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10 months ago ::
Jul 29, 2012 - 3:26PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Apr 19, 2004
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I think sometimes when card wordings are updated, the card rulings are not. I think that either the wording updates should be marked in the rulings list, or the rulings revisited. My example is Ice Cauldron . Ice Cauldron hasn't had a ruling update since 2004, when it was noted that "Produces mana of the last type used to put a counter on itself, not via any other charge counters." (I interpreted this statement as saying that adding a second counter via e.g. Power Conduit and using e.g. Aphetto Alchemist so that I can activate Ice Cauldron's mana ability twice in one turn does not give you twice the mana, while I interpreted the card's wording to mean that it does. The rest of this post is me arguing that the ruling needs to be updated, so if I interpreted the ruling wrong, then it's moot (but then the ruling should be clarified because it's confusing).) However, in 2008 ( July and September) it was reworded to say: X, T: Put a charge counter on Ice Cauldron and exile a nonland card from your hand. You may cast that card for as long as it remains exiled. Note the type and amount of mana spent to pay this activation cost. Activate this ability only if there are no charge counters on Ice Cauldron. T, Remove a charge counter from Ice Cauldron: Add Ice Cauldron's last noted type and amount of mana to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast the last card exiled with Ice Cauldron.
Gottlieb claimed in July that this was not a functional change for Ice Cauldron, but I disagree, given that in the same section he reworded Jeweled Amulet to say:
1, T: Put a charge counter on Jeweled Amulet. Note the type of mana spent to pay this activation cost. Play this ability only if there are no charge counters on Jeweled Amulet. T, Remove a charge counter from Jeweled Amulet: Add one mana of Jeweled Amulet's last noted type to your mana pool.
which is much the same thing.
And Jeweled Amulet has a 2008 ruling on it:
Charge counters are indistinguishable from one another. If some other spell or ability (such as Power Conduit's ability) puts a charge counter on Jeweled Amulet, activating Jeweled Amulet's second ability will still check the type of mana last noted by its first ability. If there is no type of mana noted by its first ability (because it hasn't been activated by that point), the second ability will produce no mana.
Because these wordings are the same, I would argue that this wording for Jeweled Amulet should also apply to Ice Cauldron, meaning that if I have extra counters on the Cauldron, I can use e.g. Aphetto Alchemist to untap the Ice Cauldron so I can use its mana ability twice in one turn to double the mana I invested.
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10 months ago ::
Jul 29, 2012 - 5:01PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Mar 13, 2004
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I think you are misreading that ruling: Produces mana of the last type used to put a counter on itself, not via any other charge counters.
^ This isn't saying that if you put another Charge counter onto the couldren, you can't use that counter, it means if you add a counter using some other ability (say the Conduit), the mana spent activating that ability doesn't overwrite the mana the couldren produces.
So if you spent 10 black mana on the couldren, and then you put a counter onto it with the conduit, it won't reset the couldren to 0 mana because that's how much mana was spent activating the conduit's ability. You'll still retain 10 black mana.
… and then, the squirrels came.
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10 months ago ::
Jul 30, 2012 - 8:32AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2004
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I also interpret the ruling as implying that extra counters via Conduit-and-Alchemist DO work to give you multiple lots of mana.
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