Rules and FAQS

To enlighten newer players and reduce confusion among veterans I'll try to post rule disputes or answer any questions I can related magic procedure. Whenever possible try to include a site of reference when answering a question.

Some people aren't familiar with the revisions that came with M10, one example is the ordering of blockers.

http://www.wizards.com/magic/rules/EN_Magic_Basic_Rulebook_20090710.pdf

Page 11

"If one of your attacking creatures is blocked by multiple creatures, you decide how to
divide its combat damage among them. You must assign at least enough damage to the first blocking creature in line to destroy it before you can assign damage to the next one in line, and so on."

Page 16

If an attacking creature is blocked by multiple creatures, you divide its combat
damage among them by assigning at least enough damage to the first blocking creature in line to destroy it before assigning damage to the next one in line,

For example if you attack with a 4/4 and your opponent controls a 0/5 wall, 2/2 bear
and a 2/2 wolf

he can block in this order

0/5 wall
2/2 bear
2/2 wolf

and since you cannot deal lethal damage to the wall you can't move on to the wolf or bear and since you've already spent your 4 damage on the wall you would also lose your attacker to the damage dealt by the wolf and bear without dealing any damage to them

http://www.wizards.com/magic/rules/EN_Magic_Basic_Rulebook_20090710.pdf

Page 15

1. Beginning Phase

a. Untap step
You untap all your tapped permanents. On the first
turn of the game, you don’t have any permanents, so
you just skip this step. No one can cast spells or activate
abilities during this step.

b. Upkeep step
This part of the turn is mentioned on a number of
cards. If something is supposed to happen just once
per turn, right at the beginning, an ability will trigger
“at the beginning of your upkeep.” Players can cast
instants and activate abilities.

c. Draw step
You draw a card from your library. (The player who
goes first skips the draw step on his or her first turn to
make up for the advantage of going first.) Players can
then cast instants and activate abilities.

2. First Main Phase
You can cast any number of sorceries, instants, creatures,
artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers, and you
can activate abilities. You can play a land during this
phase, but remember that you can play only one land
during your turn. Your opponent can cast instants and
activate abilities.

3. Combat Phase

a. Beginning of combat step
Players can cast instants and activate abilities.

b. Declare attackers step
You decide which, if any, of your untapped creatures
will attack, and which player or planeswalker they
will attack, then they do so. This taps the attacking
creatures. Players can then cast instants and activate
abilities.

c. Declare blockers step
Your opponent decides which, if any, of his or her
untapped creatures will block your attacking creatures,
then they do so. If multiple creatures block a single
attacker, you order the blockers to show which is first
in line for damage, which is second, and so on. Players
can then cast instants and activate abilities.

d. Combat damage step

Each attacking or blocking creature that’s still on the
battlefield assigns its combat damage to the defending
player (if it’s attacking that player and wasn’t blocked),
to a planeswalker (if it’s attacking that planeswalker and
wasn’t blocked), to the creature or creatures blocking it,
or to the creature it’s blocking. If an attacking creature
is blocked by multiple creatures, you divide its combat
damage among them by assigning at least enough
damage to the first blocking creature in line to destroy
it before assigning damage to the next one in line, and
so on. Once players decide how the creatures they
control will deal their combat damage, the damage is
all dealt at the same time. Players can then cast instants
and activate abilities.

e. End of combat step
Players can cast instants and activate abilities.

4. Second Main Phase
Your second main phase is just like your first main
phase. You can cast every type of spell and activate
abilities, but your opponent can only cast instants and
activate abilities. You can play a land during this phase
if you didn’t during your first main phase.

5. Ending Phase

a. End step
Abilities that trigger “at the beginning of your end step”
go on the stack. Players can cast instants and activate
abilities.

b. Cleanup step
If you have more than seven cards in your hand, choose
and discard cards until you have only seven. Next, all
damage on creatures is removed and all “until end of
turn” effects end. No one can cast instants or activate
abilities unless an ability triggers during this step.

When a creature is declared as a blocker the attacking creature is locked onto that blocker. If the blocker is removed after it's been declared the attacking creature will whiff (attempt to do damage to the removed creature)

For example: You enter the combat phase, declare your attacker a 5/5 Boogaloo, you tap it to indicate you've locked it in as an attacker. Now during the blocking phase your opponent decides to block with his 6/6 Roflstomper. Now wanting to lose your creature you doom blade his 6/6.

Since the 6/6 was already declared as a blocker when you remove it, the 5/5 will attempt to deal it damage regardless and none will be dealt to the player

http://www.wizards.com/magic/rules/EN_Magic_Basic_Rulebook_20090710.pdf

Page 22

Blocked creature.
An attacking creature that’s blocked by at least one
creature. Once a creature is blocked, it stays blocked for
the rest of the combat phase—even if all the creatures
blocking it leave combat. In other words, once a creature
is blocked, there’s no way for it to deal damage to the
player or planeswalker it’s attacking (unless the attacking
creature has trample). There’s no such thing as a blocked
creature outside of the combat phase.

Good idea Warren.

I'll try to contribute when I learn something new or that might help newer players.

One thing I recently figured out is:

Counterspell vs Cascade Effects

When someone casts a spell with a Cascade effect (such as Bloodbraid Elf), they exile cards from the top of their library until they find a card that costs less to cast than the original card, and may play it without paying its mana cost. At that point, both the original spell cast and the one revealed through cascade are still both on the stack and not yet resolved. If your opponent has a counter-magic card in hand, such as Cancel, Negate, etc, they can chose which of the two spells to counter. The window to cancel the original spell doesn't close just because the cascaded card has been revealed.

So in other words it's almost always better to wait to see both cards before you react to cascade. Probably obvious to some of the more experienced players but its something that, until recently, I'de never really put much thought into.

Warren "The Proxy" Hallam wrote:

To enlighten newer players and reduce confusion among veterans I'll try to post rule disputes or answer any questions I can related magic procedure. Whenever possible try to include a site of reference when answering a question.

Some people aren't familiar with the revisions that came with M10, one example is the ordering of blockers.

http://www.wizards.com/magic/rules/EN_Magic_Basic_Rulebook_20090710.pdf

Page 11

"If one of your attacking creatures is blocked by multiple creatures, you decide how to
divide its combat damage among them. You must assign at least enough damage to the first blocking creature in line to destroy it before you can assign damage to the next one in line, and so on."

Page 16

If an attacking creature is blocked by multiple creatures, you divide its combat
damage among them by assigning at least enough damage to the first blocking creature in line to destroy it before assigning damage to the next one in line,

For example if you attack with a 4/4 and your opponent controls a 0/5 wall, 2/2 bear
and a 2/2 wolf

he can block in this order

0/5 wall
2/2 bear
2/2 wolf

and since you cannot deal lethal damage to the wall you can't move on to the wolf or bear and since you've already spent your 4 damage on the wall you would also lose your attacker to the damage dealt by the wolf and bear without dealing any damage to them

On the note of blocking if your creature has deathtouch you can share the pain how you choose(saw this on vampire nighthawks card btw).

Josh

Yeah that's interesting, I wonder if that's because deathtouch is considered lethal dmg if even 1 point is dealt

Although deathtouch is considered lethal damage, a creature with trample and deathtouch still has to deal enough damage to blockers before it can hit the defending player.

Warren "The Proxy" Hallam wrote:

When a creature is declared as a blocker the attacking creature is locked onto that blocker. If the blocker is removed after it's been declared the attacking creature will whiff (attempt to do damage to the removed creature)

For example: You enter the combat phase, declare your attacker a 5/5 Boogaloo, you tap it to indicate you've locked it in as an attacker. Now during the blocking phase your opponent decides to block with his 6/6 Roflstomper. Now wanting to lose your creature you doom blade his 6/6.

Since the 6/6 was already declared as a blocker when you remove it, the 5/5 will attempt to deal it damage regardless and none will be dealt to the player

http://www.wizards.com/magic/rules/EN_Magic_Basic_Rulebook_20090710.pdf

Page 22

Blocked creature.
An attacking creature that’s blocked by at least one
creature. Once a creature is blocked, it stays blocked for
the rest of the combat phase—even if all the creatures
blocking it leave combat. In other words, once a creature
is blocked, there’s no way for it to deal damage to the
player or planeswalker it’s attacking (unless the attacking
creature has trample). There’s no such thing as a blocked
creature outside of the combat phase.

What if someone would destroy the creature on the in response to you declaring as a blocker.
*Generic death spell* to the *Creature* before the stack resolves.
because the creature never really became a blocking creature would the attacker still be considered blocked.

I believe after the attacking player has finished assigning attackers and whatever else they're doing, and gives up priority to the defending player, the defending player's free to assign blockers. After the blockers are assigned the attacking player regains priority and can destroy the blockers via spells & abilities, but since blocking assignments isn't something that goes on the stack, it happens regardless, so the attack is still considered blocked.

This was a great idea I love it

After attackers are declared there is a phase to play instants and abilities before blockers are declared. After playing whatever then blockers are declared and another phase to play instants and abilities. Declaring attackers and blockers does not use the stack.

I did some digging online for two important concerns.

Q. My general, Kresh, is a 21/21 currently, and I'm going to use a "Soul's Fire" to deal 21 damage to you. Because the SF says that the the targeted creature itself is damaging you, then Kresh is dealing enough general damage to defeat you.

A. General damage is only counted during combat. Thus, a Soul's Fire that uses the general as the target doesn't count toward the general damage. In the same way, I can't used the triggered ability of my own general (Niv-Mizzet) to deal damage for each card I draw and still have it count.



I caught someone who misinterpreted Oracle of Mul Daya to play upward of 3-4 lands a turn. Remember that you can only play a single land per turn, and that the Oracle allows the play of an additional land. 1+1=2, then.

Also remember that playing something is not the same as putting something into play thanks to an ability.

Quarrios wrote:

I caught someone who misinterpreted Oracle of Mul Daya to play upward of 3-4 lands a turn. Remember that you can only play a single land per turn, and that the Oracle allows the play of an additional land. 1+1+2, then.

Also remember that playing something is not the same as putting something into play thanks to an ability.

Yah that's been a common mistake I've noticed people making. They don't understand that the oracle only allows one additional land to enter that turn, it doesn't mean that if your top card turns out to be land-after-land you can keep putting them into play.

For those who don't know.

While is is possible to have multiple planeswalkers in play at the same time, there can not be two planeswalkers in play with the same planeswalker subtype. Generally this functions similar to the legend rule, in which two Sorin Markov cannot exist together.

Ajani Goldmane and Ajani Vengeant cannot exist together because they share the Ajani planeswalker subtype.
Chandra Nalaar and Chandra Ablaze also cannot exist together because they share the Chandra subtype.

A couple of days ago i ran into a person trying to use Archive Trap for no mana (whenever an opponent Searches their library) after using Haunting Echoes, But Haunting echoes doesn't cause the opponent to search and remove cards from their library, the player who plays Haunting echoes searches and removes the cards from your library and you can't play archive trap off of that.

What you said is very much correct.

Brandon C wrote:

Quarrios wrote:

Remember that you can only play a single land per turn, and that the Oracle allows the play of an additional land. 1+1=2, then.

Also remember that playing something is not the same as putting something into play thanks to an ability.

Yah that's been a common mistake I've noticed people making. They don't understand that the oracle only allows one additional land to enter that turn, it doesn't mean that if your top card turns out to be land-after-land you can keep putting them into play.

CARD ABUSE NO-JUTSU!!!

However there's a drawing wrap-around trick I discovered and confirmed you can do with the Oracle of Mul-Daya:



First we'll look at it's ability in three parts:

[1] You may play an additional land on each of your turns.

[2] Play with the top card of your library revealed.

[3] You may play the top card of your Library if it's a land card.

Let's say for example it's the beginning of your turn and you have a land on the top of your deck.
(You know it's a land because Oracle has it face-up on your deck ala rule [2]

Well during your Upkeep (which is part of your turn ) you can play that land from the top of your deck thanks to the Oracles part [3] rule.

But guess what! You can also play the next card if it is/was also a land ala part [1] rule.

Since you can play two lands a turn, again ala rule [1].

This is a good way to prevent yourself from drawing land and drawing that game clenching card you need. And it's perfect for landfall.