Nightmare sheperd interaction with "animated" lands
Asked by pedroedmarcos 3 years ago
Hey there.
So, my question is about some fun interactions with Nightmare Shepherd. By many ways we can make our lands become creatures temporarily, but what happen if the land-creature is killed with Nightmare shepherd on the field ? Can I exile a land to get a Nightmare land creature ? If It was only a temporary land creature, it will go back to being a land ?
Rhadamanthus says... #2
You can exile the land card after it dies, but the copy will just be a land (not a creature).
A copy effect only copies a card's "copiable values". Usually this is just what's written on the original card, but a card's copiable values can also be affected by other copy effects, being face down, or being part of a Mutate pile. For example, if you used Animate Land to turn a Forest into a creature, the token copy created by Nightmare Shepherd's ability will just be a regular Forest.
May 11, 2020 4:08 p.m.
Tylord2894 says... #4
No, something can't have a subtype if that subtype doesn't pertain to its type(s). In other words, Nightmare is a creature type, not a land type, so a regular land can't have the Nightmare subtype as its only a land.
In this interaction, if you reanimate the land, it will still not be a Nightmare. This has to do with the layer system that Magic uses. I won't go into detail unless you'd like, but the short of it is that the effect from Nightmare Shepherd that tries to make the animated land a Nightmare applies and fails before the effect that makes the land animated into a creature. If you want to learn more about the layer in Magic, I'd gladly help or your can read them in the Comp. Rules, here (layers start in 613.1).
Tylord2894 says... Accepted answer #1
Yes, you can exile an animated land (like Shambling Vent) to make a token with Nightmare Shepherd; however, the token will not be a creature. It will just be a token copy of that land. You can activate its animation ability to make it a creature, though.
The reason for this is that the trigger from the Shepherd doesn't look to see what the creature turns into in the graveyard. Rather, it just checks if it was a creature when it left the battlefield. When you activate the animate ability of an animating land, it doesn't affect that land's "copiable values", the things that clone effects see, so the Shepherd trigger will make a copy of that land as just a land.
Hope this helps!!
May 11, 2020 4:04 p.m.