this thread is about, I will not go into those.
Hope this helps clear things up.
Tylord2894 says... #1
So, the new comp. rules aren't out, and there is frustratingly little on this topic in the release notes. Take my ruling with a grain of salt.
From my understanding, there is a separate trigger for each part of a mutate creature pile. So for the example above, you would get two triggers. For both of those triggers, you get to decide if you want to put that card into your library.
I also would caution asking MaRo. He is the lead designer for Magic, yes, but he is not the rules-smith and has got things about new rules incorrect in the past (this was told to me by follow, more senior judges). If this isn't a super pressing issue, I would just want until the new CR is out.
April 14, 2020 10:35 a.m.