Rules Magic Players Keep Getting Wrong | The Command Zone 521 | Commander EDH

[@commandcast]

What rules do you frequently struggle with? Has your playgroup been getting any of these rules wrong?

[@samphilliber1259]

As a judge, I sometimes get to provide the “womp womp” moments when I have to tell someone in my group that it doesn’t work like that. One that comes to mind is when you Mind Control a creature, it will have summoning sickness. They believed that summoning sickness is how long it’s been on the battlefield, not how long you’ve controlled it. Actually had to break out the CR on that one 😅

[@papini44]

Definitely replacement effects, I tried to watch a video on the subject turns out it's much more complex than i thought 😂

[@DeathofSeven]

Layers are the worst. Great episode, these really are things that are frequently done wrong

[@Skulkiin]

I'm never sure if triggered abilities can interrupt part of effects going off. Like if you have "draw a card, discard a card" and someone has an effect that triggers when you draw, will it happen immediately before you discard? Or will your entire effect resolve first? How does this work with spells that say, "choose two" and then have a list of abilities it does?

[@Natedogg2]

@@Skulkiin Anything that triggers in the middle of a spell or ability resolving can't go on the stack until that spell or ability is completely done resolving. So the trigger cannot go on the stack until after that spell or ability is completely done resolving and has left the stack. The same is true with modal spells or spells with multiple instructions - you have to finish resolving that spell or ability before the triggers can go on the tsack.

[@tsuki7064]

I think one thing missed here is that you can still kill someone from under teferis protection. For example, if they have 9 poison counters and you proliferate, you can kill them. Because proliferate doesnt target

[@Playingwithproxies]

Or hitting them with infect or commander damage that can’t be prevented

[@namulith1123]

@@Playingwithproxies Triumph of the Hordes + Questing Beast is a fun one

[@randymodeste2100]

Triumph + Hydra Omnivore is great keeps everyone honest

[@shawnwilliams804]

You could cast stomp that says that damage can’t be prevented. Than you can hit them and win

[@janfuchsloch5807]

​@@shawnwilliams804 only with Commander Damage, then their life can not change.

[@IslandPonder]

I, for one, welcome the rise of the Rachel Weeks show featuring the command zone crew.

[@alexjones3458]

None of her laughs feel genuine, she's putting on an annoying show for the camera if you ask me.

[@TheCaptinhazmat]

​@@alexjones3458 good thing no one did lol.

[@robynmaag1266]

​@@alexjones3458funny thing is that no one asked you :)

[@seanrobinson3968]

Give that woman a break! She's been in every episode since she came on officially.

[@JonPayne777]

@@alexjones3458 can’t say I trust the opinion of the Info Wars guy

[@ShivaX51]

One thing you overlooked mentioning on Player Elimination is all their spells and abilities also removed. Some people think that if you have 20 Blood Artist triggers on the stack and someone kills you, those 20 triggers still resolve and they get revenge from beyond the grave. But they don't. Once they die all those BA triggers disappear.

[@ozzwich]

Sort of ties in with the priority topic too. Like if there are two blood artists and the active player board wipes, they could kill themselves with the non active player's triggers before their triggers resolve, which then removes the triggers from the stack when they die.

[@mitchellrobinson-sw6qx]

Similar to killing an omnath player. Kill all their elementals and them. They can't hit you for 3 from the grave

[@Karonar]

Also the creature animated by Animate Dead would get exiled, not put into the graveyard. "When a player leaves the game, all objects (see rule 109) owned by that player leave the game and any effects which give that player control of any objects or players end. Then, if that player controlled any objects on the stack not represented by cards, those objects cease to exist. Then, if there are any objects still controlled by that player, those objects are exiled." The "Animate goes byebye" Trigger never resolves while the player leaves the play, so the creature would get exiled.

[@commanderpower99]

It's a good thing you guys had a break from card previews. Love these strategies and general topic shows. I watch them all!!

[@TopLevelJiuJitsu]

100%

[@nickchaput219]

One that a lot of people get wrong is if you take control of an enemy creature it regains "summoning sickness" so you can't attack with it unless the card you took it with also grants it haste

[@OneoftheVoice]

Hence why red’s treasonous effects grant haste while blue’s mind control don’t.

[@mickeysmagic89]

I was playing in a prerelease once and I had my opponent dead on my next turn. He plays a big dragon and then casts Threaten on it. And I was confused, until he explained that it gave his dragon haste and then he killed me with it

[@eskimoprime09]

Yup. Every time someone gets confused over summoning sickness, I just tell them "A creature cannot attack or use tap abilities unless it has been under your control continuously since the beginning of your last upkeep."

[@damo9961]

I don't know anyone that nooby.

[@AlexHamilton86]

@@eskimoprime09 That is incorrect. It has to have been under your control from the beginning of your current turn, not your last upkeep. That's why you can flash etc. a creature in during the end step of the player before your turn, and use them in your turn.

[@jorochimaru]

You forgot to mention with the stack is that whenever there's multiple triggers on the stack, when you start resolving 1 by 1, priority passes after each and every trigger once it resolves if anyone wants to add something else onto the stack

[@hangryherbivore]

Not only do you need to determine the starting player before resolving mulligans, you need to do it before anyone even looks at their first hand of 7 cards.

[@personsomeone2760]

You know how long commander games are. You think anyone will be this nit picky for waiting. O you don't have a good hand for first let someone else go

[@millibillionth]

​@@personsomeone2760 That's more of a rule zero situation where everyone agrees to speed up the process and not raise disputes.

[@cultoftyler9045]

this makes absolutely zero difference

[@reactivatedyt9788]

More of these please! More discussions about card mechanics and abilities. Wording has always plagued our play group because of minor words making the card seem way different once everyone has their own interpretation of how it’s read.

[@joystickgenie]

An aspect of teferi's protection that wasn't mentioned directly is that it doesn't just stop you from being newly enchanted but also will remove any auras attached to you as a player when it resolves. So if you have some curses on you those curses will "fall off" and go to the graveyard or even an aura you want on yourself like Paradox Haze.

[@mn6334]

Depends on who controls the Paradox Haze. If you control it it'll phase out with all your other permanents so it won't fall off.

[@joystickgenie]

@@mn6334 oh good point yeah that goes right to that note they made that the entire effect has to resolve before state based actions are taken.

[@mfitkin]

I think it’s worth noting that replacement effects are different than triggered abilities. Triggered abilities use apnap to decide order, and I think most people know replacement effects supersede that, but if there are multiple replacement effects the controller of the permanent chooses which replacement effect they wish to have applied and that’s the only one applied in most cases. One exception is when a card has a self-replacement effect it will take precedence, for example a creature that exiles itself instead if would die. There are more exceptions of course 😅

[@LeKrutes]

This needs to be higher

[@atk9989]

And some replacement effects stack onto each other like token doublers for example are replacement effects not triggers and they stack not on the stack.

[@ScorpioneOrzion]

Replacement effects can apply at any time as well, but only once per instance (Outside of the commander replacement effect, what can be applied as many times as needed.)

[@TheLuckySpades]

I got a burn deck with a lot of replacement effects for damage, was sad to learn that the player I'm hitting sith the burn spell gets to choose the order, so most people put the +2 damage after the tripling damage effect

[@mibbzx1493]

@@TheLuckySpades like torbran

[@RicketyEng]

A story about priority: I was once in a game with a player playing B/G reanimation stuff with Meren of Clan Nel Toth. He had a sac outlet and several creatures on the board. Then he cast Living Death and asked if we had responses. The third player and I both considered for a moment and both said no. The Meren player then tried to start saccing his creatures for them to get reanimated by Living Death and that's when we informed him that it was too late because priority had been passed.

[@RenzZlax]

So he would have had to play living death, hope you guys responded, then sac stuff?

[@RicketyEng]

@@RenzZlax yes. Either he sacs all his stuff before giving us a chance to respond (at which point countering the spell would hurt), or he relies on at least one of us responding in some way so that he will get priority again.

[@gildeddrake1479]

@@RicketyEng I probably did this mistake several times too but none of my friends knew the rules well enough to call me out on it. will definitely be more careful now.

[@bluevader13]

In the priority section at 33:46 to 52:31, a card like Necromantic Selection could have been talked about. It can revive a commander since the choice of putting the commander back into the commander zone happens after the spell resolve and does all of the effects (boardwipe + revive). I always get into that argument when I bring that card to LGS or commander events...

[@ReyosBlackwood]

A lot of players are still used to the rules as they were in 2020 and before, since the difference in the rules change only matters in edge cases like that (and mostly in death triggers) prior to the mid 2020 rules change that was a replacement effect and not a trigger, so it couldn't be interacted with that way.

[@DangoHsu]

​@@ReyosBlackwood Technically, it's never a trigger. For dying and exiling, it's a state-based action; for moving to hand or library, it's still a replacement effect.

[@TopLevelJiuJitsu]

This is a top 10 best episodes, IMO. Might be a little much for beginners, but I love the edge cases they're addressing

[@ThisIsACommanderChannel]

Oh snap, if you liked this episode so much to put it in their top 10, then you might enjoy my Tough Rules & Cool Interactions series. It's around 75ish episodes (currently) dedicated to explained complex Magic rules and going into the details of how card interact with each other. If you do check it out, please give me some feedback, I'm always wanting to improve and add to the series.

[@seayeo]

Rachel and Murph make a great presentation team. This was a good one.

[@ThisIsACommanderChannel]

For any players that really like this type of content (Magic rules and how cards interact with each other), I have a whole series dedicated to explaining these sorts of things. I cover simple things like what they've covered in this video but I also get into the really complex parts of Magic like the Layers System (time stamps and dependencies), steps to casting spells and activating abilities, interactions of multiple replacement effects, and much more. The series is called Tough Rules & Cool Interactions.

[@veyloris7928]

Yeah, this is actually where I learned about the doubling season interaction they're talking about.

[@ThisIsACommanderChannel]

@@NavonDemhier If it helps people that are interested in learning more about Magic rules then I hope they do find it. There are a lot of players here in the comments asking for more content about explaining rules and asking questions of specific rulings and card interactions.

[@ThisIsACommanderChannel]

@@veyloris7928 Oh yeah, that was actually my very first episode in the series. I've got another episode coming up talking about Doubling Season and how it works with Planeswalkers, something a lot of players know about but then I'll be going much deeper into the rules and covering something that a lot of L1 and L2 judges don't even know about.

[@TaintedThoracle]

@@ThisIsACommanderChannel that sounds cool! I hope it also covers the interaction of using a + loyalty ability with a card like Lae'zel, Vlaakith Champion and Doubling Season also under your control because that interaction is very interesting!

[@Doctordub]

I've screwed up plenty of games from weird interactions, will have to give this a look

[@PhyrexianPraetor]

I love this episode a lot, the weird edge cases of magic rules is one of my favorite things to figure out

[@ThisIsACommanderChannel]

If you're a big fan of this sort of rules stuff, I have a series called Tough Rules & Cool Interactions that is specifically covering all this kind of stuff. If you do happen to check it out, please give me some feedback and also request any sorts of rules and/or card interactions you'd like for me to cover. I have around 75 episodes so far with hundreds more planned, but I'm always looking for more to cover.

[@PhyrexianPraetor]

@@ThisIsACommanderChannel I'll definitely check it out then!

[@ThisIsACommanderChannel]

@@PhyrexianPraetor Awesome! Thanks, I hope you learn some cool things that are also applicable to the games you're actually playing, and not just super corner case type things.

[@thanhavictus]

Have judge Dave on as a guest and you have yourself a content pool of 10 episodes

[@ThisIsACommanderChannel]

@@thanhavictus Oh yeah, Dave is a great guy. He and I have chatted a bit on Discord. I do hope that we can find a way to work together for some videos. I'd enjoy playing against him in Judge Tower and I'm certain he would utterly destroy me. That man is a machine!

[@the_r4ts]

44:00ish when you overload a spell, it no longer targets. “Target” gets replaced just with “each”, not “each target”

[@timothyswartz8802]

Love this kind of content. Rachel is an amazing addition to the team.

[@domthompson7992]

So happy for this episode. I've always know APNAP but never understood the resolution. This is the first time it's been shown the stack interaction which flips it on its head. The more you know...

[@ThisIsACommanderChannel]

If you want to dive even deeper into Magic and its rules and structure, I have a series called Tough Rules & Cool Interactions that covers this sort of stuff. I cover things like APNAP order but also deeper things like interactions of multiple Replacement Effects, the Layers System (which is the interaction of multiple Continuous Effects), and much more. Most of it is more complex than the stuff they covered in this episode, but I do my best to explain it in a clear way for most players to understand whether they're less than a year of playing or a seasoned player that's been around for 10+ years.

[@stfinalwrath]

If you use an effect or have a commander that states damage cannot be prevented, you can still knock the teferi's protection player out of the game with commander damage. It just has to be a board wide effect that specifically states, "Damage cannot be prevented" without targeting the phased out player. I.E. Skullcrack dealing the 3 damage to yourself, and now you can knock the teferi's protection player out with commander damage. 😄

[@jackehlers2072]

Yes, that works with protection in most cases, however, I believe Teferi's Protection also says your life total can't change, but the game will still keep track of the commander damage.

[@wldnrkls]

damage prevention doesn't work but i don't think "your life total can't change" counts as damage prevention

[@jackehlers2072]

@@wldnrkls Correct, it is not damage prevention, but protection is preventing damage. So while the damage isn't prevented, it just has no effect, other than with commoner damage, and (probably?) infect/toxic.

[@ReyosBlackwood]

@@wldnrkls correct, but there the damage prevention comes from protection. If damage can't be prevented that part of protection stops working, so the damage will happen, but the "your life total can't change" part will stop damage from causing loss of life - this very specifically will matter in some cases, lifelink will still work, so will infect, toxic and poisonous, any other abilities that happen when a creature deals (combat) damage will trigger, and as pointed out, any damage done there by a commander will be tracked towards the game losing 21 points.

[@foddersfollies7494]

I don't think it works this way. Commander damage only counts if the damage occurs in combat. Since the life total can't change, and you have protection from everything, I don't think you can take commander damage. I know you can't get poison counters from combat (proliferate is different) while teferied, and I would it would be the same for commander damage. The only thing that damage can't be prevented does, is allow you to gain lifelink credit if your creature has life link. I'm no judge though, so I may be wrong.

[@andrewtiede9030]

Very cool episode. A lot of good information you normally don't think about in a random game with friends

[@theaeskey2502]

One of my favorite rules interaction is the way you can manipulate the stack by holding priority. It can be especially potent with exile effects that you can blink or unsummon like mangara and the like but I just love the tricky things you can do the stack by holding priority in certain key instances.

[@makingnoises2327]

Important to note that you can only hold priority during your turn, and you have to pass priority for anything to resolve. There's an infamous story of a player at an LGS declaring that they were "holding priority" while going through their whole turn to effectively Silence the table, which is Very Much Not How It Works.

[@kevinbach9828]

​@@makingnoises2327 I believe this is incorrect, players can hold priority whenever they have priority. See 117.3c: If a player has priority when they cast a spell, activate an ability, or take a special action, that player receives priority afterward. The active player receives priority whenever a spell or ability resolves as per 117.3b, i.e. you are correct that you have to pass priority for anything to resolve

[@makingnoises2327]

@@kevinbach9828 the active player is the player whose turn it is.

[@kevinbach9828]

@@makingnoises2327 Yes, you did understand that correctly. But you can hold priority as you are casting spells or activating abilities. Not only during your turn. As the active player you gain priority after a spell *resolves* but you do not need to be the active player to hold priority.

[@lockecole3726]

25:29 When you move to the declare attackers step, from the beginning of combat step, sure. Not from a main phase into a combat phase, though.

[@therealax6]

There's in fact no "move to X step/phase" game action. You're _always_ merely passing priority. The game itself moves through steps and phases when all players pass priority with an empty stack. "500.2. A phase or step in which players receive priority ends when the stack is empty and all players pass in succession. Simply having the stack become empty doesn’t cause such a phase or step to end; all players have to pass in succession with the stack empty. Because of this, each player gets a chance to add new things to the stack before that phase or step ends."

[@DarkEinherjar]

I've had to explain multiple times that Teferi's Protections doesn't phase THE PLAYER out... 🤦‍♂ Last time, the player wanted to use it to avoid being chosen by my Sewer Nemesis... naturally, it failed.

[@Natedogg2]

@@MrJustintreat They do, but choosing a player for the Nemesis is a replacement effect. It doesn't target or do anything else that protection cares about, so they can still be chosen as the player for the Nemesis, even if they have protection from everything.

[@Miztickow]

There are two things you missed in the topics you covered: Modal spells - The different parts of the spell resolve in the order they're written on the card. Dying player - When a player with monarch or the initiative dies, the monarch and/or initiative shift to the next player after the dying player in turn order.

[@helderboymh]

Unless they die during someone else's turn, then the active player becomes the monarch.

[@subiskier1]

Fantastic episode! So helpful and the corner cases are far more common than ‘corner’. Keep up the strategy and rules content!

[@jongailey85]

Also, when you go to combat and pass priority, if someone activates an ability or casts a spell it opens up another round of priority where you can do other things in response to that, essentially “halting” the movement into combat. That’s something I did not know for a long time for some reason.

[@counterclockwisepup5237]

I lost the smallest amount of love for Murph when I found out he eats his pancake stack top to bottom and doesn't cut through the whole stack to get a nice three slice bite.

[@gabriel342]

I LOOOOOOVE this episode!!! The complexity and intricacy of Magic is what I think draws a lot of people to the game and makes it more interesting. Seeing these rules explained in detail like this is SO satisfying. I have been playing MAGIC since 1994 at the age of 9 and I am STILL learning things. Way to go guys! Great job.

[@Flyboy245]

1:05:17 did not know the doubling season exception. Will have to keep an eye out. Love weird stack interactions tho! All the command zone stuff is great, but this was a fun episode. Brought up a lot of common issues I’ve seen people have trouble with. “Except” is the word of the episode 😂 One of my favorite fun fact tidbits, you can still die to commander damage with a platinum emporium on the field

[@therealax6]

I think that, instead of memorizing all the exceptions, it's worthwhile to understand why. It's not like every card has a random ruling stapled onto it. For the one you mention, copies of permanent spells _become_ tokens; they don't _create_ tokens. This is actually called out specifically by the rules: "608.3f If the object that’s resolving is a copy of a permanent spell, it will become a token permanent as it is put onto the battlefield in any of the steps above. A token put onto the battlefield this way is no longer a copy of a spell and is not “created” for the purposes of any rules or effects that refer to creating a token."

[@therealax6]

And if you want another fun interaction with Teferi's Protection, consider this: you cast Teferi's Protection, and another player has a Questing Beast and creatures that will deal 10 poison if they hit you, via infect or toxic. Questing Beast says that combat damage dealt by that player can't be prevented. (Protection's effect on damage is a prevention effect.) The damage is still dealt to you, but your life total can't change, so you don't actually lose life due to it. But since damage _is_ dealt, infect and toxic process and you'll take the poison!

[@Flyboy245]

@@therealax6 o I gave up trying to memorize exceptions a long time ago 😅. Especially in commander, because there’s so many weird interactions with cards that weren’t originally intended to be played together. Knowing the rule now, it makes sense. Crazy how subtle differences in text like “become” and “create” make huge differences in gameplay

[@Flyboy245]

@@therealax6 as far as the tefs protection comment you made, I knew there was a loophole (prolly more than one), but I couldn’t think of it off the top of my head, so I went with emperium. You can also get milled out under a protection, as long it’s a universal effect, not targeting

[@therealax6]

@@Flyboy245 Trying to judge an interaction by memorizing exceptions would make everyone go insane! But then again, I'm the kind of person who actually finds reading the comprehensive rules fun...

[@moptasticable]

RIP Parallel Lives in my Volo deck, had no idea it didn’t work but it totally makes sense

[@rafaellage8608]

I like the shows with Jimmy and Josh but Rachel is my favorite now, it's always a fun and relaxing show when she is in.

[@shayneweyker]

If a commander will hit a player under a Teferi's Protection and the damage cannot be prevented for some reason like Insult/Injury then the commander damage will be applied towards the 21 damage limit even though the Teferi's Protection player's life total cannot change.

[@tsuki7064]

I think one exception you forgot to mention is the interaction between feldon/kiki jiki and doubling season. Because doubling season replaces the effect, its feldon/kiki jiki thats creating the tokens and not doubling season, and therefore both tokens will be sacrificed at the end of the turn

[@samphilliber1259]

A fun thing with that is what happens if you populate one of those tokens. Because the sacrifice isn’t a characteristic of the token and is instead a delayed triggered ability, the populated token won’t go away!

[@therealax6]

@@samphilliber1259 As a general rule, an effect that says that a token copy gains some ability doesn't affect the token's copiable values. This applies to basically every example shown in the video as well.

[@samphilliber1259]

@@therealax6 Yeah that’s what I was saying. If the token isn’t given the characteristic itself and is granted by a continuous effect later, it’s not copiable.

[@ChristopherM.8]

One thing not covered under player death that i feel should've been is what happens to triggered abilities owned by that player. They are exiled from the stack and do not resolve, this is especially important for 'oblivion ring'-like effects, which i see players get wrong every time. If a player dying also controls an oblivion ring, the triggered ability that would return to play some other card is exiled, the ability does not resolve. It doesn't return --- if, however, they donate that oblivion ring prior to dying, the oblivion ring's leave the battlefield trigger will successfully resolve when exiled as it isn't 'controlled' by the player being removed from the game.

[@kurowasanabe]

If it wasn't for this thumbnail I never would have known that Jimmy was a judge.

[@Rococorico]

One thing I've seen people get wrong a few times is in Sylvan Library's rulings: cards drawn before the draw step (as the example here was with another draw step effect) CAN be returned to the top by Library, as long as the player has kept those distinguishable from cards in hand prior to any draw this turn. Say, your Phyrexian Arena triggers on upkeep, then your Sylvan Library in your draw step. If other players are 100% clear on which card was drawn by PA (or if you're in MTGO, of course), it's eligible to return to the top through SL. In short, when playing SL, DON'T mix cards drawn this turn with the rest of your hand until SL resolves entirely.

[@katskouros941]

Babe wake up the command zone dropped a new podcast episode

[@only1sn1not1taken]

For it that betrays, something like opposition agent should also be mentioned. It that betrays is a trigger but opposition agent is a replacement effect. Triggers care about turn order but for replacement effects, the player trying to do the thing decides the order of the replacement effects. Basically they would get to decide who gets the opposition agent effect.

[@only1sn1not1taken]

Also with spell copies. Spells with multiple targets or "up to" will maintain the same number of targets. So if you ghostly flicker with one target and try to copy the spell, the copy will also only be able to target one thing.

[@grillburgerdaq5121]

Some things I have to explain every time I play my Karona false god deck is that A. She is not present on each individual player’s turn during the beginning of their upkeep so all their upkeep triggers hit the stack before her upkeep trigger where that player gains control of her. B. She untaps herself on the upkeep trigger so any “doesn’t untap during your next untap step” abilities don’t work. C. Backgrounds are basically treated like extra text in her text box so if the ability says “you” it’s referring to her controller and not me, the owner of the background. D. It counts as commander damage no matter who controls her. E. Yes I can die via commander damage from my own commander. F. She’s an avatar so you gotta name that if you want to buff her. And G. You’re not the first player to cast path to exile on her during your own turn and getting a land for yourself. Every player running white does it.

[@AxlStrife0]

Unless APNAP has been stricken from the rules, the active player would untap and gain control of Karona before that player's upkeep triggers would resolve. Granted, they wouldn't be able to apply any "target creature/permanent you control gains X" beginning of upkeep triggers onto her since she isn't a legal target when the trigger goes onto the stack.

[@Tvboy777]

Another player that thinks they are the smartest person in the room while being completely wrong. APNAP is still a thing, the stack resolves last-in first-out, non-active player's effects trigger last and resolve first.

[@grillburgerdaq5121]

@@AxlStrife0 when left to her own devices, Karona is never present on any players turn as “beginning of upkeep” triggers hit the stack. This is important because cultist of the absolute gives Karona “at the beginning of your upkeep sacrifice a creature” but because Karona is not there at the beginning of the upkeep, that trigger never goes on the stack. That’s how I meant to word it.

[@grillburgerdaq5121]

@@Tvboy777 let’s be nice. Cmon now. It’s a hard game and I never said I was the smartest. As the controller of the deck I take it upon myself to get it right. Doesn’t mean I always do. And Karona is not your usual card so rule clarity is very important.

[@grillburgerdaq5121]

I edited the first point so it’s accurate now.

[@shayneweyker]

Some old cards say you can use an ability during your upkeep. Some of those like brass man have been changed in Oracle to say the option to use the ability or not goes on the stack at the start of upkeep, others like Ashen Ghoul have not.

[@therealax6]

As a general rule, activated abilities say "activate only during your upkeep", while triggered abilities say "at the beginning of your upkeep". (Cards cannot trigger at the end of a step/phase or "during" a step/phase any longer; it's always at the beginning of a certain step/phase.)

[@nothingtobeconcernedabout7477]

Why not bring in an actual judge for this show?

[@ryanbolson23]

I don’t think that’s necessary. People can talk about a topic without needing to consult an expert every topic. It’s a podcast, not a sanctioned tournament. Relax.

[@Luckie_7]

My group has the portland mulligan, if your hand is all lands or no lands you mull a full hand. It’s a variation on the London mulligan but if you are on say five cards and draw no lands, you can draw to five again, if that time it’s all lands, you draw to five again. Provided you reveal your hand you can do this as many times as needed. Anything but full lands or no lands we run London mull as normal. Every casual home group mulls a little different

[@Dev.L]

Although kinda niche, one thing that people get wrong is that auras only target when they're resolving on the stack, essentially meaning cast. So if you manage to blink/flicker an aura that's already on the bf, you can actually enchant something that has hexproof or shroud since you aren't targeting, so long as it's a valid object. This mostly only comes up in Brago and maybe Roon decks. Another one is that you can activate an Equip ability on the creature it's already equipped to. It doesn't unattach then reattach, but you can still activate the ability since it's still a valid target. An example would be Cephalid Illusionist and Shuko.

[@shogun452]

Regarding attacks, there is a “beginning of combat” step that takes place before declare attacks, but you must clarify you are moving to that step and not declare attacks. If you say “move to combat” without clarification, and no one stops you, you are in “declare attacks”. However someone else can act in the beginning step, if, for example, they wanted to kill a creature with a haste equipment attached, so it could not be moved to a new creature (equip is sorcery speed, and only instant speed effects can take place during the combat phase).

[@Thewallace7347]

For my combo players out there if you are using a sac outlet thats a mana ability, if you are afraid of interaction like an cling to dust or relic of proginetus, you can cast a split second card first and while its on the stack go through the combo. you can respond to it with making mana and triggered abilities still can go on the stack through split second

[@LadyTsunade777]

Another small point on Teferi's Protection: If there is an effect active that says "Damage can't be prevented." then other players _can_ still kill you with commander damage, even though your life total still cannot change. So if another player casts Skullcrack or Insult, or there's a Leyline of Punishment out, then they can attack you with their buffed up commander and still kill you, because they are still dealing damage even though Teferi's Protection also stops your life total from changing. Other players can also still mill you out with non-target mill or draw effects.

[@RazgrizAce67]

On eliminating players, another important thing is that any effects, spells, or abilities on the stack an eliminated player controls are removed when they are eliminated. Important for example if you swing for lethal on someone who has a No Mercy on the field.

[@ixgeedee]

Biggest issues that my playgroup runs into would be layering and the timing of the layers if existing on the same layer: e.g. Blood Moon & Urborg-esque lands.

[@ThisIsACommanderChannel]

I actually just recently did an episode on Layers in my series Tough Rules & Cool Interactions. The episode is #73 and it covers Comprehensive Rules section 613.6 and how abilities that apply in previous layers will continue to apply in future layers even if they have been removed. I have a few other episodes that cover Layers System, so please check those out and let me know what you think, if they help you and your playgroup.

[@Luckie_7]

As long as your table’s ruling is consistent for the whole game you don’t have to google anything ever. At casual tables it’s more fun to not worry about it, come to a table consensus (sometimes it won’t be in your favor) and stick to it. It keeps the game moving and feels more like playing a game than pausing to google a ruling that came up at a pro table in 2015.

[@LightBender777]

Phase out and protection are 2 very different abilities a clear distinction to make when discussing teferi protection. As it still protects against board wipes and such.

[@RazgrizAce67]

Conditional triggers are something I have gotten wrong in the past. Example "at the beginning of your upkeep, if you meet a condition X, then do thing Y". If you do not meet the condition at beginning of your upkeep, the ability DOES NOT trigger. You can't respond and try to meet the condition because the trigger isn't on the stack. I always thought it went on the stack and then check if condition is met on resolution, that's not the case.

[@BananaNationTV]

34:47 specifically when moving to combat, there is a tournament rule that helps prevent feels bad here. If active player says "Move to combat" and someone else says, "before you do that" or "before combat" It is assumed that they are actually stopping you in the beginning of combat phase before you shortcut to declare attackers. However, if there are any 'At the beginning of combat' triggers that would happen, it is assumed that the non-active player is stopping them from moving out of main phase 1. Essentially the judge always sides with the non-active player in these scenarios because it is almost always the active player abusing language or manipulating the non-active player to let them go to combat first.

[@BratkoCo]

I'm definitely the "judge" in my playgroup . A couple of weeks ago, we were in the middle of a game and a question came up on creatures dying and triggers happening or not happening. Everyone looked at me simultaneously. It felt great to be trusted in rulings, and I joked that I had the power to make wrong things happen😂

[@Norbertorojano]

Also by definition if some object has protection damage is prevented from quoted source. Which means that if another effect stops damage from being prevented, damage can not be dealt.

[@Alternative-Works]

For the boros charm + blasphemous act/wrath example, I think it should be stated that you can very easily just cast boros charm first. Let it resolve. Then cast your board wipe. There's very few edge cases where you'd actually want or need to hold priority with these 2 specific cards (Ex: They are the 1st and 2nd cards on top of your deck and you have future sight in play). 99% of the time you can cast these 2 cards at sorcery speed one after the other and actually have a better effect - you won't needlessly reveal info, you can't get mindbreak trapped, etc. The need to hold priority occurs most often with cards like sensei's top, future sight/ bolas's citadel, wheels... - they are generally cards that change the zones of your other castable cards (and you want to play them before that happens).

[@ScorpioneOrzion]

A funny play you can do with the spell [[Command the Dreadhorde]] while being at a very low life total, is reanimate all creatures and planeswalkers of your opponents graveyards. The spell will resolve, you put all those creatures under your control, lose a lot of life, and then before anybody can respond you die and exile all of the permanents you just reanimated. If for example you reanimate some clones, and control some legendary permanents you stolen from your opponents, you can copy those with the clones, send all the orginals to the graveyard, and still exile the rest. Command the Dreadhorde {4}{B}{B} Sorcery Choose any number of target creature and/or planeswalker cards in graveyards. Command the Dreadhorde deals damage to you equal to the total mana value of those cards. Put them onto the battlefield under your control.

[@CosmicLegion]

One important on priority is planeswalkers I have learned. Once the planeswalker hits the field the player whos turn it is has priority first so they can activate a planeswalker ability before anyone has a chance to kill it before a loyalty ability is used.

[@helderboymh]

Good point. Btw this doesn't just go for pw any permanent can be activated any number of times after someone has played it before anyone else gets priority, unless it can only be activated at sorcery speed then it can only be activated once, before the rest gets priority.

[@MadMage86]

The one that I have the most trouble with when teaching is absolutely priority. Two of my recent 'oooohhhh" moments were creatures generated or reanimated 'tapped and attacking'; one card I'd used specified that they were attacking THAT PLAYER and for some reason I recalled looking up a ruling that said that was how it always worked, only to recently be corrected. The other oddity is alternate and additional casting costs when playing spells using 'unusual' means, such as getting free spells off of decks or using Bolas' Citadel - had to look it up to find that alternative costs are a negative and ADDITIONAL costs had to be paid for in the NORMAL way; for example, playing a Capsize off the top with Bolas' Citadel. If I wanted the Buyback, I'd have to pay the mana for it rather than paying more life.

[@mitchellrobinson-sw6qx]

Wow. Been playing magic for about 5 months now. This video best explained some of the more "complicated" things as well as the stack for me. Thank you very much!

[@ScorpioneOrzion]

1:17:50 You are correct Murph here. In the following situations player B gains control of the grave titan who player A owns. If player B reanimates it, then player C gains control of it and dies. If player A reanimates is, then player B gains control of it and then player C gains control of it and dies. If player C reanimates it, then player B gains control of it and then player C gains control of it and dies.

[@hermodnitter3902]

What are you even talking about, and why are you mentioning reanimation effects?

[@mightyfp]

6:30 also if you're first with catch-up ramp just draw and pass... 11:46 protection is commonly misunderstood, proceeds to explain it wrong... Damage from the protected type is prevented. Damage can't be prevented effects will pierce tefiris protection.

[@trevorsmith7643]

You can still lose due to commander damage after casting Teferi's Protection. Questing Beast says damage CANT be prevented. Protection says prevent damage. There are some red cards that say damage can't be prevented as well.

[@trevorsmith7643]

Even though your like total can't change, you will still be marked for Commander damage.

[@ButterWizard1]

so probably easier to think about commander damage as actually being damage from a commander and not from the player that owns it, just like if i have two commanders it takes 21 dmg from 1 of my commanders and not a combination of both

[@thelastcomment8121]

10:20 my group plays partial mulligans that way if you have one or two really good cards or cards you’d rather get later, you discard and redraw that amount of cards.

[@mbarker_lng]

Mine is just a piece of ancient history and concerns one card- Sorceress Queen. There was a debate every time it was played and more confusingly, the wording of the card was changed. The original text was very clear and specific to say that only the base creature became 0/2 then you apply enchantments and whatnot, but then they made the wording vague, something like "Target creature becomes 0/2" on later prints. Keep in mind the internet was incredibly primitive at this point, so there was no way to look up rulings- we had to go by what was printed on the card and the tiny rulebooks in the card boxes. So, those that had the old text thought it worked one way, while people with the new text (naturally biased toward their own card) interpreted it as the creature becoming 0/2 no matter what other effects are on it- that WotC made the Queen more powerful. This was not unheard of in the early game where reprints were functionally different or in the case or Orcish Oriflame- had a different casting cost. Rumor had it that Time Vault had to be completely re-written too! ;)

[@TheSpacersChoiceShill]

Random thought on Decimate politics (when applicable): When you target the thing you need to, offer that player the choice of another thing you should target. Then the next player, chooses something, and the last player chooses something. Of course you can say nothing on your board.

[@brianburns8483]

On the topic of doubling season not working with spells on the stack becoming tokens since doubling season says "create a token" does it still work with parallel lives? Parallel lives reads "If an effect would put one or more tokens onto the battlefield..." Since parallel lives doesnt say "create a token" will it still double the tokens from spells that become tokens?

[@Natedogg2]

A copy of a permanent spell resolving does not involve a token being created, so anything that would apply to a token being created will not apply. So no, the Lives will not do anything either. 111.12. A copy of a permanent spell becomes a token as it resolves. The token has the characteristics of the spell that became that token. The token is not “created” for the purposes of any replacement effects or triggered abilities that refer to creating a token.

[@therealax6]

For the record, this is Parallel Lives's actual (Oracle) text: "If an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many of those tokens instead."

[@brianburns8483]

@@therealax6 Thank you! didnt realize lives got reworded

[@cclarke_tx]

I've been playing for almost 30 years and found this video helpful. Mtg is extremely complex, which is one of the reasons why it's so great!

[@artvanderschlut7205]

43:53 Mizzix’s Mastery is such a pain to resolve that it made me take apart a whole ass commander deck.

[@georgecenteno2779]

Parley abilities that add mana are also mana abilities and can’t be responded to. Blockers are declared after all attacks have been declared. People like to say what they are blocking with before we finishing declaring attackers.

[@wnathanwren]

At 52:10 isn’t the reason that you can’t destroy the clue before the effect is put on the stack that you can’t respond to someone paying the cost to activate an ability? Maybe Rachel meant to refer to cracking a treasure? In that case, you super can’t respond as the sac is payment of cost, and the ability is a mana ability.

[@ShivaX51]

Recurring Nightmare taught many of us the horrors and power of Priority. "I'll disenchant it." "You can't, you don't have priority. I put it back in my hand. Okay now you have priority." "..."

[@TaskMaster5]

Thing with Recurring Nightmare is priority doesn't really matter. Returning it to your hand is a part of its cost, so they don't even get a chance to disenchant it if you're activating it. Even if they try to disenchant at any point it's on the board you can just bounce it to hand since it's all part of the cost and becomes an invalid target (All this assuming you have a creature to sac as well but if you've got the card in play you probably do).

[@ShivaX51]

@@TaskMaster5 It mattered once Krosan Grip came around, but before that yeah, it didn't matter all that much.

[@keeganbham]

With teferi’s protection, you can also cast spells that prevent damage from being prevented. This lets you deal commander damage even tho their life total can’t change!

[@profanemagic5671]

@36:05 only partly correct. Urza‘s first ability can NEVER be responded to, since it‘s a mana-ability and those don’t use the stack. All you can do is respond to the spell that‘s cast off that mana, or the activation of the second ability. Also, there is a window to cast a spell / use an ability when urza‘s ETB triggers, but that will of cause not prevent the owner of urza from using any of his abilities.

[@helderboymh]

No it's fully correct. "Once those abilities have been put on the stack then you can respond." Mana abilities don't use the stack like you said. So that's not what he is talking about here. He doesn't say that his second ability uses the stack or that you can respond to it. And your second point is literally what Rachel says right before what you linked to.

[@echowolf4230]

A few questions: in the case of Ezuris predation: couldnt you cast a spell in response to the tokens entering the battlefield? Because them entering the battlefield might cause a whole load of things to trigger and then you could put it on that stack (of ETB triggers caused by the tokens entering the battlefield) before they fight? And for Rise of the Dark Realms you can still choose the order in which the creatures enter the battlefield, right? If tapping lands for Mana does not use the stack, you also cannot tap a land for mana in response to something? If I understand it correctly the mana ability of for example Ashnods Altar does not use the stack so you could not respond to Ashnods Altar with Krosan Grip, but if the sacrificing of the creature triggers a Blood Artist you could respond to the Blood Artist-trigger with a Krosan Grip, since that does use the stack?

[@helderboymh]

- no, if a spell or ability resloving causes something to trigger, the trigger is put on the stack after the spell is completely finished resolving. - yes you can chose the order. - mana abilities not using the stack doesnt mean they can't be used while something on the stack but that the ability is *not* put on the stack and people don't get an opportunity to respond to it. A mana ability resolves right away. - yes you can't respond to the activating of mana abilities but if those mana abilities cause triggers you can respond to those ( the opponent can however still activate the ashnod before the grip resolves) Hope that answers all your questions!

[@echowolf4230]

@@helderboymh Yes, thank you for the answers.

[@LINX009XBL]

Feldon of the Third Path doesn't give the token an ability that makes it sacrifice itself, whereas Nalfeshnee does give the token an ability that makes it be sacrificed at end of turn

[@therealax6]

More importantly, Nalfeshnee modifies _the spell_ (as opposed to giving an ability to the permanent), so the spell resolves into a permanent that naturally has those abilities - they become copiable values this way. Giving a permanent abilities doesn't affect its copiable values.

[@screenname7905]

LGS rule: before you roll to see who goes 1st, deal your self 7 face down cards; clearly so your opponent can count them. deal them one at a time, do not count them by sliding. while both players have the cards on the table face down, decide who's going first. We had a younger player sneaking extra cards in opening hands, slight of hand draws during turns, and not correctly announcing their triggers then later saying he did/didn't do the trigger. one time i caught the top of deck slight of hand grab and told him to put it back. he didn't fight the issue; which means he had evaluated the card and knew it didn't help him. I had no way of knowing if the one he put back was the extra card.

[@timothymiles2851]

You guys should snip out the AP/NAP section and have that as a good guide for new players. So good at explaining a complex thing simply.

[@karkius]

Sometimes the lax phrasing in this video might confuse people. Like saying "ashnod's altar is a mana ability" ( it HAS the ability ), or that commander damage "cares about the object itself" ( object in game and the card are two different things - Rachel talks about this more precisely ). With clone you copy the in-game object, not the card. Garth creates a copy of the card which you cast.

[@jonboy1232]

Going back to Feldon with the Myr battlesphere. If there was a doubling season type effect that doubles the amount of tokens, my understanding is you would sacrifice both battle spheres at EOT in that case. 1:06:34

[@helderboymh]

From the rulings: If Feldon’s ability creates multiple tokens due to a replacement effect (such as the one Doubling Season creates), each of those tokens will gain haste and you’ll sacrifice each of them.

[@pillpopper2000]

1st video i have intentionally watched multiple times to try and memorize this :)

[@tapoutologist]

I think the hardest part of magic rules that I have is obviously using the stack, but more specifically when you can respond or interrupt what triggers and when… that’s my worst lol

[@mibbzx1493]

You can do it at the speed of the card when you read it, so if you have an instant with foretell or flashback for example you can cast it on another players turn (saw it coming) but if its a sorcery, you can only do it at sorcery speed on your turn. (Ravenform) If its a activated creature ability, you can cast it at instant speed like (Anje, maid of dishonor) so you usually want your trigger to go on the stack as late as possible to resolve it first so try to play at instant speed if that helps.

[@DragonAttack515]

Rachel: We’re the only format, where the game continues, after someone dies. Oathbreaker: sits in the corner and cries.

[@DigitalAndInnovation]

At first I was like "who are these random people" - but listening to this breakdown- same vibe and insightful commentary! Really great stuff!

[@TheDirtyFinch]

I've played all of the games murph mentioned in the end step. They were all amazing. Especially timesplitters, burnout, and mtg battlegrounds.

[@kevinbach9828]

Addendum to Teferi's Protection: Questing Beast, and various red spells (e.g. *Stomp*//Bonecrusher Giant) get around the damage not being able to be dealt ("damage can't be prevented").

[@penguinshare5354]

That does mean the damage gets dealt yes ( so you then will gain life for example if a creature has life link) but the life total still can't change.

[@kevinbach9828]

@@penguinshare5354 Very true, I forgot that part about Teferi's Protection - I was focusing on the protection part. Damage going through does mean that they could lose the game to commander damage though!

[@jacobisbell9388]

One correction, when a player is removed from the game their stuff is not exiled but removed from the game. Even their exiled cards are removed. Their are enough cards that care about exile that someone could get confused and think they can still benefit from their dead opponents cards somehow. Also cards they stole from their opponents with bribery and the like DO get exiled, which is what they said but worth mentioning in case it comes up

[@Kaxxaa]

My Umbris do tend to shrink in size after bonking an opponent off the table

[@pacunha89]

Listening at work, half-built clone/shapeshifter deck at home "I'm in Danger!" 😅

[@aznirish]

I think Aethersnatch works both ways. While the spell is on the stack, if the player casting Aethersnatch is eliminated, the spell that was targeted goes back to the original controller, and then as stack resolves, the spell fulfills. If someone successfully casts Aethersnatch and the spell is a permanent, it enters the battlefield under your control (noted in the text of the card). When the player who played Aethersnatch is eliminated, because the permanent entered under that player's control, it would be exiled during that cleanup after returning permanent that you controlled through "gain control."

[@helderboymh]

Dang it I switched the Ae to ea and got some interesting results on Google.

[@brannontirin]

Clone makes sense. It enters the battlefield as the thing- So if it enters as Phyrexian Metamorph… it can’t enter as a third thing, because it’s already entered (in order to be metamorph, it’s already done what allows it to copy). Trying to clone metamorph to be soo ring would amount to changing targets after the effect has resolved.

[@exiledlux2940]

Priority is always a fun one. When my brothers and I were just starting magic, I remember I had to explain how priority worked with planeswalkers. They tried to destroy/exile it as soon as it hit the battlefield before I could activate it. Been a long time since then, fun times.

[@benjaminwileman4771]

Back to the first player losing conversation...2 questions. 1. if they had a card with a delayed triggered ability, doesnit still happen? 2. does a permanent with a "when leaves the battlefield" effect still trigger when it's exiled because that player lost?

[@PhoenixianDragon11]

My most frequent rules nightmare is having lots of enchantments enter the battlefield at the same time (i.e. by way of replenish or open the vaults). From constellation triggers to what auras can go where, it’s usually a small headache. That, and how doubling power and toughness effects interact with +1/+1 counters when the counters are changing throughout the turn/instances of “doubling” triggers 🤯

[@aubreyblount3833]

I wish you guys had touched on players having protection from other players like in the noble heritage background. It’s always confusing for my playgroup.

[@therealax6]

If a player or object has protection from some player, they have protection from everything controlled by that player.

[@Krlytz]

57:00 A question about Commander Damage: if you are playing with Partner commanders, would you have to deal all 21 damage with the same one for it to kill a player? What happens if one deals 10 and the other 11 for example?

[@helderboymh]

C Damage is tracked per commander card.

[@mtgsus]

I was almost thinking this video was old news for me, but the last topic saved it and made me learn something about a player dying.

[@Whiskyandrock]

I feel the easiest way to shortcut the copying of a token copy is just to look for the words "the copy gains x" or "the token gains x". If it doesn't have that text then none of the other copies of the original copy will get "x" thing. If has that text then all copies get it

[@kennethgardner5495]

So, what I am getting from this is, with APNAP, the active player misses out the most with multiple abilities on the stack, especially with clones. Good stuff to know!

[@mibbzx1493]

Yea so everyone else have a chance to respond before they like wipe the board or something and get some value out, draw cards or look for counter spells to maybe get them out of a tough situation