Please hold while we load your cart...
Rules Tip of the Day: After blockers are declared, all players get the opportunity to play spells and abilities before combat damage goes on the stack. If any player does play a spell or ability, everyone else will get the chance to respond after it has been played and after it has resolved. This will still be before combat damage goes on the stack.
Q: When you play a multi-colored spell with both blue and black in its casting cost and Circu, Dimir Lobotomist is in play, will both triggered abilities trigger or just one?
A: Both of Circu's abilities will trigger when you play a blue and black spell. You can target the same library with these abilities, or the libraries of two different players with these abilities.
Q: Will U/B guild-mana spells trigger both or one of Circu, Dimir Lobotomist's abilities, and does it depend on whether both colors were paid to pay its casting cost?
A: Spells with a hybrid cost are both of the colors in this hybrid man cost. So a black and blue hybrid spell will trigger both of Circu's abilities even if only one color was spent to play it.
Q: Can you sacrifice Grave-Shell Scarab to draw a card, and Dredge right then, effectively paying 1 and milling a card to return him to your hand? For example, after damage is on the stack in combat?
A: Yes. Because you sacrifice Grave-shell Scarab as a cost to play the ability, it will be in your graveyard when the ability resolves and you would draw a card. And because it has Dregde as well, you can replace this draw by returning the Scarab to your hand and milling one card.
Q: If I have a creature with Dredge in my graveyard and my opponent has [[Zur's Wierding] in play, when I get to my draw phase what happens?
A: Both Zur's Weirding and the Dredge ability create replacement effects that would be applied to the same event. As the affected player, you can decide which replacement effect to apply. So you can Dredge for this card in your graveyard if you want, as opposed to revealing cards on top of your library.
Q: What happens if I use Dimir Doppleganger's ability to remove a Molten Sentry in a graveyard from the game?
A: As this Doppelganger is not coming into play, you will not apply the ability of the Molten Sentry and, therefore, you won't flip a coin. Because of this, the Doppelganger's power and toughness will be undefined, and therefore zero, and will go to the graveyard.
Q: If I have an Impatience in play and I continually counterspell my opponent, does the Impatience do the 2 damage to him at the end of his turn.
A: No. Spells that are countered are still played. So even if you counter your opponent's spells, if he did play during his turn, Impatience's ability will not trigger.
Q: If Genesis is in my graveyard at the beginning of my upkeep, its ability triggers, and I choose a target to potentially return to my hand upon resolution of the effect. Can my opponent play a Pithing Needle in order to prevent this from happening? It was always my understanding that Genesis was a triggered effect with a cost, not an activated ability.
A: You are correct. There may be a cost associated with Genesis's triggered ability, but it is still a triggered ability and not an activated one. Because of this, Pithing Needle does not prevent this ability from triggering or resolving.
Q: I am aware that if you are searching for a specific type of card in your deck, you can fail to find copies, even if they are present in your library. I believe that this was to avoid having people call judges and basically ask for deck checks because of someone failing to find a card that is in their deck. However, does this change if your opponent knows for a fact that you have the specific card or type of card in your deck?
A: It does not matter if a player knows that a certain card or type of card is in a library, you can still fail to find a card when instructed to find a card with a specific quality.
Welcome to StarCityGames.com's 2005 Championship Deck Challenge, where each some of the best writers we have square off against each... 
