The "Magic cards have agency" thing actually helps a lot. One of my favorite examples was hybrid mana and the gods that have devotion to two colors. "My name's Karametra, and I'm on the hunt for green or white mana. You, mister Kitchen Finks, do you have green mana symbols?" "Well, um, yes, I have two. I also have-" "Don't care, I already checked all your mana symbols, and you're on my list! Next!" "B-but white mana..."
That took me a few minutes to understand too. I was looking at Mana Vault trying to find some weird secret combo that turns it into a creature, and then realised they probably mispronounced Mutavault. Being a non-native English speaker helps :)
The First Strike rules are actually super interesting, because they're a lot more complicated than you might think they need to be at first glance. But they're actually written in such a way that you can't pull off shenanigans using tricks and the like- no matter when you give a creature First Strike (or take it away!), it will always deal damage exactly once. You can't create Fake Double Strike or No Strike.
Isn't it written like "if it had first strike during the first strike damage step, it will not deal damage in the regular combat damage step" and doesn't actually care if it _dealt damage_ because if it cared about if it _dealt damage_ then you could do tricks where if for some reason the damage is prevented during the first strike damage step but then, between them, you did something that made it so damage would not be prevented, you could do silly shenanigans. Like if some creatures had first strike and some had prevention of damage from some of the other creatures and you cast something at instant speed that says damage can't be prevented to keep your creatures safe but kill your opponent's creatures that normally would be safe
If a creature has First Strike in the first Combat Damage step, it will not assign damage in the second Combat Damage step unless it then has Double Strike, no matter whether it dealt or even assigned damage in that first step. From this, it's possible to not assign damage with a First Strike creature at all (if it has 0 power, for instance), but it is impossible to assign damage twice with one (without also giving it Double Strike).
One of these days I have to ask Serge the judge question that I'd call a challenge but that would require me to know the answer. So now its just an actual question.
for the epic struggle + 19 saprolings + mutavault question can you do it if you have something that triggers on untap, like mesmeric orb, and activate mutavault in response to that trigger
I believe not, because anything that triggers during the untap step only goes to the stack (and therefore can be responded to) at the beginning of the upkeep, at which point it would be too late to trigger Epic Struggle.
wow i barely made 5 state-based actions in my head. I actually got the Kalitas question right as in 'no-zombies' but for the wrong reason, and give myself 7.5/10.
the 12:00 (ish) example I didnt think was correct? Anger of the gods is a self replacement effect so it should apply before kalitas's (rule 614.15), therefore no kalitas triggers would go on the stack (as per my understanding). Its not up to the player to order them. Maybe it was a change since this video was made though, not sure.
yes, delve and convoke are not reducing cost, they're just letting you use other sources to pay for the card. you are still paying for the cards. If it is 6 mana then you are paying 6 mana, just not using mana, using your graveyard to exile cards or your creatures to pay. The effect specifically say "to help pay for this spell". It's different to something like Affinity, because Affinity reduces the casting cost.
