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Ask the Judge, 11/09/2005

Chris Richter

By Chris Richter
11/09/2005

Rules Tip of the Day: You can activate a regeneration ability anytime you have priority and can pay the necessary activation cost. You are not limited to using a regeneration ability just prior to when a permanent would be destroyed.

Q: I have a Tinder Wall in play. Can I play Sundering Vitae by tapping the Tinder Wall (for Convoke) and activating the Tinder Wall's first effect ("Add RR to your mana pool")?

A: Yes. The reason is that you tap creatures to lower the cost of the Convoke spell before you need to generate the mana to pay for the spell. This means that you can tap a Tinder Wall to lower the cost of a Convoke spell by 1 or G and then sacrifice it to generate two Red mana to pay for this spell.

Q: If you have two Golgari Grave Trolls and one Life from the Loam in your graveyard during your upkeep, how many cards can you put in the graveyard off the one card draw being replaced if you use Dredge during your draw step? Do I need a separate draw for each dredge?

A: You cannot replace a single draw with the replacement effects from multiple Dredge abilities. So at the most you'll be able to put six cards from your library into your graveyard with replacing a draw by Dredging for a Golgari Grave Troll.

Q: Is Eye of the Storm's copy/play effect conditional on removing the card from the game? There is a "then", but not an "if" in the wording, so I'm not sure. If I counter an instant on the stack, does that spell's controller still get to play the Eye's removed cards?

A: Yes, even if a spell is countered, playing this spell has triggered Eye of the Storm. The player who played this countered spell will still get to play copies of the cards that have been previously removed from the game by Eye of the Storm.

Q: I have managed to play a Circu, Dimir Lobotomist and Eye of the Storm. I play Glimpse the Unthinkable. Circu triggers, Eye triggers, then I play the Glimpse copy, will Circu's ability trigger again?

A: Yes. Circu's ability will trigger when you play a card or a copy of a card. In this example your opponent will end up losing fourteen cards from his library: four from the Circu triggered abilities (two for each Glimpse), and ten from the Glimpse.

Q: I saw a combo with Circu, Dimir Lobotomist and Twincast. It went like this: they played a Brainstorm while Circu was in play, copied it with Twincast, and then played another Twincast and copied the first Twincast, and then copied the other Twincast and so on, until the target library was removed. Circu says, "Whenever you play a Blue spell, remove..." Do the copies of the Twincasts activate Circu's ability, or do you have to play the spell from your hand?

A: That does not work. Circu's abilities trigger when a Black or Blue spell is played. These abilities do not trigger when a copy of a Blue spell is put on the stack. In this example, Circu's ability will trigger just three times—for the Brainstorm and the two Twincast that are played. You don't necessarily need to play a Black or Blue spell from your hand to trigger these abilities, but you do need to actually play a spell, and not just put a copy on the stack.

Q: If there are several possible replacement effects, only one happens, and the affected player chooses which one, am I correct? So, for an extreme example, if I control an Uba Mask, and Chains of Mephistopheles is in play, and I have Life from the Loam in the graveyard, I can choose to replace the draw for the turn with whichever ability I choose, is this correct?

A: You are correct. Whenever multiple replacement effect try to apply to the same event, the affected controller gets to determine which to apply first. Then, if the other replacement effects can still be applied to this event, the affected player chooses another effect to apply. This process will be repeated until either all of the replacement effects have been applied, or none of them can be applied to the event in question. In this example, all of these replacement effects change what would happen when you would draw a card. Once this draw has been replaced by one effect the others will not be applied, as the draw has been completely replaced.

Q: I have a question about Blinding Powder's activated ability. It doesn't say to tap the permanent that the card is attached to, nor to pay any mana cost. Am I right in thinking that a tapped permanent can therefore still play this ability?

A: Yes. The only activation cost associated with Blinding Powder is unattaching the Blinding Powder from the equipped creature. You can use this ability even if the equipped creature is tapped. You can also use this ability if the Blinding Powder is somehow tapped.

Q: If I play Recoup, targeting Tinker in my graveyard, then Flashback Tinker, do I need to sacrifice an artifact? Or does Flashback ignore additional costs to play a spell?

A: Yes, you will need to sacrifice an artifact, as well as pay the Flashback cost. Recoup will give Tinker an alternate Flashback cost that you can pay in order to play it from your graveyard. This cost replaces the normal mana cost that you would pay, but it does not negate the requirement that you pay additional costs associated with the spell.


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