The inner workings of Shroud
Asked by r378u11 13 years ago
So, my friend had several artifacts with Burden of Guilt on them. Suddenly he plays Indomitable Archangel. Does the Burden of Guilt fall off because they now have shroud?
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #2
There are some very old cards that can be read to imply that auras continuously target, but that's not how they work. An aura would only fall off if the object it's attached to gains protection from a characteristic of the aura, or if the object became otherwise illegal for the aura to attach to (if a creature wearing Entangling Vines became untapped, for example).
April 2, 2012 9:36 p.m.
Something that helps me personally with understanding things is to make analogies so here's my attempt at one such analogy for shroud: Imagine yourself. You're clean and healthy. A virus comes along. You have a suit to protect you from viruses. You get the virus before you were able to put on the suit. The suit is now useless as a barrier because the attacker is behind the barrier. In this case, the enchantment was already on the creature before you put your barrier on it (the angel).
If the analogies don't work I have taught myself to look at MTG rules quite literally in the exact way it is spelled out and worded. In this case: I enchanted your creature. Your creature is now enchanted. The angel gives it shroud, which makes it untargetable. Is the enchantment now targeting anything? No, it is simply attached to the creature but is literally targeting nothing as it sits there as a permanent. Therefore, the shroud is too late.
And finally, the only way that enchantment would "fall off" as you said is if the enchantment was destroyed by any means, exiled, or if a card swapped it to another creature. I hope I wasn't off-topic. :3
GoblinsInc says... #1
No. An aura only targets while it is a spell (cast from the hand, and on the stack). Once it resolves and is on the battlefield and attached to a creature it no longer targets. Giving a creature shroud will not remove the aura.
If you bring an aura into play other than by casting it (perhaps by replenish) it also will not target (the aura itself is not a spell here) and can be attached to a shrouded creature as it enters the field
April 2, 2012 9 p.m.