Ok, I am off to bed, I will check back on this tomarrow, thanks for replying to everyone that did, all the rules quotes were a great help to me and my brother, we appreciate it.
I'm both orderly and rational. I value control, information, and order. I love structure and hierarchy, and will actively use whatever power or knowledge I have to maintain it. At best, I am lawful and insightful; at worst, I am bureaucratic and tyrannical.
The following rules: [indent] 118.3. Damage may have one or more of the following results, depending on the characteristics of the damage's source and recipient.
118.3d Damage dealt to a creature by a source without wither causes that much damage to be marked on that creature. [/indent]
It's not a rule, as I have said, it's an interpretation of the rules.
It's an interpretation of WHICH RULES?
118.6. Damage marked on a creature remains until the cleanup step, even if that permanent stops being a creature. If the total damage marked on a creature is greater than or equal to its toughness, that creature has been dealt lethal damage and is destroyed as a state-based action. You can interpret this rule either way. It does not imply that excess dmg can be dealt to a creature, or that it cannot.
Really? That rule OPENLY admits that the damage "marked on" the creature (which is, by the rule I quoted, damage that HAS BEEN DEALT to the creature) can exceed the creature's toughness. That means that the damage that's dealt to a creature can exceed a creature's toughness.
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Please use autocard when you ask a question about specific cards: [c]Serra Angel[/c] -> Serra Angel
Elson, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the rules of our game are laid out. The rules cannot exhaustively state everything that might possibly happen as a result of following the instructions of abilities written on all the cards, because there are infinite possibilities that can result from all the interactions. For example, someone learning the game might think that your life total can never go above 20, and if you play Stream of Life for X=8 when your life is at 15 then you simply go to 20 instead of 23. This, as I'm sure you know, is wrong. But the rules do not say that your life can go above 20. It's just that nothing is stopping you, so when an effect says "raise your life by 8" and your life is already at 15, you just do exactly that--you raise your life by 8, going to 23 life. One might also think that you can't use Twiddle to untap a creature enchanted with Entangling Vines or that a Wall of Fire shouldn't be able to hold a Leonin Scimitar , but both of these things are possible. Why? Because they happen simply as a result of following the instructions printed on the cards, and there is nothing in the rules to forbid it. Similarly, there is no rule that forbids a creature from being dealt damage greater than its toughness. (Forget the rules that imply it's possible; that's besides the point.) Therefore, when an effect tells you to do so, you do.
I hope you see why this philosophy is necessary for the rules to work at all and why your concern is an example of it. Please think about it for a while and then ask more questions if you have them.
So far I haven't ignored anything, I have simply looked at all the rules from a different perspective, and a completely logical one, as you said yourself, at that. I haven't created anything here, I've simply illuminated some possible discrepencies in the rules based on a lack of clarification through them.
- 118.3d Damage dealt to a creature by a source without wither causes that much damage to be marked on that creature.
I am not arguing that the dmg is not being marked, the point here is that the dmg that actually has any effect is only applicable insofar are the toughness(including the players here) of the recipient of it. You cannot do more dmg to something when there is nothing to do more dmg to, (this is reasoning, not a rule, but this is not contradicted in the rules either). With the Consume Spirit spell, you have to announce a value for X, which means you have a have a target for X, this means each mana spent on X, and X represents both of the effects of dmg done and life gained, it cannot mean just one of the effects, it is both of them. And therefore, if you cannot meat both of the effects, you cannot tap the mana for it, if you do, the mana isn't being used by the spell then, it couldn't be since there is ultimately no target for the excess dmg, and since X is both dmg done and life gained, you don't get the life gained either; The excess mana spent would simply mana burn you.
You might laugh at this, but my brother is starting to agree with me having read many of the rules you guys have quoted lol. Thanks for all the rule quotes btw, that's alot of what we were hoping for, we appreciate it.
So if I kill you and then mutilate your corpse by cutting up your body and burning the pieces, aren't I doing more damage then your toughness?
What I am saying is that when the spell is resolved, the dmg is only applicable to the amount of the toughness of the target, because once you do the 1dmg from a shock to the 1toughness creature, you can't have the other 1dmg from the shock dmg anything because there is nothing to dmg; therefore, the other 1dmg is lost. That's my interpretation of it.
as I posted earlier...
the creature does not get destroyed by 704.5g until after the spell is fully resolved.
Active Player: Announces casting of Shock (601.2a), puts Shock on Stack (601.2a), chooses what he is targetting with it (NAP's Llanowar Elves ) (601.2c) and pays for its cost (601.2g). Priority returns to the Active Player (601.2h and 115.3c) and immediately before this happens the checks in Rule 704.5 are done (115.2d and 704.3). Active Player: Passes priority to Non-Active Player (115.3d), and immediately before, Rule 704.5 checks (704.3). Non-Active Player: Passes priority to Active Player (115.3d), and once again 704.5 checks the game state immediately before that happens (704.3). Now both players passed in succession so the top spell/ability on the stack resolves (607.1 and 115.4). Shock says "Deal 2 damage to target creaure or player." so 2 damage are dealt and marked on Llanowar Elves (607.2c and 118.3d). Shock is finished resolving so it goes to the graveyard (607.2k).
Now, at this moment in time there is a Llanowar Elves creature permanent marked with 2 damage.
Continuing on. Priority returns to the Active Player (115.3b) but immediately before that happens (704.3) State Based Actions check the game state (704.5) and they see a Llanowar Elves marked with 2 damage and having a Toughness value of 1. The Llanowar Elves is now destroyed (704.5g). Llanowar Elves is put in the graveyard (701.6a)
This is how it works.
You could substitute Drain Life or Consume Spirit for Shock and except for the fact that you also have to announce the value for X (601.2b) prior to targeting the Llanowar Elves, play would proceed exactly the same way.
Consume Spirit is an improved version of Drain Life. Same mana cost, both are sorceries with almost identical effects.
Consume Spirit will deal X damage to its target and its controller will gain X life for whatever value of X was chosen in 601.2b.
Drain Life will deal X damage, but its controller gains life equal to the lower of X or the targets life/toughness.
Drain Life was originally printed in Alpha (the first set ever) and conceptually the idea was the Wizard sucked life from the target's physical form which then increased his own life force.
Consume Spirit came about 10 years later (Mirrodin set) and improved upon Drain Life. The obvious conceptual extension is that the Wizard now could continue sucking his target's soul after the life left the body.
Tactically, with casting Drain Life there is seldom a time you would want to announce a value of X greater then the target's life/toughness because the extra damage wouldn't do anything (damage above the creature's toughness will kill it just the same as damage equal to its toughness but the life gain is capped so why overpay?) unless the opponent has some sort of pump spell/ability.
With Consume Spirit there is no reason not to max out X because you'll deal X damage and gain X life regardless of the target's life/toughness unless you wanted to save mana to cast another spell.
Your position is untenable, follow the steps of the previous scenario and read the rules provided. The rules spell out what happens each step of the way. Obviously, something in your base assumptions is leading you astray. Garbage In Garbage Out. You have an assumption built upon text on Drain Life. You've wrongly concluded that damage greater than toughness is not possible, when indeed it is. You have wrongly concluded that Consume Spirit works the same way as Drain Life, it does not. The rules do not support your belief. You have two choices before you: 1 - accept that your understanding was incorrect (many people think things in Magic work one way when in fact they work another, there is no shame in that) or 2 - live in ignorance of what the rules say and what we say (if you want to play Drain Life and Consume Spirit the same way and have damage max out at a creature's toughness, go for it. You aren't playing Magic by its Official Rules, but not everyone does so what's the harm, however, this forum exists to correct misunderstandings of the Official Rules and to enlighten people of how cards interact. To that end, we have told you how it works and cited the rule sections supporting the position of the Official Rules, you may do with that as you will.)
Finally, as BillyThe Banana pointed out earlier the Rules are set out in a structure similar to NTFS security. In NTFS, users are given rights to files and folders in Windows systems. Each permission for each user or group of users can have 3 settings: Allow, Deny, or absence of both. Allow and Deny are explicit permissions. The absence of both defaults to default state. On Windows, the default setting is a user is allowed access to local areas and denied access to non-local areas. Likewise, Magic leaves things non-explicit except when necessary. You are explicitly allowed to cast a sorcery when 3 conditions are met: 1) your turn, 2) your Main Phase, and 3) the stack is empty. The rest of the time nothing prevents you from casting a Sorcery, but nothing allows it either. In the absence of something explicitly allowing or denying you to cast a sorcery, the default state is that you can not. Likewise, nothing explicitly states that damage can be greater than toughness (though 704.5g certainly implies it can be), but nothing explicitly caps it at a creature's toughness either. The default state is that damage can be higher than a creature's toughness, you may dispute this assertion but that is what it is.
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Wit found in Rules Q&A
RPJesus: "Man, screw the rules, I'll play a game of 2HG Archenemy Planechase Emperor EDH draft yet. Once I figure out the rules for it..." Chaikov: "Of course, casual Magic may be played any way your Pokemon group agrees on..." and "It's not logic. It's Magic!" GainsBanding: "I only play online. The Magic Online shuffler is AWESOME!" Ikegami: "one might think [adult cats] would make excellent tokens. The issue, though, is that they are very hard to exile. They return to the battlefield more often than an undying creature." Astarael7: "Does 121.1 imply that players are supposed to wear their poison counters?" Bimmerbot: "If you move the wrong way and [the poison counters] fall, it's a game rule violation" Helluminatus: "Just remember, if it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but the oracle text says creature - Bunny , then by god, it's a bunny." MadCow21: "Who are you and what have you done with the real Chaikov?"
I am not disagreeing with you guys here, both my interpretation and your interpretation are completely viable; although, as I have said, mine is clearly not the more popular one lol.
It's not that it's not the more popular one, it's indeed that it is the wrong one. There is nothing to "interpret" here, all you have to do is read. It's all spelled out in plain english for you.
Here is a situation that nobody seems to have brought up (I apologize if somebody did but I missed it. My opponent has 1 Grizzly Bears , a few turns ago I hit him/her with Coral Fighters , allowing me to look at the top card and put it on the bottom of their library. The card was Righteousness and at the time I wasn't really worried about it, so I left it on top. Now the situation is: they still have Righteousness being that it hasn't been played or discarded, I am at 2 life, I have no creatures (they destroyed my Coral Fighters last turn), and a I have Consume Spirit . You are literally saying that I can't choose X (which I want to make 10, I have 12 lands)? Of course I can choose X to be whatever I want it to be regardless of their creatures (current) toughness. The whole reasoning behind wanting to know what card they we're going to draw was to give me a heads up, so I can plan ahead. The thing is, since I don't have anything else to play, and I need the life, I want X to be as much as possible (regardless of if they have a instant or not), being that this isn't just a deal damage spell it is also a life gain spell. By your logic, I may only have X be 2 (being that it's toughness is 2) and they will just Giant Growth it and procede to probably win the game.
Also, and this goes completely against your arguement: Lifelink . When a 4/4 creature with lifelink is blocked by a 2/2 creature with no abilities, the 2/2 dies and the controller of the attacking creature gains 4 life, being that 4 damage was dealt. You would have to be arguing this fact as well if you are still set on your original arguement.
