Q: Does the cost of my spell get reduced by if it has both of the appropriate types? A: No. Each Banneret will ask each spell you cast "Are you a ____ or a ____?". If it gets a "yes" back, it reduces the cost by . If it hears a "no", it doesn't. It's just that simple. The Bannerets do not care whether your spells have both types or only one--the cost reduction will be the same regardless: just .
Q: Will having multiple Bannerets increase the total reduction? A: Yes. Each individual Banneret will only reduce the cost of a given spell by , but each Banneret functions independently of the others, so the first will reduce it by , the second by another , the third by another , and so on.
Q: Will a Banneret reduce what I pay when using Prowl or Evoke costs of cards with the appropriate types? A: Yes. Prowl and Evoke are both simply alternate costs you can pay when casting the spell, and the Bannerets reduce the total cost of casting the spell, no matter whether you're paying the mana cost or some alternate cost instead.
Q: Will a Banneret reduce what I pay when using Reinforce? A: No. Reinforce is an activated ability of the card, not an alternate cost to cast it like Prowl or Evoke.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
Q: What does Painter's Servant affect? A: All permanents, all spells, and all cards in any player's library, hand, or graveyard, plus all cards that have been exiled. (And any ante cards, but nobody plays for ante any more, so we'll ignore that.)
Yes, it does affect lands. (Lands are permanents.) No, it does not affect cards in your sideboard. (The sideboard is not a game zone.)
Q: If I use Grindstone with a Painter's Servant out, what happens? A: Since Painter's Servant ensures that any cards you mill with Grindstone will always share a color with each other, the entire library will be milled.
Cards like Darksteel Colossus that replace going to the graveyard with going somewhere else instead will do so as they are milled, before you continue with the rest of the milling. If there are multiple such cards in the deck that put themselves back into the library, eventually they'll be the only cards left, and the Grindstone will simply repeatedly mill them over and over in an unending loop, unable to stop. The game ends in a draw.
Cards like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Purity with triggered abilities that cause them to do something when they get milled will wait until after Grindstone's effect has fully finished resolving, and only do whatever they say they do after that's finished. Such cards will not cause a loop like the previous case.
Q: How does Painter's Servant affect colorless things? A: They become the color chosen for the Painter. Since they now have a color, they are no longer colorless.
Q: What happens if there are multiple Painter's Servants? A: The two are cumulative. The first grants the color chosen for it, and the second grants the color chosen for it, so everything is both of those colors in addition to whatever they were before.
Q: What happens when Painter's Servant leaves the battlefield? A: Its ability stops working and everything returns to normal; just like any ability of a permanent card, it only works while the card it's on is on the battlefield unless it says otherwise or could only logically work somewhere else.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
Q: What triggers Flourishing Defenses? A: Whenever one or more -1/-1 counters is placed on a creature, Flourishing Defenses will trigger once for each counter, and will put that many 1/1 green Elf Warrior creature tokens onto the battlefield.
Note: This includes both things like Gnarled Effigy that put counters on things already on the battlefield, and things that cause creatures to enter the battlefield with -1/-1 counters on them, like, say, Chainbreaker 's first ability.
Q: How does Flourishing Defenses interact with Blowfly Infestation ... A: Whew...yeah, that's a complicated one, I'm afraid; the answer changes (a lot) depending on who controls each, what is on the board and whose turn it is.
Let's assume that a -1/-1 counter was just put onto something, killing it. This triggers both the Defenses and the Infestation There are five possible situations here:
The same player controls both the Infestation and the Defenses and there's no creatures on the battlefield that the Infestation's ability would kill.
The same player controls both the Infestation and the Defenses and there's at least one creature already on the battlefield that the Infestation's ability would kill.
The Infestation and Defenses are controlled by different players and it's the turn of the player who controls the Defenses.
The Infestation and Defenses are controlled by different players, it's the Infestation player's turn, and all the creatures already on the battlefield that the Infestation could target would be killed by the counter. (Or there are none.)
The Infestation and Defenses are controlled by different players, it's the Infestation player's turn, and there's at least one creature already on the battlefield that the Infestation could target, but which wouldn't be killed by the counter.
If it's a multiplayer game and it's some other player's turn who controls neither the Infestation nor the Defenses, follow the normal turn order around the table from whoever is taking their turn. If you come to the Defenses player first, you want #3. If you would come to the Infestation player first, you want #4 or #5, whichever is appropriate.
We'll cover these cases in order below.
Q: ...if you control both the Infestation and Defenses, and there's no creatures on the battlefield that the Infestation's ability would kill? A: Wonderful simplicity! You have to choose a target for the Infestation's ability as you place the ability on the stack, so that means that you can't possibly target the Elf token that the Defenses is about to put onto the battlefield. (Because it's not on the battlefield yet.) Thus, you are forced to target something that won't be killed by the Infestation.
No matter which order you put the two triggers onto the stack, you'll get two Elf tokens out of the deal, and nothing more will happen. (The Infestation's ability triggers the Defenses a second time.)
Q: ...if you control both the Infestation and the Defenses and there's at least one creature already on the battlefield that the Infestation's ability would kill? A: As above, you have to choose a target for the Infestation's ability as the ability is put onto the stack. However, in this case there's another creature around that can be killed by the Infestation, and thus a means to continue the loop. And since the same player controls both the Infestation and the Defenses and they trigger at the same time, that player can choose in what order to put the two triggers on the stack relative to each other, and thus in which order they resolve.
If (A) you have the Defenses trigger resolve first, the Elf will enter the battlefield before the Infestation trigger kills its target. This retriggers both enchantments, and you're right back where you started.
If (B) you have the Infestation trigger resolve first, the counter is put on the creature and both enchantments retrigger before the Defenses can put a new token onto the battlefield. Thus, you're back where you started, only with one fewer creature on the battlefield and a Defenses trigger lurking in the background waiting for you to finish so it can give you a token.
With each iteration you choose again how to stack the triggers, and the process keeps going until you run out of creatures and either can't put a counter on anything or have to put it on something that will survive it.
In the end, you get one token for each time you chose B.
Q: ...if the Infestation and Defenses are controlled by different players and it's the Defenses player's turn? A: Since the Defenses and Infestation's triggers are controlled by different players and they trigger at the same time, the order in which they are put onto the stack changes depending on whose turn it is. The trigger belonging to the player whose turn it is will be put onto the stack first, and then the trigger(s) belonging to each other player in turn order will be placed on top of it. The stack resolves from the top down, so, because the Defenses' player's trigger is put onto the stack before the Infestation player's trigger, it will resolve second.
The Infestation player's trigger resolves first and puts a -1/-1 counter on the targeted creature before the token from the Defenses can enter the battlefield. If this kills the creature, you're right back where you started, only there's a Defenses trigger lurking in the background waiting to resolve.
End result: The Infestation player can use Blowfly Infestation to kill any number of 1-toughness creatures that were already on the battlefield, then must put a -1/-1 counter on something else if possible. Then, for each counter that was put onto something during this process, the Defenses player gets a new 1/1 Elf.
Q: ...if the Infestation and Defenses are controlled by different players, and all the creatures already on the battlefield that the Infestation could target would be killed by the counter. (Or there are none.) A: In this case, the Defenses' trigger resolves first, so a new Elf is put onto the battlefield before a -1/-1 counter is put on the thing that was targeted; this means that if the thing that was targeted was 1-toughness, it will die and look! There's a shiny new Elf you can target with the Infestation!
In this situation, because the Infestation player has no choice but to continue targeting and killing things (the Infestation's ability is not optional), the game will loop until the Defenses player chooses to stop putting Elves onto the battlefield in order to break the loop. (He or she must do this.)
End result: The Infestation kills all the targetable creatures that were already on the battlefield and as many 1/1 Elf tokens as the Defenses player wants. Then the Infestation player runs out of creatures to target, and the Defenses player ends up with a maximum of one lonely 1/1 Elf Warrior creature token from the final Defenses trigger.
Q: ...if the Infestation and Defenses are controlled by different players, it's the Infestation player's turn, and there's at least one creature already on the battlefield that the Infestation could target, but which wouldn't be killed by the counter? A: Last and most involuted: if there are other creatures on the battlefield for the Infestation player to target, we're in a situation where the game is caught in a loop and each player has the option of discontinuing the loop. The game has special rules for handling this kind of situation, since both players want to "have the last word" and thus would not normally choose to end things.
So, this is how it will work: the Infestation player (the one whose turn it is), chooses a number of times to continue the loop. Then the Defenses player can choose to do it that number of times, in which case the Defenses player "has the last word" and puts a token onto the battlefield while the Infestation player puts a counter on something else. Or he or she can do it fewer times, in which case the Infestation player "has the last word" and the Defenses player doesn't put an Elf token onto the battlefield. (This is important if there's something like Essence Warden on the battlefield.)
So if the Defenses player doesn't mind having the loop repeat as many times as the Infestation player wants, he or she will end up with one more creature than he or she had before the loop started--whatever creatures the Infestation player didn't kill, with the rest of the number being made up by 1/1 Elf Warrior tokens. If he or she doesn't want the loop to continue that many times, however, then the Infestation player gets the last word and the answer is the same as when there aren't other targetable creatures on the battlefield.
Q: What happens with the Defenses and Infestaton if there are multiple Defenses or Infestations on the battlefield? Or, or, or, or...? A: This FAQ is extensive, but unfortunately we can't cover everything (or at least not without boring you to tears), so if you happen to encounter some more complicated situation, you'll have to ask about it in Rules Q&A if you want to get an answer.
If you're asking more in order to try to gain some insight into how the underlying game mechanics work, you may want to check out the Triggered Abilities section of the main FAQ.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
Q: What happens if you control two or more Empyrial Archangels? A: If you control two or more Archangels and damage would be dealt to you, you choose one of the Archangels, and all the damage is dealt to that one.
Note that all the damage that's being dealt at the same time has to go to the same Archangel; you can't split up a single "chunk" of damage between them.
Q: How does Empyrial Archangel interact with Wither, Deathtouch, Lifelink, or similar abilities? A: Empyrial Archangel changes where the damage that would normally be dealt to you goes, but it doesn't change where it's coming from. Damage that is redirected to the Angel from you is still being dealt by the same source, so all of those things work as normal.
Q: How does Empyrial Archangel interact with other things that redirect or prevent damage? A: If two or more replacement or prevention effects would apply to an event (in this case, an attempt to damage you), the affected player (you) decides in what order they're applied. (And if the later ones find that the event they were going to replace is no longer happening, they don't happen at all.)
So, for example, if you control a Battletide Alchemist , you can choose to use its effect to prevent some of the damage before you redirect it to the Angel.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
Q: How many creatures do I have to sacrifice to activate the ability? A: Three; one of each color. You must choose one creature that's the first color, a second that's the second color, and a third that's the third color, then sacrifice them all.
You cannot sacrifice just one creature that's all three colors to meet the requirement. The ability isn't asking you to sacrifice any number of creatures as long as each color is represented. It's asking you to sacrifice three creatures, so you have to sacrifice three.
Q: If I have the card that the Herald is looking for in my hand, can I still put it onto the battlefield? A: No. It has to come from your library or not at all.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
Q: Lush Growth says that it turns the land it's on into a Mountain, a Forest, and a Plains. Does this mean it taps for three mana? A: No. You can only tap it for one mana at a time. That mana may be red, green, or white, but it's still only one.
Q: Why not? A: This may require a little background information. The reason that you can tap basic lands for mana is because they have an activated ability that allows you to do so. A Forest, for example, has the ability ": Add to your mana pool." (Just like Llanowar Elves .) The reason they have this ability even though it's not printed on the card is because they have a basic land type; the five basic land types (Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest) each come with an activated ability that allows you to tap the card for the appropriate color of mana, and giving something one of these land types will also grant it the appropriate ability.
It's important to understand that these abilities don't produce mana automatically. You have to specifically activate an activated ability in order to get its effects--in order to activate that particular ability, you must pay its costs. And you can't use the same cost-payment to pay for multiple abilities at once, for the same reason you can't use the same dollar in more than one vending machine.
So, Lush Growth turns the land it's on into a Mountain, a Forest, and a Plains. That gives it three separate mana-production abilities:
: Add to your mana pool. : Add to your mana pool. : Add to your mana pool.
If you want to activate one of these abilities, you have to pay its cost. (ie, Tap the land.) You then get the effect of the ability and get one mana. But the land is now tapped, so you can't possibly pay the cost of the other abilities to get more mana.
Q: Does the land still have its normal abilities and types? A: No. When you give something a basic land type and don't specifically say that it's in addition to what was already there, that automatically removes all of its existing types and all of the abilities that are granted to it by its normal rules text.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
Q: Is Progenitus protected from {card}? A: Technically, yes. "Protection from everything" includes...well, every thing.
However, it's very likely that that doesn't mean what you think it means. Protection, in Magic, has a very specific definition and only stops certain very specific kinds of actions. Thus, "protection from everything" does not mean that that Progenitus can't be affected by things. Read on for an explanation.
Q: So what does protection from everything do? A: If you read the FAQ entry on Protection, you'll find that protection only stops four very specific things. Progenitus is protected in this manner from every object in the game. Effectively, this means that:
If Damage would be dealt to Progenitus, prevent it.
Progenitus can't be Enchanted or Equipped.
Progenitus can't be Blocked.
Progenitus can't be Targeted.
That's it. Everything that doesn't do one of those four things, like Wrath of God , works just fine on Progenitus.
Q: Is Progenitus protected while it's not on the battlefield? A: No. Protection, even protection from everything, doesn't function when the card it's on isn't on the battlefield. No ability does unless it either says so or could only work from somewhere else.
Q: If Progenitus is going to my graveyard, can I do something with it while it's there before it gets shuffled into my library? A: No, because it never gets put into the graveyard in the first place. Progenitus's second ability is a replacement ability; it replaces going to the graveyard with getting revealed and being shuffled into its owner's library. It never actually gets to the graveyard.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
Q: I can use Clone on a creature with Shroud or Protection, so could I also use Rite of Replication on it? A: No. Clone can copy creatures with shroud or protection from it because it doesn't target them. Rite of Replication on the other hand, does need to target the creature it's going to copy. It can't target creatures with shroud or protection from it, and thus can't copy them.
Q: Does Rite of Replication copy the effects of counters, Auras, Equipment, or any spells and abilities that may be affecting its target? A: No. The only thing that copy effects will see, and thus copy, are the card (or token) itself, plus other copy effects.
Q: What happens if I use a kicked Rite of Replication to get five copies of [my/my opponent's] Turntimber Ranger , Hagra Diabolist , or similar Ally? A: Each token sees itself and the others entering the battlefield, and thus will trigger five times, once for each. Each of your other Allies with similar triggers (if any) will trigger five times. So there will be 25 triggers total from the tokens, plus 5 more from each Ally you already controlled.
If one of these effects counts the number of Allies you control, it counts the number you control as the ability resolves, so every trigger will see all five tokens sitting on the battlefield. (Assuming your opponent doesn't remove them or something before the triggers resolve.)
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
Q: What is an activated ability? What kind of abilities does the Ooze gain? A: An activated ability is an ability that you can activate whenever you like by paying a cost in order to get an particular effect. You can recognize an activated ability because it will have a colon in it that separates its costs (what you must pay in order to use the ability) from its effects (what happens when the ability resolves). If there isn't a colon, it isn't an activated ability.
Note that some abilities, like those on Drowner Initiate or Frenzied Goblin , may have you pay a cost in order to do something, yet still not be activated abilities. (You can tell because they don't use a colon.) These are triggered abilities, not activated ones, and the Ooze won't get them. (Triggered abilities are easy to recognize because they always start with the words 'when', 'whenever', or 'at'.)
Q: Does Necrotic Ooze have the activated abilities of creatures in graveyards while it's not on the battlefield? A: No. The Ooze's static ability, the one that grants it all those activated abilities in the first place, only functions while the Ooze is on the battlefield, just like most other static abilities. It doesn't work elsewhere for the same reason that the abilities of cards like Glorious Anthem or Furnace of Rath don't work while they aren't on the battlefield.
Q: Does Necrotic Ooze gain… A: There's a bunch of these, so let's cover them all in one go:
Q: …the abilities of Levelers? A: No. It will gain the creature's level up ability, but none of the abilities the creature would have if it was leveled up. You can put level counters on the Ooze if you like, but it won't help you any.
This happens because the leveler doesn't actually have the abilities listed for its higher levels unless it's actually of the appropriate level, and it can't possibly be the appropriate level when it's sitting in the graveyard. Since it doesn't have those abilities, the Ooze can't steal them. (And the Ooze can't steal the abilities that would normally grant them those other abilities, because they're not activated abilities.)
Q: ...keyword abilities? A: If (and only if) those abilities are activated abilities, yes. Look in the reminder text for the keyword--if there's a colon, it's an activated ability, and the Ooze gets it. If there isn't, it's not and it doesn't.
Do note, however, that even though the Ooze may get those abilities, that doesn't mean it will necessarily be able to use them. Cycling, for example, is a keyword ability, and if a creature card in a graveyard has it the Ooze will get it. But that won't do you any good, because Cycling can only be used if the card is in your hand, because you have to discard it to activate the ability, and that can only be done from your hand. Most keywords that are activated abilities, in fact, are similarly useless on a card on the battlefield. The only one that comes to mind that actually does do something useful is Transfigure .
Q: ...the mana-production ability of Mul Daya Channelers ? A: No. The Channelers don't naturally have their mana-production ability; it's only granted to them by another ability (the one that looks at the top card of the library to see if it's a land), and that's a static ability, not an activated one, so Necrotic Ooze doesn't get it.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
Q: How does Mimic Vat work? A: Whenever any nontoken creature is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, Mimic Vat's imprint ability will trigger. When that trigger resolves, whoever controls Mimic Vat can choose to exile that creature and imprint it on the Vat. If he or she chooses to do so, anything else that was already imprinted on the Vat is put into its owner's graveyard. (This basically just means you can only have one thing imprinted on the Vat at a time—everything else goes back to the graveyard it belongs in.)
The player who controls the Vat can use the Vat's other ability to create a token that's a copy of whatever happens to be imprinted on the Vat at the moment--that token will be exiled at the beginning of the next end step.
Q: What happens if my opponent and I both control Mimic Vats? Who gets to imprint creatures first? A: When a nontoken creature dies, both Vats will trigger at the exact same time. The player whose turn it is will put their Vat's trigger on top of the stack, and then the other player puts theirs on the stack on top of that. The stack resolves one thing at a time from the top down, so the trigger from the player who is not currently taking their turn will resolve first. If that player chooses to imprint that card on their Vat, it will no longer be in the graveyard and thus cannot be imprinted onto the other Vat.
In a multiplayer game, the same basic principle applies--the triggers are put onto the stack in turn order, and then resolve from the top down. Whoever is furthest away from taking their turn 'wins' and gets first chance to use their Vat.
Q: Do the enters-the-battlefield abilities of the imprinted creature trigger when I create a token copy? What about leaves-the-battlefield abilities when it goes away? A: Enters-the-battlefield abilities will trigger. The token is indeed entering the battlefield, so they will trigger.
For leaves-the-battlefield abilities…it depends. Does the ability trigger on the creature "leaving the battlefield", like Reveillark , or does it trigger on the creature going to the graveyard, like Perilous Myr ? The token is being exiled--it does leave the battlefield, but it isn't going to the graveyard, so the first kind will trigger, but the second kind will not.
Q: What happens if something that's not normally a creature dies as a creature? Can I imprint it on the Vat? And if so, what happens? A: Anything that's not a token and was a creature when it died will trigger the Vat, and you will be able to imprint it. However, the tokens you create will not be animated--they'll just be a plain-jane copy of the card itself.
So if, for example, someone animated a Mountain with Koth of the Hammer and it died, you could imprint it on your Vat; the tokens you create will be regular old, non-creature Mountain s.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
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