Nezahal, Primal Tide

Asked by TheGodofNight 6 years ago

A friend of mine, with whom I play some kitchen table magic and I were having a discussion about Nezahal, Primal Tide. He was under the impression that he could discard the card to hand size, and then at the end of my turn, discard three cards to activate Nezahal, Primal Tide last ability, to exile it from his graveyard and return it to the battlefield. I explained that this is an activated ability that requires it to be on the battlefield to be "activated." He disagreed with my assessment and wanted to see a ruling explaining that. Can someone link to the rules explaining that this action he is trying to use is illegal? Or if I am wrong, please link me to the rulings that support that he is correct. Thanks in advance.

Regards.

ClockworkSwordfish says... Accepted answer #1

You're absolutely right, he can't activate the ability while Nezahal is in the graveyard. As stated in Rule 112.6: "Abilities of an instant or sorcery spell usually function only while that object is on the stack. Abilities of all other objects usually function only while that object is on the battlefield." To clarify, Rule 112.6k adds "An ability whose cost or effect specifies that it moves the object its on out of a particular zone functions only in that zone, unless that abilitys trigger condition, or a previous part of that abilitys cost or effect, specifies that the object is put into that zone."

So as an example, consider Reassembling Skeleton. You can return it from the graveyard to play because his ability says "Return Reassembling Skeleton from your graveyard to the battlefield." Obviously this ability can only be played from the graveyard, since it specified. You couldn't use that ability if the Skeleton is in your hand or library. Likewise, since Nezahal's ability doesn't specify that you can play it anywhere other than the default (the battlefield,) then you can only activate it while he's in play.

May 6, 2018 6:06 p.m.