Rules Tip of the Day: When not in play, Flip cards from Kamigawa block have the characteristics of their unflipped versions.

Q: If you have the same size hand as your opponent at the beginning of your upkeep but your Phyrexian Arena is in play and Akuta, Born of Ash is in the graveyard, can you stack the two effects so that you draw a card, have a bigger hand size and then are able to return Akuta from the graveyard to play?

A: No, the ability of Akuta, Born of Ash will only trigger if you have more cards in your hand at the beginning of your upkeep. It does not matter if later in the upkeep step you do draw additional cards, this will not retroactively cause Akuta's ability to trigger.

Q: Do you choose the target for Undying Flames before removing cards from the game with it?

A: Yes. You choose the target of Undying Flames when the original spell is played or when an Epic copy goes on the stack. This will be before you remove cards from your library and determine the amount of damage dealt.

Q: Can I use Pain Kami to destroy Eight-and-a-Half-Tails? My opponent gave Eight-and-a-Half-Tails protection from white and tried to make the Pain Kami white after I activated Pain Kami's ability, but I do not think the Pain Kami is a legal target at that time. Is this correct?

A: You are correct. Eight-and-a-Half-Tails ability can only turn a spell or a permanent white. Because you sacrifice Pain Kami when you play its ability, it will not be in play when the ability is on the stack, and there will not be anything for Eight-and-a-Half-Tails to turn white.

Q: Say that player A has Flagbearer in play and that player B has Horobi, Death's Wail. Player B targets one of player A's non-Flagbearers with an effect -- are both that creature and the Flagbearer destroyed?

A: Yes. The Flagbearing ability is now a triggered ability that changes the target of a spell or ability if it could target a Flagbearer but does not. When this triggered ability resolves the target of this spell or ability is changed to target the Flagbearer. When this spell or ability is played and the non-Flagbearer is chosen as the target and then later when the Flagbearer ability resolves and changes this target Horobi's ability will trigger. This is because in each instance a creature did become the target of a spell or ability.

Q: If I sacrifice Mindslicer as the cost for activating Greater Good, will the Mindslicer's graveyard trigger resolve before Greater Good, allowing me to draw four cards, then discard three of them?

A: Yes. Because you sacrificed Mindslicer as the activation cost of Greater Good's ability, Mindslicer's triggered ability will go on the stack on top of Greater Good's ability. If nothing else is played then both players will first discard their hands due to Mindslicer's ability, then you will draw four cards and discard three due to Greater Good's ability. When all of this is done you will have one card in hand, which was one of the top four cards in your library at the start of this scenario.

Q: I have a Bringer of the Blue Dawn and a Bringer of the Black Dawn in play. At the beginning of my upkeep I put the black Bringer's ability on the stack and then the blue Bringer's ability. When do I choose whether to pay the life for the black Bringer? When the ability goes on the stack, or when the ability resolves? And would that then happen before the Blue bringers ability resolves?

A: You do not choose whether or not to pay 2 life until the Bringer of the Black Dawn's ability resolves. This means that you will draw the cards from the Bringer of the Blue Dawn's ability first and if one of these two cards is the one you are looking for, you don't have to pay 2 life to set up your normal draw.

Q: Say I'm playing against a blue deck and I guess (correctly) that my opponent has a Counterspell in hand. I cast Meddling Mage and simultaneously, intentionally name a card that my opponent doesn't care about. He has the option to counter the Mage, but because of the card I "named", chooses not to. The Mage resolves and then I name a different card - one that crushes him. He claims that I can't change the name of the card I picked for the Mage.

I reply that the caster of the Meddling Mage only gets to name the Mage's card upon the Mage's resolution, that the first card I "named" was irrelevant because the Mage was still on the stack, that I'm not in any way bound to actually name the card I bluffed with.

In this scenario, whose assessment of the situation is correct? Also, a recent column on starcitygames talked about "intent" and sportsmanship, especially in naming cards with the Mage. Do these issues apply?

A: You are cheating in this example. You purposely chose a card when you played the Meddling Mage even though you knew that a card is not named until the Meddling Mage spell resolves and enters play. You were intentionally misrepresenting the rules in order to confuse your opponent and gain advantage, and this is cheating.

And the issue of intent does apply to this situation, as your intent is to misrepresent how the game works.