Rules Tip of the Day: When a spell or ability resolves, it will do as much as it possibly can. However, only spells that resolve do anything. Spells that are countered, including those that are countered on resolution, do not do anything other than go to your graveyard.

Q: I control a Magus of the Abyss and a Mindslaver. If I sacrifice the Mindslaver to use its ability, at the beginning of my opponent's next upkeep, who chooses the target for Magus of the Abyss' ability?

A: You do. Magus of the Abyss' ability has the active player choose which creature they control to be targeted by the Magus' ability. However, you make all choices that this player would make, including choices demanded by spells and abilities you control.

Q: My opponent attempts to counter one of my spells with Spellburst, paying for Buyback. I remove it with Delay. When the final counter is removed from his Spellburst, does the Buyback allow him to put it back into his hand?

A: It is very unlikely that this spell will be able to be returned to his hand. In order for that to happen, there must be a legal spell for him to target with the Spellburst, and he will have to repay the Buyback cost.

When the last time counter is removed from Spellburst, he must play the spell if he can. However, if there is not a spell on the stack with a converted mana cost of zero for him to target at this time, then he cannot play it, and it will remain removed from the game. The Suspend ability allows him to play this spell without paying its mana cost, and the only legal choice for the value of X is zero. As most Suspended spells lose their last time counter in the upkeep step of a turn, this seems very unlikely. If there is a spell to target with the unsuspending Spellburst, he can play it, but it will not return to his hand unless he pays the Buyback cost when he plays it. This is because this spell has no connection to the one that was removed from the game earlier by Delay.

Q: I control a Hivestone and have a Homing Sliver in my hand. Can I search for any creature card in my library? If Homing Sliver is in play, can I Slivercycle any creature card in my hand?

A: The answer to both questions is no. Hivestone only affects creatures in play; it does not affect creature cards in any other zone. So normal, non-Sliver creature cards in your library will not be Slivers, and normal, non-Sliver creature cards in your hand will not have the Slivercycling ability.

Q: If I cast Judge Unworthy on an attacking creature, will I still be able to Scry 3 if the creature is bounced in response, or will the spell fizzle?

A: No, you will not be able to Scry. When all targets of a spell or ability are not legal when the spell or ability attempts to resolve, then the spell or ability is countered on resolution. When a spell or ability is countered, no part of it resolves.

Q: I have Braids, Conjurer Adept in play. During my opponent's upkeep, he uses that ability to put Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir into play. Will Teferi's ability prevent other players from putting stuff into play with Braid's ability?

A: Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir only prevents you from playing spells any other time other than when you could play a sorcery. Braids, Conjurer Adept ability allows you to put an artifact, creature, or land into play. You do not play these cards, so Teferi's ability does not affect this at all.

Q: Leyline of Singularity is in play and I play Flash on a Protean Hulk without paying to keep it in play. I search my library for four Disciple of the Vault, four Shifting Wall, and four Phryexian Marauder. They all come into play at the same time. Do the Disciples' abilities still triger?

A: Yes. All of these searched for permanents will go to the graveyard at the same time. The Shifting Walls and Phyrexian Marauders will leave play for two reasons, but they will still go at the same time as the Disciples. However, Disciple of the Vault has a leaves-play triggered ability. Whenever one or more permanents leave play the game looks back to just before these permanents left to see if any leaves-play triggered abilities would have triggered. At that point, the Disciples were in play, so their abilities will trigger.

Q: How does Magus of the Vineyard work in Two-Headed Giant? Does the controller of the Magus choose one player on a team to get two green mana at the beginning of their first main phase? Do these two players share this mana? Or does each player get two green mana?

A: Magus of the Vinyard's ability refers to each player. This means that this ability will trigger twice at the beginning of a shared teams first main phase, once for each player. So both players on a team will end up getting two green mana added to their pool.

Q: In a multiplayer game, if player A uses Pongify on one of player B's creatures and then player A gets eliminated from the game, does the Ape token created by Pongify stay in play under player B's control, or does it leave play?

A: It will leave play. Tokens are owned by the player who controlled the effect that put them into play. So this token Ape is owned by player A, and it will leave the game when he and all other objects that he owns leave the game.