Does copying Moritte of the Frost get stopped by the Legend Rule?
Asked by BlotBokt 1 year ago
I'm wondering if I have a copy of Moritte of the Frost on the battlefield just as a creature, and I have something that copies it, say, a Followed Footsteps or another clone effect, because I can have Moritte enter as something else, would I be able to copy another permanent I control without falling under the legend rule?
Rhadamanthus says... #2
BlotBokt: 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 this topic can move out of the list of unanswered questions. In the future you can take care of this yourself using the "Mark as Answer" button on the response that you feel best answers your question.
I try to avoid selecting my own responses when I do this, but in this case it was the only option.
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #1
If the original Moritte of the Frost didn't copy anything (and you're keeping it alive with a Gaea's Anthem or something), yes. If the original Moritte entered as a copy of something else, then no.
A key thing to know is that if something is a copy, the results of that copy effect will become the copiable values for that object if something else wants to copy it. This means, for example, if you use Clone to copy Runeclaw Bear, making another copy of that Clone will give you another Runeclaw Bear, not another Clone.
In your example, if Moritte didn't copy anything as it entered the battlefield, then its copiable values will still be all of its printed text, and any copies created by Followed Footsteps etc. can use the printed abilities to become copies of other things as they enter. However, if Moritte copied a Runeclaw Bear, then its copiable values are being a Runeclaw Bear that's a "Legendary Snow Creature - Bear" with changeling and base P/T 2/2 (having +1/+1 counters isn't copiable). Any copies of that will be the same thing, and you'll run into the legend rule since you'll end up with multiple legendary permanents with the same name.
March 13, 2023 5:13 p.m.