Re: using morph to turn a face-down creature face-up, and that not being an activated ability: If that were an activated ability, you'd have to have the card be revealed to activate it... but it doesn't get revealed until the ability resolves. I think they also wanted to avoid letting the opponent respond to the morph cost with a shock to dodge the player getting the morph trigger. Unfortunately, confirmation on this is hard to come by, since the vast majority of old articles are dead now.
I love this longer form and especially the challenge questions. Sometimes I hear an explanation and I'm like "yep that makes sense" then when that situation occurs I'm like "wait how was that again?" using the questions helps kind of ensure that we understand the different sort of aspects of it. Keep up the great content!
As I recall, Mark Rosewater said that Morph was made into a special action specifically so it could not be reacted to. The argument was that opponents had their chance to counter or destroy it when it was being cast, so they didn't want to put Morph players in double jeopardy. That said, he now believes that was a mistake because it wasn't necesary.
I don't think that's right, although most old articles are quite hard to find now. The triggered abilities of morph creatures use the stack for obvious reasons. But imagine I pay 6 mana to flip Akroma Angel of Fury, which has no triggered abilities. If this used the stack, you could shock my creature in response knowing which morph it is after I pay 3RRR. Thanks to state based actions, there goes all my mana.
It was printed in a set with shock. Mkm also has shock. The other important reason is that paying the cost gives information that generally reveals what the creature is so there shouldn't be a window where they can know what it is and have an opportunity to counter it.
I've heard the same thing, making flipping the card face up a special action prevents a scenario in which a lightning bolt can kill the creature after you've pumped a bunch of mana into it, resulting in a huge blow out. If Morph (and manifest) used the stack, it would be an ability so shitty no one would play it, even by early Magic standards
Jeskai Infiltrator gives us a really interesting situation I don't think I've ever seen before. Generally, the game does a very good job of ensuring the owner of any card is always obvious. If it's in a hidden zone, it's *only* in the hidden zone belonging to its owner. If it's face-down, either in exile or on the battlefield, then the owner was known before it was put face-down (for example, if it's manifested from someone's library, you know that the owner of that library also owns the card). Jeskai Infiltrator puts a spin on that by shuffling two face-down exiled cards *after* they're exiled, therefore hiding the owner. It's very fortunate that the *controller* of those cards can then immediately look at them to confirm which one is the Jeskai Infiltrator, and therefore confirm for everyone at the table who owns each card, because if only their owner could look at them (or worse, no-one, as might be the case with certain cards in exile), you'd have a catch-22, where the only way to check who owns which card would be to call a judge.
For sure. I felt like the effect should work, but I wasn't sure if owner rules would just stop it at some point. I guess nice and straightforward that in any case it would be ambiguous, someone has to just declare it. It could've worked by waiting to find out until it's relevant, but it'd seem weird if you had to wait til your Trostani Discordant goes off at end of turn to find out whether the creature you were thinking of Shocking was actually yours or not :)
I suppose they also could've had a rule where, because exile is the only "shared zone" where cards can be hidden (ok maybe command zone somehow??), that if any instruction says to randomly reorder face down cards, if those cards have different owners, then the reordering must be done separately. If an effect wanted you to say, pick a random card among a group with different owners, you'd have to roll a die rather than mix them all up.
The fun part of manifesting a "stolen" Jeskai Infiltrator this way is that you get to say: "I manifest these two cards, one of which came from my library. I won't tell you which is which, but you own that one." (Leave out the final half sentence if the sleeves make it obvious.)
In this case you have to call not only a judge, but have all your cards professionally appraised ahead of time and bring the appraiser to the tournament so determine whose is who based on card grade :P
Really like the challenge questions part of this video. I also enjoyed the longer form video, especially with an in-depth and complicated mechanic such as face down cards. Thanks for making this video, cause I feel like this explains a lot of the interactions that can happen. I definitely think people have switched around their face down creatures on me at some point; I’ll have to remember that they can’t do that. I also didn’t know until somewhat recently that turning face up was a special action; I got got by that a few times, but now I know better
Last winter, I built a Kadena Combo deck where I use cost reduction to make my critical mass of morph cards storm-able. I discovered a lot of these interactions while deckbuilding, and I have to say that this video would have been very helpful. I was a rules advisor back in the day to help out at prereleases when magic was gaining traction in my area, and a lot of my friends still call me on the phone for rulings in spite of my total lack of credentials. Humble brags aside, building a deck with so many niche interactions was challenging and very fun because of it.
So you talked about how flicker effects can be used to in effect turn a face-down creature face-up and you mentioned the interactions of trying to turn face-down instants or sorceries face-up, but unless I just missed it, I don't think you talked about what would happen if you were to flicker a face-down instant or sorcery card. The "can't be flipped" ruling wouldn't seem to apply in this case, since the card isn't actually being flipped, but just turned front face up by being exiled, but then being a non-permanent, it also clearly can't enter the battlefield. Would it just stay exiled? Would it go directly from exile into the graveyard?
I always assumed the reason unmorphing isn't an activated ability was to stop you blowing your opponent out by responding to it and destroying the creature. They didn't want shock to be able to make you waste the whole morph cost
What is happening if i turn face up a manifest lightform ? i assume that the enchant stay on the batelfield but not become an aura but do i still manifest the top card of my library ? i'm not shure if this line is related to the enter the Battlefield effect or not
Sadly it never entered the battlefield as Lightform, so it won't trigger and none of those effects would happen. It would just be a global enchantment doing nothing on the battlefield.
Brand new player. I bought Deadly Disguise as my first bunch of cards. I keep buying Murders at Karlov Manor boosters for the synergy, too. Bless you for this video haha I was so confused as to what happens to my forcibly manifested non-creatures. Still a bit confused, but I think I'm closer to being ready x_x
I love this kind of video...almost certainly too much :) One thought I somehow didn't see in the very wide-ranging comments was, the situation you highlighted as "more interesting", where a face-down permanent becomes a copy but ends up retaining its same characteristic, seems unintuitive to many. I suspect you yourself find it slightly unintuitive hence the "interesting" note haha. I wonder why not have face-down status and copy effects apply without sublayers in timestamp order. Turning face up or down already grants a timestamp. It seems this would match intuition better. Copies act like you put a copy of another card on top of your object; face down puts a "blank" card on top of your object. Just do that in order!
If anything, if copies are "on top of" the card, and morph is that the original card itself is hidden, one would think copies would come AFTER morph, not before. I guess the current metaphor is "copies always change the actual face of the card, not the blank 'back' of the card". But that seems very arbitrary!
At around 16:50, what would happen if you targeted a face down manifested creature whose front face were an instant/sorcery, and proceeded to turn it into a copy of a creature on the battlefield with morph? Would you be able to turn it face up then?
Ooh that is a really cool question :) The preventative rule is phrased "If a manifested permanent that’s represented by an instant or sorcery card would turn face up", don't do it. I think that's pretty clear the actual printed card supersedes any effects that may be on the game object.
Hmm. We always said "I'm going to play this morph facedown" or something similar when casting a creature with Megamorph, but do you have to specify that you're casting it with the megamorph ability? I didn't think about this until now, since obviously you have to be specific when casting a Disguise Morph, since it has ward and the opponent needs to know that.
I don't think you do need to distinguish, although I'm surprised how unclear the CR is about it. The spellcasting section (rule 601) doesn't even mention when to declare you're casting it face down, but clearly it must be before/as you move it to the stack, since the card is literally face down when you do. You do have to state you're paying an alternate cost; since that cost is {3} regardless of which ability is at play, that doesn't distinguish abilities either. The Morph rules just say "cast...as a 2/2 face down creature". I suppose it's implied you must state at some point whether that creature spell has Ward or not before the casting can be complete.
@@jerodast So, I'd either say "I am casting this face down as a 2/2 creature" or "I am casting this facedown as a 2/2 creature with ward 2" depending on situation, and that covers bases, so that's not so bad.
Honestly Magar kind of explains itself, not much more to mention. He already showed not all face downs are "blank 2/2s" with the Cyberman example. One of the Tezzerets makes face-down 5/5s also. Magar's weird ability never actually tries to turn the instant/sorcery face up so that's not really relevant either. Also I think Dave might hate Unfinity a little bit, based on a brief but emotional "aside" in one of his videos made after this one 🤣 Magar is not too bad as those things go though :) Even though it could've just worked via a token with Imprint rather than the whole face down business...
Is it possible to ask a judge to ensure during a game that a card is a legitimate facedown-able card, if you for some reason suspected the other player was faking it
I believe that your opponent is required to show you face down cards when the game ends if they’re still on the battlefield. They might get put back in their hand or something during the game though, so this doesn’t cover every possibility
For the Cyber Conversion with Defenestrated Phantom example (19:10), what happens if an Ixidron is now cast? Does it retain the Cyberman artifact creature type? Seems like that would still be applying to the face down side of the card, but does the CR actually say that it is no longer applying once the card was turned face up?
@@JudgingFtWI meant after the Disguise cost has been paid. So the Cyber Conversion was making the back side a Cyberman artifact, but now that Disguise has been paid, you explain that it is no longer a Cyberman artifact since that only applied to the back side. So now if an Ixidron is played (Defenestrated Phantom is faceup at this point), does the backside of Defenestrated Phantom still remember that it was a Cyberman artifact? Or when Defenestrated Phantom was turned face up with the Disguise ability, does it lose that information? Do you have a CR section that explains this? Thanks so much!
@@HyperHowie56 I'm fairly confident it would forget it was ever a Cyberman. I think it's implied strongly by the rule that the "characteristics of the face-down permanent are specified by the effect that turned it face down or put it into play face down", and that effect has ended. Any new face down effect would be NEW, at which point the rule for effects that don't specify characteristics would kick in and it would be a "blank" 2/2. Sorry don't have a quick CR # for you tho.
I wonder how quick the production time is on these videos. I literally emailed them yesterday, saying I wanted to go over all the face-down interactions. Unfortunately, my question was about "manifest" not appearing in the comprehensive rules... because I was working off a copy that predated manifest. Dernit.
This was a bit of a special case because it's MKM week. I knew I needed to have a video on face-down spells and permanents, and I knew I wanted to publish it by Friday so people could see it before the first FNM with the new cards. Usually, I produce these videos only one or two days ahead of when they're published, which lets me procrastinate the maximum amount...I mean it lets me be flexible and respond to people's questions faster!
If I'm playing Ugin's Mastery and I attack with a creature power 6 or greater, may I turn face up an enchantment or artifact that is currently manifested and have it stay on the battlefield as an enchantment or artifact? My understanding is yes, but if it has been declared as an attacker it is removed from combat and then flipped.
Sounds right to me! I love that some of the weird Morph effects are almost trying to trick the game rules, so the rules include these moments where they're like "ugh, and yes, if SOMEHOW you end up with an attacking non-creature permanent, just remove it from combat..." :D
14:20 I remember hearing that this rule about flipping face down instants and sorceries face up only applies to manifested (and now cloaked) cards and thus does not apply to effects like the ultimate of Tezzeret, Cruel Machinist. This was supposed to imply that it is technically ambiguous what happens when a face down instant or sorcery card from Tezzeret's ability is turned face up, and not covered by the rules. There is however a ruling on Gatherer that says the same thing as what you just showed on screen. I've been wondering about this interaction since. I know how I would treat it if it (somehow) ever came up in-game, but I'm curious if it could technically be considered a mistake in the rules.
701.34 does only apply to manifests (it may be updated with MKM to apply to cloaks too), but there are two other rules that take into account other things "701.34f: If a manifested permanent that's represented by an instant or sorcery card would turn face up, its controller reveals it and leaves it face down. Abilities that trigger whenever a permanent is turned face up won't trigger." 708.7 says that "spells normally can't be turned face up". I'm assuming it means instants and sorceries, but it is weird that it's phrased that way. "708.7: The ability or rules that allow a permanent to be face down may also allow the permanent's controller to turn it face up. Spells normally can't be turned face up." 725.2 explains what happens if an instant or sorcery is part of a mutate pile. I assume this would happen if you manifest one, mutate onto it, then cast ixidron to turn the rest of it face down "725.2g: A face-down merged permanent that contains an instant or sorcery card can't be turned face up. If such a permanent would turn face up, its controller reveals it and leaves it face down. Abilities that trigger when a permanent is turned face up won't trigger."
"Technically" only applies if you are applying the rules to something. If you are assessing the rules themselves, there is no systematic process for that, so nothing is technical - just "what someone thinks" :) I think you're right. The rules now address cloaked, manifested, and mutated (merged) permanents turning face up as/with spell card types. Cruelly Machined instants that get Broken Open lead us into the Blind Eternities!
I have a question. Let's say I copy an adminition angel with my mirage mirror, then play a land and exile an opponent's creature. If on a later turn the mirror leaves the battlefield when it is not an angel, the creature won't come back right? But what if the mirror was turned back into the angel before leaving the battlefield again?
so double sided cards don't have a face up or down? how does this work with disturb? say i have a "faithbound judge" and play an "ixadron", would the judge still not be fliped?
Very interesting. I definitely learned a lot from that. That did answer some questions I had. I still do have one question though. If you had a way to do so, would you be allowed to somehow put transforming permanents on the battlefield face down, and if so, do they count as being transformed?
Yes. The easiest way to do this would be with the manifest (or more recently, cloak) mechanic. These do not count as being transformed, nor does it count as such if they are turned face up, even though these are achieved by performing the same physical action [CR 701.28b].
What if after Defenestrated Phantom gets turned face up, someone casts an Ixidron? Would it become a 2/2 Cyberman artifact again? Or would the Ixidron erase those characteristics since it makes it a 2/2 creature?
Do a video about Ruthless Radrat and Insidious Roots please =). Does each squad cost have the opportunity to trigger roots? or is it all just one trigger.
@@JasonOshinko with an effect that makes a morphed creature a copy of a different creature that has a morph cost, you could use the morph cost, right? And it would still be the copied creature? But does that then not work if the manifested card is an instant?
@@JasonOshinko I think I understand. They're asking: If you make a manifested instant/sorcery a copy of a creature with morph, can you turn it face up? I don't know the answer though. EDIT: Looking at manifest in the CR makes it pretty clear. "If a manifested permanent that’s represented by an instant or sorcery card would turn face up, its controller reveals it and leaves it face down." So the answer is no, it cannot be turned face up because even if it is a copy of a creature with morph, it is still represented by an instant/sorcery card.
Regarding the example at 3:00 regarding the Goblin discount effect, would it work if a Maskwood Nexus was in play? Unsure if the backside would also be granted the "all creature types" effect or not.
Disguise means “You may cast this card as a 2/2 face-down creature with ward 2, no name, no subtypes, and no mana cost by paying 3 rather than paying its mana cost.” It is a Goblin spell, but in order to get the Goblin discount, it would have to have a mana cost and you would have to pay the mana cost. Instead, you are paying 3, and the discount does not apply.
Total costs are calculated as a base cost, which may be the mana cost or an alternate cost, plus any additional costs, plus or minus any modifications to the cost. Goblin discount is a modification, and it CAN apply to the alternate cost as long as the spell is a goblin spell, which Maskwood makes it. So it DOES get the discount. (I have been archive bingeing Dave's videos; I think he has a more recent one that talks more about cost interactions like this.) Yes I believe @@RibusPQR is incorrect here.
In 12:25 i think it would be interesting to tell that if the face-down card being flickered is not a permanent (i.e.: was a manifested or cloacked Instant/sorcery) it will be stuck in the exile and not leave. In the same way, if it was another type of permanent, such as a land, it would enter the battlefield as it would normally. So you could use those kinds of effects as ramp in white decks. Now, the last example left me kinda confused. I thought that since the Jeskai infiltrator exiles itself, it would return to Nick. As opposed to "untap it and turn it face-down." Why isn't that the case?
When constructing a morph-themed commander deck using Kadena as a commander, how can you make sure the other players stop making Yu-Gi-Oh references every time it's your turn?
The “doesn’t have the ability as it dies” thing also applies to replacement effects, fun fact. So if you have a Nexus of Fate manifested and it dies, it can go to the graveyard. I know it sounds crazy, but I asked like four different judges and that’s what they all told me.
Defenestrate is such a funny word, they goofed on the card though, defenestrated goblin would have been better, 3/1 flash haste, sacrifice at the end of turn, investigate, sacrifice to destroy target flyer edit: for 2 or 3R maybe change the stats something like that though
Ok so imagine my commander is Akroma, Angel of Fury, and I cast both her and another morph creature face down from my hand. If someone asks if any of those cards is my commander, must I respond? Must I identify which one it is? If I swing and connect with both, must I reveal immediately that the defending player took 2 commander damage? Can that player then ask which of my morph creatures caused that commander damage?
You would need to be clear which card was which. From the MKM Release Notes: You must ensure that your face-down spells and permanents can be easily differentiated from each other. You're not allowed to mix up the cards that represent them on the battlefield to confuse other players. The order in which they entered the battlefield should remain clear, as well as what ability caused them to be face down. (This includes disguise, cloak, and in games involving older cards, morph and manifest, as well as a few other effects that turn cards face down.) Common methods for doing this include using markers or dice, or simply placing them in order on the battlefield.
This means I must make clear which card entered the battlefield first, but it does not address anything concerning the fact that one of the cards is my commander.
@@igNights77 So according to rulings on r/mtgrules your commander is always identifiable as a consequence of CR 903.3. So even face-down due to morph, shuffled into your library and then manifested, etc, your commander is known to your opponents, because the card itself is designated as the commander. You can probably get more clarifications there. 903.3. Each deck has a legendary creature card designated as its commander. This designation is not a characteristic of the object represented by the card; rather, it is an attribute of the card itself. The card retains this designation even when it changes zones.
@@igNights77 From what I found, as a consequence of CR903.3, your commander is always identifiable, even if face down, shuffled into your library and then manifested later, etc. This is because the commander quality is a consequence of the card being designated as the commander, regardless of being face up or down. As such, your opponent is always aware of which card is your commander.
In a related question about morphs and the grandaddy of baddies in commander: Ixidron! I was playing a game of commander and my opponent flickered his ixidron flipping every other creature face down. He then later asked me what my farthest right face down creature was. I responded that it is not my commander, I own it, and it came into the battle field last. He replied that I had to show him what it was; because, he knew what it had been before it was flipped face down. After some digging it SEEMS like he was right, but I can't really understand why. Could anyone comment on this?
Hm, I'm curious what you dug up that said he was right. You are not allowed to reorder the cards to disguise the information. But it is his responsibility to keep track of the information. He does not have the right to look at it just because some chain of logic says he SHOULD be able to remember it. If he doesn't remember it, he doesn't remember it. If he wanted to know what the furthest right card was, he should've remembered what the furthest right card was before the turning down effect resolved.
I followed all this up until the Cyberman Conversion. I didn't read that the effect setting it as a 2/2 artifact creature only applied to the card while face-down.
I saw that card while researching for this episode and knew I had to cover this interaction because it tripped me up the first time I thought about it too!
Yes. The "no creature types" thing is just what the default characteristics are. Face down creatures can gain creature types via this kind of effect just like any other creature.
It is confusing because as Judge Dave covered, face-down status DOES "cover up" copy effects. However this is the only effect covered up this way aside from the original card attributes. Every other effect comes after, including the type changing effect of Maskwood.
It does bother me you pay the Morph cost to UNmorph it. Why isn't it called an unmorph cost then! But the rules do mention "the morph effect" applying when it's face down, so that does imply the accepted fan terminology is correct, not the other way around.
at 13 you say that flickering a face down card will turn it face up. I thought I remembered reading some example where the card just gets exiled, and remains in exile, because the flicker effect loses track of it. Maybe it only happens to cloaked/manifested non-creatures?
The only time, to my knowledge, that a face down creature would not return from a flicker effect is if it wasn't a permanent card on its front face. So if you manifest an instant from your deck then flicker it, it cannot return to the battlefield as an instant so it stays in exile.
In addition to the case described above, it's also possible you were thinking of tokens or of modal DFC's whose back face is a creature, but whose front face is an instant/sorcery.
Maybe you're thinking of a replacement effect that does something else with the card instead of letting the flicker exile it normally? That's the only situation I can think where a flicker would "lose track" halfway through its own effect rather than the slightly different situation of "can't return it to play". However I don't know of any replacements that would interfere with exiling like that.
At 5:54 : "If a face-down spell moves from the stack to any zone other than the battlefield, its owner must reveal it to all players as they move it." This sounds like it includes hidden zones, but that seems unintuitive. Does that mean if I Remand a face-down spell, it gets revealed?
Yes because if they cast a morph and it gets remanded, they need to prove that they were actually casting a morph rather than trying to bait out a counterspell by claiming something had morph. It's the same reason that your need to reveal your morphs when the game ends or when they leave the battlefield.
The entire point is to include hidden zones :) The consequence of humans needing to enforce the rules of a game played on paper without a digital referee!
8:48 - Correction needed... Once a words is created and used, it is a real word, so "unmorph" is now a real word. So, congrats on creating a new word. Have it used often enough and it may get added to a dictionary. Any word that has meaning in the English language is a real word. Words get their reality from usage.
This may be true, but I recognize that my audience contains a significant proportion of international viewers for whom English is a second language. In a previous video, I saw a comment that my use of this term confused one of them, so I wanted to add that explanation to make it more clear in this video.
Re: using morph to turn a face-down creature face-up, and that not being an activated ability: If that were an activated ability, you'd have to have the card be revealed to activate it... but it doesn't get revealed until the ability resolves. I think they also wanted to avoid letting the opponent respond to the morph cost with a shock to dodge the player getting the morph trigger.
Unfortunately, confirmation on this is hard to come by, since the vast majority of old articles are dead now.
I love this longer form and especially the challenge questions. Sometimes I hear an explanation and I'm like "yep that makes sense" then when that situation occurs I'm like "wait how was that again?" using the questions helps kind of ensure that we understand the different sort of aspects of it. Keep up the great content!
As I recall, Mark Rosewater said that Morph was made into a special action specifically so it could not be reacted to. The argument was that opponents had their chance to counter or destroy it when it was being cast, so they didn't want to put Morph players in double jeopardy. That said, he now believes that was a mistake because it wasn't necesary.
I don't think that's right, although most old articles are quite hard to find now. The triggered abilities of morph creatures use the stack for obvious reasons. But imagine I pay 6 mana to flip Akroma Angel of Fury, which has no triggered abilities. If this used the stack, you could shock my creature in response knowing which morph it is after I pay 3RRR. Thanks to state based actions, there goes all my mana.
Nowadays, they could have made the ability have like, super-Split Second, right? Feel like that could make some amount of sense.
It was printed in a set with shock. Mkm also has shock.
The other important reason is that paying the cost gives information that generally reveals what the creature is so there shouldn't be a window where they can know what it is and have an opportunity to counter it.
I've heard the same thing, making flipping the card face up a special action prevents a scenario in which a lightning bolt can kill the creature after you've pumped a bunch of mana into it, resulting in a huge blow out. If Morph (and manifest) used the stack, it would be an ability so shitty no one would play it, even by early Magic standards
Certain rational interactions are impossible unless flipping a card face up with morph, etc... is a special action.
Jeskai Infiltrator gives us a really interesting situation I don't think I've ever seen before. Generally, the game does a very good job of ensuring the owner of any card is always obvious. If it's in a hidden zone, it's *only* in the hidden zone belonging to its owner. If it's face-down, either in exile or on the battlefield, then the owner was known before it was put face-down (for example, if it's manifested from someone's library, you know that the owner of that library also owns the card). Jeskai Infiltrator puts a spin on that by shuffling two face-down exiled cards *after* they're exiled, therefore hiding the owner. It's very fortunate that the *controller* of those cards can then immediately look at them to confirm which one is the Jeskai Infiltrator, and therefore confirm for everyone at the table who owns each card, because if only their owner could look at them (or worse, no-one, as might be the case with certain cards in exile), you'd have a catch-22, where the only way to check who owns which card would be to call a judge.
For sure. I felt like the effect should work, but I wasn't sure if owner rules would just stop it at some point. I guess nice and straightforward that in any case it would be ambiguous, someone has to just declare it. It could've worked by waiting to find out until it's relevant, but it'd seem weird if you had to wait til your Trostani Discordant goes off at end of turn to find out whether the creature you were thinking of Shocking was actually yours or not :)
I suppose they also could've had a rule where, because exile is the only "shared zone" where cards can be hidden (ok maybe command zone somehow??), that if any instruction says to randomly reorder face down cards, if those cards have different owners, then the reordering must be done separately. If an effect wanted you to say, pick a random card among a group with different owners, you'd have to roll a die rather than mix them all up.
The fun part of manifesting a "stolen" Jeskai Infiltrator this way is that you get to say: "I manifest these two cards, one of which came from my library. I won't tell you which is which, but you own that one." (Leave out the final half sentence if the sleeves make it obvious.)
In the last scenario, imagine if they have the same sleeves and, coincidentally Amy exiles her own Jeskai Infiltrator from the top of her library
In this case you have to call not only a judge, but have all your cards professionally appraised ahead of time and bring the appraiser to the tournament so determine whose is who based on card grade :P
Really like the challenge questions part of this video. I also enjoyed the longer form video, especially with an in-depth and complicated mechanic such as face down cards. Thanks for making this video, cause I feel like this explains a lot of the interactions that can happen. I definitely think people have switched around their face down creatures on me at some point; I’ll have to remember that they can’t do that. I also didn’t know until somewhat recently that turning face up was a special action; I got got by that a few times, but now I know better
Last winter, I built a Kadena Combo deck where I use cost reduction to make my critical mass of morph cards storm-able. I discovered a lot of these interactions while deckbuilding, and I have to say that this video would have been very helpful. I was a rules advisor back in the day to help out at prereleases when magic was gaining traction in my area, and a lot of my friends still call me on the phone for rulings in spite of my total lack of credentials. Humble brags aside, building a deck with so many niche interactions was challenging and very fun because of it.
So you talked about how flicker effects can be used to in effect turn a face-down creature face-up and you mentioned the interactions of trying to turn face-down instants or sorceries face-up, but unless I just missed it, I don't think you talked about what would happen if you were to flicker a face-down instant or sorcery card. The "can't be flipped" ruling wouldn't seem to apply in this case, since the card isn't actually being flipped, but just turned front face up by being exiled, but then being a non-permanent, it also clearly can't enter the battlefield.
Would it just stay exiled? Would it go directly from exile into the graveyard?
400.4a If an instant or sorcery card would enter the battlefield, it remains in its previous zone.
I always assumed the reason unmorphing isn't an activated ability was to stop you blowing your opponent out by responding to it and destroying the creature. They didn't want shock to be able to make you waste the whole morph cost
20 minutes of dave's beautiful voice; LET'S GO!!!!
Amazing video as aways, Dave.
Thanks for the knowledge!
In the case of Flickering a face down card, any abilities that trigger as a result of the card being turned face up would not trigger, correct?
Since the required action didn’t happen, it wouldn’t trigger
What is happening if i turn face up a manifest lightform ?
i assume that the enchant stay on the batelfield but not become an aura but do i still manifest the top card of my library ?
i'm not shure if this line is related to the enter the Battlefield effect or not
Sadly it never entered the battlefield as Lightform, so it won't trigger and none of those effects would happen. It would just be a global enchantment doing nothing on the battlefield.
Complicated stuff! Thanks for explaining all of this.
Brand new player. I bought Deadly Disguise as my first bunch of cards. I keep buying Murders at Karlov Manor boosters for the synergy, too. Bless you for this video haha
I was so confused as to what happens to my forcibly manifested non-creatures. Still a bit confused, but I think I'm closer to being ready x_x
I love this kind of video...almost certainly too much :) One thought I somehow didn't see in the very wide-ranging comments was, the situation you highlighted as "more interesting", where a face-down permanent becomes a copy but ends up retaining its same characteristic, seems unintuitive to many. I suspect you yourself find it slightly unintuitive hence the "interesting" note haha. I wonder why not have face-down status and copy effects apply without sublayers in timestamp order. Turning face up or down already grants a timestamp. It seems this would match intuition better. Copies act like you put a copy of another card on top of your object; face down puts a "blank" card on top of your object. Just do that in order!
If anything, if copies are "on top of" the card, and morph is that the original card itself is hidden, one would think copies would come AFTER morph, not before.
I guess the current metaphor is "copies always change the actual face of the card, not the blank 'back' of the card". But that seems very arbitrary!
At around 16:50, what would happen if you targeted a face down manifested creature whose front face were an instant/sorcery, and proceeded to turn it into a copy of a creature on the battlefield with morph? Would you be able to turn it face up then?
Ooh that is a really cool question :) The preventative rule is phrased "If a manifested permanent that’s represented by an instant or sorcery card would turn face up", don't do it. I think that's pretty clear the actual printed card supersedes any effects that may be on the game object.
Maybe instead of undisguise, we could say reguise.
unguise
Guise. Just guise.
This is great, thank you for going in depth😊
break open mentioned lets gooooooooo
Hmm. We always said "I'm going to play this morph facedown" or something similar when casting a creature with Megamorph, but do you have to specify that you're casting it with the megamorph ability? I didn't think about this until now, since obviously you have to be specific when casting a Disguise Morph, since it has ward and the opponent needs to know that.
I don't think you do need to distinguish, although I'm surprised how unclear the CR is about it. The spellcasting section (rule 601) doesn't even mention when to declare you're casting it face down, but clearly it must be before/as you move it to the stack, since the card is literally face down when you do. You do have to state you're paying an alternate cost; since that cost is {3} regardless of which ability is at play, that doesn't distinguish abilities either. The Morph rules just say "cast...as a 2/2 face down creature". I suppose it's implied you must state at some point whether that creature spell has Ward or not before the casting can be complete.
@@jerodast So, I'd either say "I am casting this face down as a 2/2 creature" or "I am casting this facedown as a 2/2 creature with ward 2" depending on situation, and that covers bases, so that's not so bad.
I’m annoyed you didn’t even mention Magar of the Magic Strings and the face down 3/3s he makes.
Honestly Magar kind of explains itself, not much more to mention. He already showed not all face downs are "blank 2/2s" with the Cyberman example. One of the Tezzerets makes face-down 5/5s also. Magar's weird ability never actually tries to turn the instant/sorcery face up so that's not really relevant either.
Also I think Dave might hate Unfinity a little bit, based on a brief but emotional "aside" in one of his videos made after this one 🤣 Magar is not too bad as those things go though :) Even though it could've just worked via a token with Imprint rather than the whole face down business...
Is it possible to ask a judge to ensure during a game that a card is a legitimate facedown-able card, if you for some reason suspected the other player was faking it
I believe that your opponent is required to show you face down cards when the game ends if they’re still on the battlefield. They might get put back in their hand or something during the game though, so this doesn’t cover every possibility
@@nathanenoughalready3518 The face-down cards must be revealed any time they leave the battlefield regardless of where they go.
For the Cyber Conversion with Defenestrated Phantom example (19:10), what happens if an Ixidron is now cast? Does it retain the Cyberman artifact creature type? Seems like that would still be applying to the face down side of the card, but does the CR actually say that it is no longer applying once the card was turned face up?
If a permanent is already face-down, Ixidron cannot turn it face-down again. The Cyberman will not be affected at all by Ixidron's ability.
@@JudgingFtWI meant after the Disguise cost has been paid. So the Cyber Conversion was making the back side a Cyberman artifact, but now that Disguise has been paid, you explain that it is no longer a Cyberman artifact since that only applied to the back side. So now if an Ixidron is played (Defenestrated Phantom is faceup at this point), does the backside of Defenestrated Phantom still remember that it was a Cyberman artifact? Or when Defenestrated Phantom was turned face up with the Disguise ability, does it lose that information? Do you have a CR section that explains this? Thanks so much!
@@HyperHowie56 I'm fairly confident it would forget it was ever a Cyberman. I think it's implied strongly by the rule that the "characteristics of the face-down permanent are specified by the effect that turned it face down or put it into play face down", and that effect has ended. Any new face down effect would be NEW, at which point the rule for effects that don't specify characteristics would kick in and it would be a "blank" 2/2. Sorry don't have a quick CR # for you tho.
I wonder how quick the production time is on these videos. I literally emailed them yesterday, saying I wanted to go over all the face-down interactions. Unfortunately, my question was about "manifest" not appearing in the comprehensive rules... because I was working off a copy that predated manifest. Dernit.
This was a bit of a special case because it's MKM week. I knew I needed to have a video on face-down spells and permanents, and I knew I wanted to publish it by Friday so people could see it before the first FNM with the new cards. Usually, I produce these videos only one or two days ahead of when they're published, which lets me procrastinate the maximum amount...I mean it lets me be flexible and respond to people's questions faster!
If I'm playing Ugin's Mastery and I attack with a creature power 6 or greater, may I turn face up an enchantment or artifact that is currently manifested and have it stay on the battlefield as an enchantment or artifact? My understanding is yes, but if it has been declared as an attacker it is removed from combat and then flipped.
Sounds right to me!
I love that some of the weird Morph effects are almost trying to trick the game rules, so the rules include these moments where they're like "ugh, and yes, if SOMEHOW you end up with an attacking non-creature permanent, just remove it from combat..." :D
I'm a little surprised Ugin's Mastery didn't already have a posted ruling about that TBH. Seems pretty common with that effect!
14:20 I remember hearing that this rule about flipping face down instants and sorceries face up only applies to manifested (and now cloaked) cards and thus does not apply to effects like the ultimate of Tezzeret, Cruel Machinist. This was supposed to imply that it is technically ambiguous what happens when a face down instant or sorcery card from Tezzeret's ability is turned face up, and not covered by the rules. There is however a ruling on Gatherer that says the same thing as what you just showed on screen.
I've been wondering about this interaction since. I know how I would treat it if it (somehow) ever came up in-game, but I'm curious if it could technically be considered a mistake in the rules.
701.34 does only apply to manifests (it may be updated with MKM to apply to cloaks too), but there are two other rules that take into account other things
"701.34f: If a manifested permanent that's represented by an instant or sorcery card would turn face up, its controller reveals it and leaves it face down. Abilities that trigger whenever a permanent is turned face up won't trigger."
708.7 says that "spells normally can't be turned face up". I'm assuming it means instants and sorceries, but it is weird that it's phrased that way.
"708.7: The ability or rules that allow a permanent to be face down may also allow the permanent's controller to turn it face up. Spells normally can't be turned face up."
725.2 explains what happens if an instant or sorcery is part of a mutate pile. I assume this would happen if you manifest one, mutate onto it, then cast ixidron to turn the rest of it face down
"725.2g: A face-down merged permanent that contains an instant or sorcery card can't be turned face up. If such a permanent would turn face up, its controller reveals it and leaves it face down. Abilities that trigger when a permanent is turned face up won't trigger."
"Technically" only applies if you are applying the rules to something. If you are assessing the rules themselves, there is no systematic process for that, so nothing is technical - just "what someone thinks" :)
I think you're right. The rules now address cloaked, manifested, and mutated (merged) permanents turning face up as/with spell card types. Cruelly Machined instants that get Broken Open lead us into the Blind Eternities!
I have a question. Let's say I copy an adminition angel with my mirage mirror, then play a land and exile an opponent's creature. If on a later turn the mirror leaves the battlefield when it is not an angel, the creature won't come back right? But what if the mirror was turned back into the angel before leaving the battlefield again?
so double sided cards don't have a face up or down? how does this work with disturb? say i have a "faithbound judge" and play an "ixadron", would the judge still not be fliped?
Very interesting. I definitely learned a lot from that. That did answer some questions I had. I still do have one question though. If you had a way to do so, would you be allowed to somehow put transforming permanents on the battlefield face down, and if so, do they count as being transformed?
Yes. The easiest way to do this would be with the manifest (or more recently, cloak) mechanic. These do not count as being transformed, nor does it count as such if they are turned face up, even though these are achieved by performing the same physical action [CR 701.28b].
@@JudgingFtW Thank you
What if after Defenestrated Phantom gets turned face up, someone casts an Ixidron? Would it become a 2/2 Cyberman artifact again? Or would the Ixidron erase those characteristics since it makes it a 2/2 creature?
Do a video about Ruthless Radrat and Insidious Roots please =). Does each squad cost have the opportunity to trigger roots? or is it all just one trigger.
Which takes priority, the rule about instants not being able to be face up, or the copying another creature with a morph cost?
I don't understand the premise of this question. What does one have to do with the other?
@@JasonOshinko with an effect that makes a morphed creature a copy of a different creature that has a morph cost, you could use the morph cost, right? And it would still be the copied creature? But does that then not work if the manifested card is an instant?
@@JasonOshinko I think I understand. They're asking: If you make a manifested instant/sorcery a copy of a creature with morph, can you turn it face up? I don't know the answer though.
EDIT: Looking at manifest in the CR makes it pretty clear. "If a manifested permanent that’s represented by an instant or sorcery card would turn face up, its controller reveals it and leaves it face down." So the answer is no, it cannot be turned face up because even if it is a copy of a creature with morph, it is still represented by an instant/sorcery card.
Regarding the example at 3:00 regarding the Goblin discount effect, would it work if a Maskwood Nexus was in play? Unsure if the backside would also be granted the "all creature types" effect or not.
Disguise means “You may cast this card as a 2/2 face-down creature with ward 2, no name, no subtypes, and no mana cost by paying 3 rather than paying its mana cost.”
It is a Goblin spell, but in order to get the Goblin discount, it would have to have a mana cost and you would have to pay the mana cost. Instead, you are paying 3, and the discount does not apply.
Thanks a bunch!
Total costs are calculated as a base cost, which may be the mana cost or an alternate cost, plus any additional costs, plus or minus any modifications to the cost. Goblin discount is a modification, and it CAN apply to the alternate cost as long as the spell is a goblin spell, which Maskwood makes it. So it DOES get the discount. (I have been archive bingeing Dave's videos; I think he has a more recent one that talks more about cost interactions like this.)
Yes I believe @@RibusPQR is incorrect here.
Spicy one!
In 12:25 i think it would be interesting to tell that if the face-down card being flickered is not a permanent (i.e.: was a manifested or cloacked Instant/sorcery) it will be stuck in the exile and not leave. In the same way, if it was another type of permanent, such as a land, it would enter the battlefield as it would normally.
So you could use those kinds of effects as ramp in white decks.
Now, the last example left me kinda confused. I thought that since the Jeskai infiltrator exiles itself, it would return to Nick. As opposed to "untap it and turn it face-down." Why isn't that the case?
aether flash solves most of the game issues you normally come across with face down creatures.
Can I cast something with morph that costs more than 2 mana from the graveyard using Lurrus?
mana value of morphed spell is 0, so i think so
When constructing a morph-themed commander deck using Kadena as a commander, how can you make sure the other players stop making Yu-Gi-Oh references every time it's your turn?
If permanents enter zones face up by default, then does Undying trigger if the face down creature had it as it enters the graveyard?
It doesn’t have the ability when it dies (leaves the battlefield), so will not trigger the undying
The “doesn’t have the ability as it dies” thing also applies to replacement effects, fun fact. So if you have a Nexus of Fate manifested and it dies, it can go to the graveyard.
I know it sounds crazy, but I asked like four different judges and that’s what they all told me.
If you have mask wood nexus and a goblin war chief would the morph cost be reduced to 2?
Yes!
Defenestrate is such a funny word, they goofed on the card though, defenestrated goblin would have been better, 3/1 flash haste, sacrifice at the end of turn, investigate, sacrifice to destroy target flyer edit: for 2 or 3R maybe change the stats something like that though
Ok so imagine my commander is Akroma, Angel of Fury, and I cast both her and another morph creature face down from my hand. If someone asks if any of those cards is my commander, must I respond? Must I identify which one it is?
If I swing and connect with both, must I reveal immediately that the defending player took 2 commander damage? Can that player then ask which of my morph creatures caused that commander damage?
You would need to be clear which card was which. From the MKM Release Notes:
You must ensure that your face-down spells and permanents can be easily differentiated from each other. You're not allowed to mix up the cards that represent them on the battlefield to confuse other players. The order in which they entered the battlefield should remain clear, as well as what ability caused them to be face down. (This includes disguise, cloak, and in games involving older cards, morph and manifest, as well as a few other effects that turn cards face down.) Common methods for doing this include using markers or dice, or simply placing them in order on the battlefield.
This means I must make clear which card entered the battlefield first, but it does not address anything concerning the fact that one of the cards is my commander.
@@igNights77 So according to rulings on r/mtgrules your commander is always identifiable as a consequence of CR 903.3. So even face-down due to morph, shuffled into your library and then manifested, etc, your commander is known to your opponents, because the card itself is designated as the commander. You can probably get more clarifications there.
903.3. Each deck has a legendary creature card designated as its commander. This designation is not a characteristic of the object represented by the card; rather, it is an attribute of the card itself. The card retains this designation even when it changes zones.
@@igNights77 From what I found, as a consequence of CR903.3, your commander is always identifiable, even if face down, shuffled into your library and then manifested later, etc. This is because the commander quality is a consequence of the card being designated as the commander, regardless of being face up or down. As such, your opponent is always aware of which card is your commander.
In a related question about morphs and the grandaddy of baddies in commander: Ixidron!
I was playing a game of commander and my opponent flickered his ixidron flipping every other creature face down. He then later asked me what my farthest right face down creature was. I responded that it is not my commander, I own it, and it came into the battle field last. He replied that I had to show him what it was; because, he knew what it had been before it was flipped face down. After some digging it SEEMS like he was right, but I can't really understand why. Could anyone comment on this?
Hm, I'm curious what you dug up that said he was right. You are not allowed to reorder the cards to disguise the information. But it is his responsibility to keep track of the information. He does not have the right to look at it just because some chain of logic says he SHOULD be able to remember it. If he doesn't remember it, he doesn't remember it. If he wanted to know what the furthest right card was, he should've remembered what the furthest right card was before the turning down effect resolved.
I followed all this up until the Cyberman Conversion. I didn't read that the effect setting it as a 2/2 artifact creature only applied to the card while face-down.
I saw that card while researching for this episode and knew I had to cover this interaction because it tripped me up the first time I thought about it too!
Can face down cards gain creature types from mask wood nexus
Yes. The "no creature types" thing is just what the default characteristics are. Face down creatures can gain creature types via this kind of effect just like any other creature.
It is confusing because as Judge Dave covered, face-down status DOES "cover up" copy effects. However this is the only effect covered up this way aside from the original card attributes. Every other effect comes after, including the type changing effect of Maskwood.
You don't have to tell me what happens when I use Astral Slide to flicker my Morph creature. I was doing that in standard 22 years ago.
did you find the Yedora card while researching for this episode?
I knew about it before...let's just say that Yedora has come up once or twice in rulings people have suggested for me to cover XD
@@JudgingFtW I never heard of it! 😅
i thought tokens could be turned face down now?
You're probably thinking of the recent rules change allowing tokens to transform under certain circumstances.
Ok now lets say everyone has the same sleeves and controls 5 morph creatures and then someone casts scrambleverse..
paper and pencil
You stop being friends with that person. Nobody needs that in their life.
You are actually required by the rules to distinguish between the creatures, so hope you brought lots of dice.
Call the game a draw and crack open a 6 pack of beer.
@@JudgingFtW "Judge!"
Can I start a petition for decloaking to be the term for flipping a cloaked card? :P
*romulan warbird sound*
It does bother me you pay the Morph cost to UNmorph it. Why isn't it called an unmorph cost then! But the rules do mention "the morph effect" applying when it's face down, so that does imply the accepted fan terminology is correct, not the other way around.
This is hurting my head
at 13 you say that flickering a face down card will turn it face up. I thought I remembered reading some example where the card just gets exiled, and remains in exile, because the flicker effect loses track of it. Maybe it only happens to cloaked/manifested non-creatures?
The only time, to my knowledge, that a face down creature would not return from a flicker effect is if it wasn't a permanent card on its front face. So if you manifest an instant from your deck then flicker it, it cannot return to the battlefield as an instant so it stays in exile.
In addition to the case described above, it's also possible you were thinking of tokens or of modal DFC's whose back face is a creature, but whose front face is an instant/sorcery.
Maybe you're thinking of a replacement effect that does something else with the card instead of letting the flicker exile it normally? That's the only situation I can think where a flicker would "lose track" halfway through its own effect rather than the slightly different situation of "can't return it to play". However I don't know of any replacements that would interfere with exiling like that.
At 5:54 : "If a face-down spell moves from the stack to any zone other than the battlefield, its owner must reveal it to all players as they move it." This sounds like it includes hidden zones, but that seems unintuitive. Does that mean if I Remand a face-down spell, it gets revealed?
Yes because if they cast a morph and it gets remanded, they need to prove that they were actually casting a morph rather than trying to bait out a counterspell by claiming something had morph. It's the same reason that your need to reveal your morphs when the game ends or when they leave the battlefield.
The entire point is to include hidden zones :) The consequence of humans needing to enforce the rules of a game played on paper without a digital referee!
8:48 - Correction needed... Once a words is created and used, it is a real word, so "unmorph" is now a real word. So, congrats on creating a new word. Have it used often enough and it may get added to a dictionary.
Any word that has meaning in the English language is a real word.
Words get their reality from usage.
This may be true, but I recognize that my audience contains a significant proportion of international viewers for whom English is a second language. In a previous video, I saw a comment that my use of this term confused one of them, so I wanted to add that explanation to make it more clear in this video.