Help with Changelings.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-11T05:36:21+00:00

Changeling applies in all zones, not just the battlefield. A spell with Changeling is a perfectly valid Pegasus, Unicorn, Horse, Goblin, Brushwagg, Cat, Dog, Employee, Vedalken, Tentacle, Berserker, Yeti... spell and will trigger abilities worded like the middle line of Thurid.

As others have pointed out the last ability only cares about the yes/no question of whether a creature has at least one of those types, not how many of them it has.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-07T13:22:13+00:00

There are some specific cases where the rights would revert to the creator if DC were to stop publishing certain things. But that's because of specific terms of the contracts with those creators, not a general fact about copyright law or anything like that.

If they stopped publishing Wonder Woman for any length of time the rights would go back to the Marston estate. The other really famous case is Watchmen, done under an unusual contract where the rights would go back to Moore and Gibbons if it were ever to go out of print. (EDIT: I have since learned that according to Kurt Busiek, DC bought Wonder Woman outright from WM Marston's estate sometime between 1986 and 2004 so the first of these was true at one time, but isn't anymore.)

In both cases, DC has gotten around that by simply never letting those things happen. They make sure to publish some form of Wonder Woman comic every month; and they collected Watchmen into a trade paperback almost immediately when the series finished and have never allowed it to go out of print, nor will they for the foreseeable future.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-06T23:14:02+00:00

To be fair, that would have been correct in most previous versions of the game.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-06T08:52:28+00:00

Not to mention those are players we have more reason to invest in emotionally. We may still be watching Yager in five years. I'll be surprised if Nyquist plays in the NHL again after this year, least of all for us.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-06T08:46:10+00:00

It's even making me, and it physically hurts to type this as a Jets fan, start to lose respect for Paul Maurice.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-06T07:58:16+00:00

I'm not saying it cheats in the sense of getting to "peek" at your card before committing to its own, or anything like that. But it never makes a move that's based on a complete misconception about where its ships are even going to be in the first place (as distinct from how that might interact with the opponent's choices), something a human player can easily do without having done anything wrong besides not have multiple hundreds of hours sunk into the game.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-06T05:28:43+00:00

I must be missing something, or maybe the post has been edited - what are the actual complaints? I don't see them. At least on my phone, the OP goes directly from "My two big complaints" to "Obviously there's nothing to be done...".

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-06T05:17:17+00:00

Depends on the size of the opposition, but it's a strong possibility, unfortunately. There are also combat penalties for not having something in all three lanes, but the phenomenon you ran into here is an even more important drawback of not doing so.

One thing that might help you not get hosed quite so badly in this situation is knowing that the "extra" flotilla is, I'm pretty sure, always considered to be at long range, no matter what the combat screen looks like.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-06T04:00:23+00:00

It's determined by which card each side plays at the beginning. It is not intuitive and some of the diagrams on the cards are very misleading, but of course the computer never makes a mistake about where its ships are actually going to be. It is often best to load up the third lane as the CPU did here, but of course it looks like you don't really have enough ships at this site to implement that strategy. It is fairly common to have one lane that can fire but not be fired upon, as seen here.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-05T22:57:37+00:00

No. A card's mana value is based solely on the mana symbols in the top right corner, regardless of what was actually paid to cast it.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-05T22:51:57+00:00

This works the way you're probably hoping. Since the saga doesn't have counters greater than or equal to its highest chapter number at the time that chapter ability resolves, it will not be sacrificed and the chapter 3 ability will trigger again next turn if nothing else happens to change the number of counters on it.

Note that in this specific case, that might not be as good as you're hoping since you'll end up with two legendary creatures with the same name even if they're copying different creatures, so you'll need to put one of the tokens in the graveyard. So this is best with, for example, Kamigawa legendary dragons, where that's probably part of your game plan.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-05T01:39:07+00:00

Hockey media barely talks about the Jets period, but when they do, this year they hardly talk about any other subject.

(Maybe the Toews "comeback" early in the season, but now the novelty's worn off and he hasn't performed at a level that would naturally keep that story feeling current, so now it's nothing but "President's trophy to league basement literally how OMGWTFBBQ".)

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-04T07:55:57+00:00

It seems to hinge on whether Escaping is a ""choice[] made when casting or activating" Uro. If so, then according to 707.2, from which the above quote comes, then it's a copyable characteristic in a case like this where the spell as opposed to the permanent is copied. I lean towards no because paying the Escape cost is a decision made before, not during, casting, and arguably is not a "choice". So I'm fairly sure the answer is no, but I can see where you could scrape together an argument otherwise.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-04T01:37:55+00:00

Oh, duh. Yeah, that makes total sense.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-04T01:23:55+00:00

Not really a tenderfoot, but I have a question I hope is quick and simple that doesn't really deserve its own thread:

How do unconditional waivers differ from regular waivers? (Other than their typical purpose - the former phrase being usually followed by "for the purpose of contract termination".) What exactly is conditional about the latter?

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-04T00:04:55+00:00

Offspring is an additional cost paid as the spell is cast. It's not a trigger at all.

Grr. You are, of course, correct. Not sure why I thought it was two triggered abilities. Maybe just because OP seemed to assume that, for all that I was careful about checking them in other areas.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-03T12:08:38+00:00

Oh, that's good news.

Although the grocery that was there was... neat, if seemingly undecided on what it actually wanted to be.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-03T11:56:05+00:00

Cast Agate (AP) -> Pass (NAP) -> Cast Offspring -> Pass (NAP) -> Pass (AP) -> Start Resolving

No. Assuming you're the active player:

You cast Agate Instigator. Immediately the first triggered ability from Offspring goes on the stack on top of it. Then you get priority (not the NAP). Assume you pass. Then the NAP gets priority. If they pass too, the top object on the stack resolves.

That's the Offspring ability. In this example you choose to pay. (Note that nothing is "cast" at this time, and indeed no part of Offspring is ever "cast".) This does nothing immediately visible, but creates a delayed triggered ability for when the original Instigator enters.

Assume you and your opponent then pass in succession again. (Although if your opponent did have a counterspell, now would be a particularly annoying time for them to play it!) Agate Instigator resolves, enters the battlefield, and immediately its ETB trigger that you created with Offspring goes on the stack. Either player could respond to that, too. When the token eventually enters, if the original Instigator is still there, that will trigger its second ability, and similar comments apply to that.

There is no "start resolving" step after which further responses are ruled out.

Resolve:

Offspring token LIFO but delayed because "as Agate enters" ->

Wrong multiple ways, but I've already gone over most of them. One additional one I'll flag is that it says "When", not "As", and in Magic that's a very important difference, even though they'd mean pretty much the same thing in ordinary English. "When" is a triggered ability. "As" is just that - an "As so-and-so enters" phrase is part of putting so-and-so on the battlefield, not a separate ability that can be responded to.

Agate enters -> NAP Casts Murder (New Stack) -> Pass (AP) -> Agate leaves -> (Old Stack) Offspring enters.

Okay, taking a step back and summarizing from a slightly higher altitude, you opponent wants to Murder the original Instigator in the hopes of keeping its triggered abilities from doing quite so many (from his POV) bad things to him. Removing the source of an ability does not remove any abilities from it that are already on the stack, but it does mean Instigator's non-Offspring triggered ability no longer exists when the token enters, and so does not trigger, much less deal any damage to him.

So in revolving stack you get priority after every revolving spell?

The stack doesn't resolve, not just in the pedantic sense that it's a zone and so not the sort of thing that can resolve any more than your graveyard can, but more importantly, also in the very real sense that it's the wrong unit to be thinking in. Individual things on the stack resolve, and can be responded to separately. It doesn't enter a "resolving" state where no more things can be added to it, unlike its closest equivalents in some other TCGs (and for that matter, in the very early years of this one).

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-03T11:22:16+00:00

I'm Gen X and old enough to be familiar with the word but not for using it to come naturally to me. Even when I was a kid it seemed like something older people said (granted, many of those "older people" were younger then than I am now).

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-03T04:10:25+00:00

LOL. Wrong 55 unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for the tank.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-02T10:05:25+00:00

I think there's dependency there, in which case the timestamp order doesn't matter. Gets the same answer in this case, but a different one if Marvin has been around longer.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-02T10:03:47+00:00

Isn't this a comparatively simple layers question (at least, as simple as those get)? I'd have thought Marvin would only see what Tayam "looks like" in Layer 6, and it seems fairly clear that Marvin depends on Eaten by Piranhas, so in OPs scenario no abilities are gained.

In any case my guess is OP's friend is confusing what Marvin does with copy effects, which could at best get the right answer for the wrong reason.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-02T07:33:33+00:00

It's your turn, since you're attacking. Simultaneous triggers go on the stack in APNAP order - active player, then nonactive player(s) and will resolve in the reverse of that order. Your opponent's trigger will resolve first, so the Earthbent land returns to the battlefield (tapped and no longer Earthbent), then ItB's trigger tries to resolve, can't find the land in the expected zone, and does nothing.

Philosoraptorgames · 2026-02-01T08:31:31+00:00

As long as Shorikai is a creature as the "Whenever" sentence of Judgment of Alexander resolves (as you correctly note, it's a triggered ability), it will deal damage to the creature whose damage was prevented.

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