Ownership on melded cards
Asked by wereotter 6 years ago
I'm looking for a precedent to determine how cards interact with Grusilda, Monster Masher when it comes to spells like Brand or effects like Homeward Path.
If I take a creature from my graveyard and a creature from an opponent's graveyard with Gruisila, who is considered the creature's owner? I'm hoping to find some rulings regarding something like I own Gisela, the Broken Blade and my opponent owns Bruna, the Fading Light and a Homeward Path effect is activated after they're merged into Brisela, Voice of Nightmares as some basis of how this applies. So far I've come up empty handed.
In black boarder that can't happen. There are 3 effects that can meld cards, all of which appear on one half of the meld combos. All 3 of them state "If both own and control" with respect to both creatures. For Silver border, I would say that the creature has two owners. As such an effect is trying to create two different control effects on a single creature with the same timestamp. As such the active player (whoever's turn it is) determines which order the timestamps are applied. In short, when a player activates Homeward Path, whoever's turn it is get's to decide which of the two owners gets the creature.
December 7, 2017 5:42 p.m.
Thanks for the clarification regarding why I couldn't find the precedent from the Eldritch Moon meld cards, I missed that I have to own them both.
The two controllers things might be correct, but here's my other wonder, the singular creature enters already melded as one entity. So I would almost come to expect that the same ruling would apply to ownership as does with creature tokens. The creature entered the battlefield under my control initially, so I would own the melded creature?
December 7, 2017 6:04 p.m.
Tyrant-Thanatos says... #4
It's not a token though, it's a creature that consists of two cards, each of which are owned by different players. When you cast Rise from the Grave on an opponent's creature card you do not become the owner of that card.
December 7, 2017 6:52 p.m.
This I'm aware of. But with your example you're only taking one creature with one clearly defined owner and putting it into play. In this case you're taking two creatures with two different owners and putting them into play. So the question becomes who owns it when it needs to return to its owner?
The more I think about what Neotrup stated, I don't know that it can have two triggers from Homeward Path as it's treated as only one object making not possible to have the trigger to return to me and return to my opponent separately.
December 7, 2017 7:07 p.m.
Tyrant-Thanatos says... #6
Well, I'll put it this way, if you Unsummon a mashed monster, each card would go to its respective owner's hands, would they not?
110.2. A permanents owner is the same as the owner of the card that represents it (unless its a token; see rule 110.5a). A permanents controller is, by default, the player under whose control it entered the battlefield. Every permanent has a controller.
In this case we have one permanent which is represented by two cards. Tokens are the only exception to this. There's absolutely nothing in the rules to support the idea that the owner would be the person who activated Grusilda. Either the creature has two owners, or no owner. Even the idea of having no owner is a huge stretch imo.
December 7, 2017 7:20 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #7
It's impossible to change ownership of a card outside of the Ante-related cards and rules that specifically say they do. A creature combined from cards owned by two different players will have two owners. This isn't addressed anywhere in the Comprehensive Rules because the normal rules of the game make it impossible to construct an example of an object with multiple owners (even with the Ante cards).
In Un-land, I think it would be fun to say both players control the creature after activating Homeward Path. It will untap during each player's untap step and either can use it to attack/block. If it has any activated or triggered abilities then you can use the normal rules regarding AP/NAP/turn-order placement to determine who currently has precedence for being able to activate the ability or to determine who currently controls and makes decisions for the trigger.
December 8, 2017 10:08 a.m.
In the spirit of the rules bending an un-set card provides, I think I like this as the most fair and correct solution to the card until I can find something more official. Additionally it would fill the requirement of ownership considering the permanent has two owners.
December 8, 2017 2 p.m.
Tyrant-Thanatos says... #9
Agreed. If anything I'm surprised Maro didn't address this in his FAQAWASLFAQPAFTIDAWABIAJTBT. In fact I'd say he addressed very little, almost nothing, on Grusilda, Monster Masher given her game-breaking potential.
December 8, 2017 2:11 p.m.
I sent him a query to his blogatog, no response :(
I'll check in with the judge at my LGS when I go play next to see if he has any more insight to share, and can post it if he does.
December 8, 2017 5:09 p.m.
So in case any of you still care, and not that it adds a whole lot, but I was able to ask a judge about this situation at my local game store last night. He told me that the trigger and her ability together break the game, and it's not possible to resolve the Homeward Path trigger at all on creatures she creates if they're from different graveyards.
So at that point it's up to each group as to how they want to handle it, but he said for simplicity's sake for playing there, I would just keep the creatures she made as the trigger couldn't resolve. But he did say shared control of creatures is also a viable solution if that's how everyone at the table wanted to handle it, but also warned it could create a lot more added confusion, especially as the creature at that point might not be able to attack either of its controllers.
December 19, 2017 9:33 p.m.
We now have an official answer on this, basically flip a coin:
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/168574496763/if-grusilda-mashes-up-a-creature-i-own-and-a
December 20, 2017 2:09 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #13
I know he's the final authority on these things and I'll try to remember the ruling if it ever comes up (it won't), but I'm still kind of annoyed that his solution is "make up a new unprinted rule that has nothing to do with anything".
wereotter says... #1
Edit for clarification on the example. This assumes I've used some sort of Threaten or Mind Control effect to take his Bruna allowing them to meld.
December 7, 2017 5:35 p.m. Edited.