Top 10 Ruling Nightmares in MTG 

Not exactly a ruling nightmare, but I love that Wizards released a new Emrakul in Eldritch Moon with the ability to control your oponent's actions for 1 turn, and a little later released an errata saying that no, forcing your oponent to surrender while controlling them is not a valid move

Didn't realize the morph flipping face up was a special action. I usually just look at rules to find goofy and funny rules like with Void Winnower's rules saying "Yes, we know. Your opponents can't even." referring to its effects

The interaction that taught me about how casting spells actually works is Emry, Lurker of the Loch, and Lotus Petal. Emry is a creature that costs 2u, and costs 1 less for each artifact you control, while Lotus Petal is a 0 mana artifact that you can tap and sacrifice to make one mana of any color. So, on your first turn, you can play a land and the petal. With just that, you'd think that you wouldn't be able to cast Emry, as if you sacrifice the petal to make the second mana to cast her, she loses the cost reduction from having the petal in play. However, because you can activate mana abilities to pay for a spell after you declare intent to cast it, you are able to cast Emry this turn. You declare intent to cast Emry, apply cost reductions, and then activate mana abilities to pay for her. So it sees that you control 1 artifact, making her cost 1u, then tap the land to cover the generic cost, and the lotus petal to cover the blue mana in her cost, successfully casting her.

One of my favorite weird rules interactions is in Commander, using a commander with mutate and the spell Leadership Vacuum. If your commander is mutated onto a creature, then Leadership Vacuum is cast on your commander, the creature your commander is mutated onto is brought into the Command Zone with your commander. Furthermore, you can't cast cards other than your commander from the command zone, so any other cards brought there are stuck permanently. Someone actually managed to figure out a combo using this and manifest to put their entire deck into the command zone.

YGO Players: Pole Position is a nightmare to understand. MtG Players: In MtG, we got Panglacial Wurm.

Panglacial Wurm is truly a can of wurms you don't want to open, but I love theorycrafting BS with it. It's one of the few cards (if not the only one) that allows for nonsense scenarios, such as searching your library while searching your library (yo dawg), winning through an alternative win condition for which you don't meet the conditions, winning while having an illegal board, a half-cast spell and a game state that says you lose in like 3 different ways, casting a spell at a time no player receives priority... the setups for these can't be done by accident, so if you somehow manage to do that at an event and a judge is called, you shall get the bonk. If anyone's interested in those setups, I can explain them in more details. Some are basic, but others are so ridiculous you could win multiple times with those resources.

My personal favorite Blood Moon interaction is with Zoetic Cavern. If you have a Zoetic Cavern as a face-down 2/2 from its Morph ability and then attempt to flip it up face-up... you cannot. The first step of Morphing a card face-up is to turn it up and reveal its Morph cost so that it can be properly paid. However, when the Zoetic Cavern is turned up, the game sees it as a Mountain with no Morph ability to pay... so you go 'Oops, I guess this doesn't have morph after all' and turn it face-down again. This ruling is more intuitive, perhaps, with Humility and a regular morph creature (which works is precisely the same manner).

Panglacial Wurm is one of the few cards that was probably just straight up a bad idea. I love it, but if they banned it in all formats and instead released a fixed version that could exile itself after you search the library and then you could cast it later (or whatever would make it work) I'd be all for it.

For anyone interested in more "ruling nightmares", there's a channel called JudgingFTW, run by an actual MtG judge. Every day, he posts a video where he presents a judging scenario (including many of the ones listed here, or very similar ones), explains the exact rules, and solves the question.

Blood Moon is the worst for me, because its actual effect is defined in the rulebook, not on the card, even though there's *more* than enough space to define it. To know how blood moon works, you need to know at least two bits of specific, obscure rules text - that when lands "become" other land types, they lose their existing types and all other abilities, and second that gaining a basic land type also causes a card to gain that type's inherent mana ability. Neither of these things are intuitive, especially if you're coming from another game where card types don't have inherent meaning. Bare minimum, Blood Moon should say "Non-basic lands are mountains with 'T: Add R', and lose all other land types and abilities".

As a card game enthusiast, this channel is such a blessing.

The Cleanup Step itself has sub steps. So: If you turn your Mirage Mirror into a reliquary tower and have 9 cards in hand. The check for hand size occurs first. And then you remove all "until end of turn effects." Leaving you with 9 cards in hand, and no Reliquary Tower. However, if something still triggered in the cleanup step, then a second full cleanup step will happen, and you'll need to discard.

A few others that I personally find hilarious: Lich's Mirror (multiple rulings): (Effect: If you would lose the game, instead shuffle your hand, graveyard, and all permanents you own into your library, then draw 7 cards and your life becomes 20). A: If a state-based action causes you to lose the game , unless the actions of Lich's Mirror removes that state you still lose the game. Some examples include... poison counters, if you have 10 or more of them you lose the game. LM doesn't remove poison counters, so you still lose. Another are life gain replacement effects, if you lose due to having 0 life, and either you cannot gain life or take damage instead of gaining life (i.e. Rain of Gore), you still lose the game. B: If you control but do not own (as in it was originally your opponent's but took control of it) LM, Lich's Mirror will stay on the board and gain its effect each time you would lose the game until removed from the board. (Another quirk is that if the owner of LM surrenders, the controller would automatically lose) C: If, during a check of state-based actions, you would lose in multiple conditions simultaneously (e.g. Drawing a card with an effect that also deals damage, and you both draw enough cards to deck out and go to 0 life), LM triggers as a replacement effect for all loss actions simultaneously. Genju of the Fields: (Effect: Enchant Plains. 2: Until end of turn, enchanted Plains becomes a 2/5 white Spirit creature with "Whenever this creature deals damage, its controller gains that much life." It is still a land. When enchanted Plains is put into a graveyard, you may return Genju of the Fields from your graveyard to your hand.) Ruling: If activated ability is used multiple times, it will have the triggered ability multiple times. While this will not make the land multiple 2/5 creatures, it will have multiple instances of the damage trigger. Chaos Orb (multiple rulings): (Effect: 1T: If Chaos Orb is on the battlefield, flip CO onto the battlefield from a height of at least one foot. If CO turns over completely at least once during the flip, destroy all nonland permanents it touches, then destroy CO) A: You can arrange your cards in any order you choose before CO is placed onto the battlefield, but not after. You should not move your cards or arrange them in such a way that your opponent can't read their names or count them. B: It must turn at least 360 degrees in the air to destroy cards. Turning in your hand does not count. C: If you have sleeves or other protectors on your cards, they count as the cards themselves. D: No player can physically interfere with the activation of this card (no swatting out of the air or blowing on it as it falls onto the table) Last one, I promise... Goblin Test Pilot: (Effect: T: GTP deals two damage to any target chosen at random) Ruling: If a static ability causes its tap effect to gain a mana cost, the random target is chosen before costs are paid. So, if you end up not liking the target (say its GTP itself, or something else you control, or even you end up as the target), you can choose to decline to pay the mana needed to tap GTP in the first place... meaning it untaps, and you'd have the chance to do so again.

Some of my favorite complicated rules interactions are Modal Double Faced cards (and Adventure cards, for which much of the same rulings apply). MDFs are double faced cards, for which each side can be cast. Unlike split cards, which combine the characteristics of both spells, only their front face is considered for characteristics when not being played as the back side. For example, there's a series of MDF cards that are a land on the back side, and a spell on the front. These MDF lands interact pretty differently with certain effects that are otherwise considered pretty interchangeable. For example, Crucible of Worlds is an artifact that lets you play lands from your graveyard, while Wrenn and Six is a planeswalker that lets you return a land from your graveyard to your hand each turn. Wrenn doesn't work with the MDF lands, as it only sees a spell, and can't target the land. Crucible does work, however. Crucible is effectively just a permission change, saying that now it is a valid action to play lands from your graveyard, so by the same rules interactions that let you cast the land side of the MDF from your hand works there as well. Additionally, there's cards like Courser of Kruphix, which reveals the top card of your library, and lets you play lands from the top of your library. Again, its a permission change. A similar effect, Coiling Oracle, reveals the top card of your library, and then puts it into play if its a land or into your hand if its not, will always put the MDF land into your hand, as it fails the "if its a land" check. Other MDF cards are spells on both sides, and in the case of Valki, God of Lies, a very cheap creature on the front, and a very expensive planeswalker on the back. This card singlehandedly led to a rules change on how cascade works. Previously, cascade had you reveal cards until you revealed a nonland card with a lower mana value than the cascading card, then let you cast that card for free. This meant you could cascade into Valki, and since it just let you cast that card for free, you could decide to cast the back side instead. This rule was changed to instead allow you to cast that spell for free if it is cheaper than the cascading spell. This double check finding a cheaper spell, then casting it if it is cheaper sounds extremely strange, but it prevents this exact interaction. There is one card that continues to work with Valki called Bring to Light. It lets you search for a creature, instant or sorcery with mana value less than or equal to the number of colors used to cast Bring to Light, and then cast that card for free. Bring to Light is especially interesting, because it doesn't even allow you to get planeswalkers, but because of that single check, it doesn't matter. Valki passes the check when it is first found, and then Bring to Light doesn't care what happens when you go to cast the chosen spell. Another particularly interesting case are adventures with Kess, Dissident Mage. Adventures are an instant or sorcery within a creature (or artifact, more recently). You can cast the adventure side, at which has a special replacement effect, exiling the creature on an adventure, which lets you cast that creature from exile later. Kess says that once a turn, you may cast an instant or sorcery from your graveyard, and if you do exile it instead of putting it anywhere else. Even though Kess's can only be used once per turn, it's just a blanket permission change, rather than something that targets. Additionally, the adventure clause letting you cast the creature from exile means that you can actually get the cards cast with Kess back as their creature half. It's also notable that like Crucible and Wrenn for the MDF lands scenario, there are many cards similar to Kess that don't work with adventures. Snapcaster Mage needs to target an instant or sorcery in the graveyard. Past in Flames gives an ability to instants and sorceries allowing them to be cast, but adventures are considered creatures and don't receive the ability. Lurrus functions similar to Kess, but with permanents, and since its a permission change, it only lets you cast the creature side of adventure cards, not the adventure itself. I love MDFs and adventures for being high flexibility cards with some powerful interactions, but they definitely have a lot of cases where two abilities players consider interchangeable actually interact differently when it comes to MDFs/adventures.

A fun weird rulling would be for lingering souls and any other flashback card. If your opponent has a scavenging ooze you can cast lingering souls, hold priority after the spell resolves, then activate flash back without your opponent being able to eat the card in the graveyard. This is due to flash back being an ability that moves lingering souls from the graveyard to the stack, as well as the whole priority situation if you are casting it during your own turn. This got me a win in a GP years ago in modern against a jund player who sat on 1 green mana to activate his ooze, he couldn't beat 4 fliers.as well as the other creatures I had on board. Also priority is a super weird rule in general but a necessary one.

I always wondered why Humilty and Opalescensce had weird official interactions. Thanks for explaining!

Honorable mention has to go to four horsemen. It doesn't really break any game rules or cause any issues but rather it all becomes a judgmental call simply because you fail to show a progression in the game state yet at the same time still progressing to your wincon. Very similar to YGO's pole position lock.

One important thing about the krark clan interaction is that you can cast a spell that cost less than four mana as well. You can activate more Mana abillities than is strictly required.

Maybe not that much of a nightmare, but one of my favorite rules oddities is the card "Riding the Dilu Horse", which is a sorcery that gives a creature +2/+2 and horsemanship. However, they forgot to write "until end of turn" on the card, so this effect just lasts indefinitely and you must keep track of it somehow.

What I love about MDFC’s is that they don’t work with transforming double faced cards (moonmist)... and Kamigawa’s flip cards introduce another axis... and that face down dual sided cards can exist only if they entered that way (see manifest rulings)... which all means that in theory, Wizards could make a card that has all 4 mechanics. It’d be a rules nightmare, impossible to represent on a real piece of cardboard, and probably never see the light of day, but you could have a card with 9 sides. Two castable sides, each with 2 transform states, each with two flip orientations, as well as being playable as a 2/2 “facedown” creature. Future unset potential?

Some true rules nightmares are: -Equinox, for requering future vision -Season of the Witch+Silent Arbiter, because nobody known how many creatures should be destroyed

I feel like Goblin Test Pilot should have been on this list. The interaction with Suppression Field is bizarre. Honorable mention to Lazav and flipped cards, as well as Brainstorm/Sylvan Library. I think there’s definitely enough to make a part 2

One that I recently learned: Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor says that "target land becomes an X/X Elemental creature with trample and haste." My opponent used Needle Spire, making Needle Spire into a 2/1 Elemental with double strike. They then used Obuun to make it an X/X Elemental with trample, haste, and double strike. I attempted to correct it, assuming it worked like other polymorphs like Darksteel Mutation, but nope, after looking at rulings, it does actually keep the double strike. Darksteel specifically says it removes all abilities, where Obuun doesn't. As a Hearthstone player, I was used to the fact that changing a creature into another creature gets rid of everything, and given that's how MOST polymorphs in Magic also work, you can imagine my confusion when learning that

Love the channel, your production value and narration are excellent. Glad you branched out into MTG

That was legitimately fascinating, started playing YGO due to your videos 2 years ago and I think you'll get me into Magic soon lol

I instinctively get angry when i see Humility, i also get incredibly happy whenever panglacial wurm/ Selvala ruling comes up so all is good.

Excellent analysis video! I love hearing baout weird rulings like this! Thanks for uploading!

Dang, when I was a kid, we used to gripe over mono-artifacts, banding, and phasing. This is some true next level stuff.

One of my favorite interactions is magus of the moon being imprisoned into the moon. It turns into a colorless land, then turns itself into a mountain (losing its own ability in the process) then loses the ability to tap for red (and can tap for colorless). And I think its ability, while removed, still affects other lands.

I have played Magic since 1996, and rulings like this still confuse me today!

I love how straight to the point this channel is, i will watch your growth with great curiosity

Regarding the Wandering Fumarole and any pumping spells, you have to use the stack to determine the values, not the timestamps. If you turn it to a creature, this ability goes on the stack, then it resolves. You can only flip the P/T if it is a creature with the ability, and therefore already a 1/4. If you then try to pump it with a spell BEFORE swaping the P/T with Sure Strike, the instant will resolve and the creature will be a 4/4, and so it will be if you respond to the swaping. However, if you first swap, resolve and then pump the creature, it will be a 7/1. Layers and timestamps only apply to continous effects from permanents, because the stack prevents the overlaping. Also, if a preceeding effect had an earlier timestamp that has negative effects, such as Elesh Norn and you turn to creature and flip it, it will die before you can apply the bonus stats from Sure Strike.

Honestly, there could several videos like these! Y'all ever read Illusionary Mask? One of the cases in MTG where the updated rules text only serves to make it even harder to understand. Or Dead Ringers. Dead Ringers is always fun.

My favorite weird ruling is if you have a magus of the moon out and someone casts oko thief of crowns and uses his second ability to “elk” the magus turning it into a 2/2 and losing all its abilities you’d think the magus would no longer be making all the non basics into mountains but due to ✨layers✨ the magus’ ability will actually still be in effect turning all nonbasics into mountains. It’s super weird and looks like you’re cheating but it’s true

Amazing video. I enjoy top 10 lists that teach me something more than those that just list boring performance stats. Thank you very much hope to see more lists in this style in the future.

This was superb. Thank you. The ruling that I instantly thought of was Merfolk Trickster vs. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove. I still struggle to understand layers.

When you bounce a creature token with Recoil, the token actually goes to the player's hand, because a token ceasing to exist is a state-based effect (and cannot happen while Recoil resolves). However! The player cannot discard the token, because the token is not a card, and recoil specifies that the player has to discard a card.

#3 just makes me happy that resolving the issues with Pole Position in YGO is way easier than that mess. :P

The other aspect of Panglacial Wurm is that the basic aspect to cards is their effects only work while in play (or cast for instant/sorceries) and it's search line doesn't state it can be used while not in play.

This video is extremely helpful. Now I understand some of the games rulings better.

Equinox is really confusing. It's an enchantment that enchants a land that can tap to counter a spell that would destroy a land. The confusing part is that the wording of the card commands you to see into the future, because it can't counter if there's any option the spell couldn't destroy the land. Random Card Talking made a great video about it, where it gives some ridicoulus examples in addtion.

Next complication in your Selvala/Wurm scenario: what if Panglacial Wurm is the top card of your library when you cast Demonic Tutor? Panglacial Wurm leaves your library to go to the stack before paying for costs, so you'll end up drawing the second card in library with Selvala. If you ended up failing to cast because of the randomized nature of Selvala (thus replacing Panglacial Wurm to the library), you'll have sniped your second card with an ability that should only be able to get the top card

great video, there was some points i didnt even know about myself with over 10 years play expirience :D i love to learn ruling stuff like this! hope i see more of this ^^

That was an amazing video. Well done!

>dont play panglacial wurm because its confusing dude, that is literally the best reason to play it, i strive to make decks that will have judges pull there hair out trying to figure out whats going on, its one of the reasons MTG is so amazing because chaos decks are not only a thing you can make, its an entire god damned archetype designed specifically to fuck with the game and the board state as much as possible.

The ruling on Omniscience regarding Trinisphere is wrong on Magic's part. "Without paying the mana cost" doesn't say the mana cost is 0. Trinisphere can go right ahead and make the cost 3. And I'm casting it without paying the cost. Cost is the same. I'm not paying. It's right there in the wording. So the ruling is just... wrong.

That was the best kci explanation I've ever heard. Also another weird ruling with blood moon is it and spreading seas, and how those two stack.

Just discovered your channel and I love it. Keep up the great work this video was an instant sub from me!!

But what if Humility and the two Opalescences enter the battlefield at the same time?

Surprised we didn't see Chains of Mephistopheles, the card that's such a meme for being confusing that there are actual flow charts to explain how it works

Gotta love the sweet sweet knowledge pool

Arbor Elf's ability to untap a Forest is not a mana ability, so you have to use it before you try to cast spells. Which most of the time is not a problem, since you know what you are going to cast. Unless you use for example Chandra, Torch of Defiance's ability to look the top card of your library and decide whether to cast it or have the opponent take 2 damage. What if you possibly wanted to attack with Arbor Elf, if the top card of your library is not worth casting or impossible to cast, like when it's too expensive, or it's a land, which can only be played, not cast. I'm no judge, but I'm pretty sure it works that way sadly.

"Move to trinisphere step?"

Would love a series like this of things to know for the judge test

one of my favorite rules outliers is March of the Machines + Neurok Transmuter turning things into typeless permanents. Not a creature, not an artifact, just... a permanent lol

When I saw the title, I knew that Humility would be toward the top of the list. I love my Humility deck, and I get a kick out of the rulings for it every time I look at its page in Gatherer

blood moon also follows the humility rules. If your opponent plays dryad of the illisian grove after you play blood moon, it’s effect applies. If they play it before, then blood moon applies Another weird interaction is Jeskai infliltraitor. If you take control of it and trigger it’s ability, despite shuffling the two facedown cards, your opponent is still required to know which one is theirs, requiring you to know the results of a randomized shuffle. Or if it triggers to flip a commander face down, the table is required to know which manifest is the commander and it would still deal commander damage

you described those nightmare scenarios so clearly I understood them first thing in the morning

Finally, a video about complicated rulings that are actually complicated!! The only one I knew about was the humility ruling and thats because my friend recently got himself a humility and then asked the question about it getting turned into a creature. This video is a must watch for newer and older players alike!

A video (series) explaining different keywords (and maybe how impactful they are)? There are so many keywords I can't keep up, and I like your style of explaining (big fan of your banned card list and failed card mechanic list in Yu-Gi-Oh, and I don't even play that).

You missed Splicing Veil of Secrecy onto a Disrupting Shoal. Splice onto Arcane is a fascinating mechanic that has its own rabbit hole. Specially the steps when a shoal is being cast. Example is Disrupting Shoal with a Veil of Secrecy spliced on. Let’s say you have a reflector mage on the battlefield and you want to counter a spell that costs 3. This casting process lets you exile from your hand the creature you are returning from your hand as you choose the order in how you pay costs. It’s also counter intuitive if you have a a card like Hinata. So basically you can use Hinata itself as the card to return to your hand and exile to pay for the alternate cost of the shoal with the veil of secrecy spliced on it since you lock the costs of the spell once you announce how the spell is going to be cast. Splice has its own step in the casting process. Making it the the second thing you have to announce as you cast the spell (the first is the card you are going to use to splice onto) Later you announce the modes and targets. The spell gets cost locked and you proceed to pay for alternate costs and mana abilities last.

I actually came across the first interaction, the aura entering attached to a permanent, thanks to Academy Rector. Slamming ENSLAVE from your deck on a Simic Sky Swallower and completely turning a game around back in like 2008 was a big deal lol

You know I've watched a few videos like this and I've always been like "nah, that's not that bad, that's stuff you just pick up after a while." But no, this list is mostly stuff that I didn't know and couldn't have sussed out. Nice video!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR AMAZING VIDEOS!!!

My favourite rulings nightmare is casting Brainstorm during your upkeep while you control Sylvan Library. Sylvan Library requires you to keep track of which cards in your hand were drawn this turn. Brainstorm is an instant that both draws cards *and* puts cards from your hand on top of your library, where they can be drawn again by the Sylvan Library trigger. This requires very carefully handling your cards to ensure you don't cause a problem with the judges.

I like the scenario of searching, going to cast Panglacial Wurm, then using Millikin to mill the top card of your deck putting something that shuffles back in like an Eldrazi titan. So now you're searching, casting a spell and shuffling all at the same time which as stated you're not supposed to do while searching your library. Now that's an extreme edge case that makes anyone scratch their heads.

The crazy bastard tried to tackle layers. Bravo!

Cool video. A suggestion for another cool interaction you could delve into: what happens when in a game of commander, you try to activate a wheel of fortune while both you and multiple opponents have cards such as Notion Thief in play?

My favourite from recent time is Ashaya, soul of the wild enchanted with witness protection... its kinda like that humility example you made. Iirc your creatures stay forests, even ashaya but she becomes a 1/1

The first time I learned about the aura rule was when playing a 4 person game and someone had a Pyxis of Pandemonium they’d been stockpiling. All the cards went onto the battlefield, and I learned a LOT about ETB effects and how they interact.

The cool thing about Opalescence and Humility is that you can run them both in a Replenish deck with Death Pit Offering. So everything comes into play virtually simultaneously, and confused players are left trying to figure out what to do. Technically, the caster of Opalescence gets to choose the order the enchantments enter the battlefield, so if they know their own deck well, they can choose an order that is best for them, where they don't have to sacrifice anything, the Humility effect does apply, and the Opalescence effect does apply to some big enchantments, and the Death Pit Offering buff also applies. But if they screw it up, they end up with a jank board.

Regarding Zur, I knew that he’d allow auras to enchant things, but I figured that was an errata on the card, I love that it works in general as that can allow for my extremely annoying aura pin down decks to be even more annoying by pinning down hexproof creatures. I knew about blood moon’s replacement effects I was aware that unmorphing was a special action but I never put thought into what that would mean and how that could apply while split second cards were on the stack. I absolutely love the fact that split second cards can be countered. I knew about Trinisphere but I never knew how it interacted with convoke so I’m very glad to know how that works now. I did not know that until end of turn effects like switching power and toughness applied to effects that boost power and toughness after that, I had assumed that the card essentially had it’s base power and toughness replaced until end of turn and so you could apply other effects after that base. I did not know that the owner of a permanent got to choose which replacement effect would apply. I assume that means wheel of sun and moon could be used as a secret tech card against Kalitas which I find to be pretty cool. I don’t think I knew about the Krack-Clan Ironworks ruling, but I absolutely love that interaction with myr retriever. I knew about the humility, opalescence interaction but I never thought about it with multiple opalescence on that battlefield, so having the different cards have different power and toughness is extremely interesting to me. I don’t remember ever seeing rain of gore, but when I saw it the interaction made perfect sense. Mostly because I know that slightly different wording can have strange effects on the rules. Panglacial Wurm is a card that I had buried deep in the depths of my subconscious. Seeing it again though, I do wonder what kind of crazy interactions you could make happen with it. Such as if you used lion’s eye diamond to cast it and discarded a madness card could you then also cast the madness card while searching your library? I’d love to see all the crazy things that could be done with Panglacial Wurm.

Nice video! :) Really enjoyed the humility/opalescence one! One note, the background video for this #6 was much more distracting/unpleasant than normal.

"Opposition agent" has a really weird Rule 716.4 still applies for the agent even though it's not a "mindslaver" effect "If information about an object in the game would be visible to the player being controlled, it’s visible to both that player and the controller of the player. If information about cards outside the game would be visible to the player being controlled, it’s visible only to that player, not the controller of the player." th agent states you control them while you search which allows you to look at their hand,face down cards, and play from top effects if its face down, while you are searching. even though its not stated in the cards rules.

MtG Video idea: Top 10 Funny Gatherer Rulings. Things like: Void Winnower "Yes, your opponent can't even. We know." Queen Marchesa several "(long may she reign)" Sleeper Agent "This card is a bit weird." Falling Star "It must flip like a coin and not like a Frisbee." Candles of Leng "Unless something weird happens..." Arni Brokenbrow "Arni strenuously objects to this course of action." Jadelight Ranger "...If you don’t pretend to be surprised, you’ll hurt Jadelight Ranger’s feelings." Revel in Riches "If the second ability of Revel in Riches causes you to win the game, please refrain from throwing your Treasure tokens into the air as this may distract or injure other players." Harmless Offering "Your opponent can’t refuse your generous donation." Mairsil the Pretender "If Mairsil has an equip ability, activating it won’t cause anything to happen. Mairsil doesn’t become attached to a creature. They may remain friends." Professor Onyx "If Professor Onyx seems familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen this Type of planeswalker before." and my personal pet favorite card ever Throes of Chaos "Throes of Chaos does nothing as it resolves. All of its chaos happens before it resolves."

Excellent video. Iblove the inclusion of layers. That has been an issue for decades.

A good way to think about Rain of Gore and Lifelink as a player is to remember that Lifelink is a keyword, not an ability. IF I'm reading the comprehensive rules right, keywords and abilities are similar, but not the same. Now granted that's a big if because that document is about as big as War & Peace, but I'm fairly certain they're classified as two different things.

After the Humility Opalescence section, staring at the screen with a dumbfounded frown, I had no idea what could possibly be worse than that. "And at number one, we have Panglacial Wurm." Oh. Oh yeah, that makes sense

I was disappointed you didn't get into layers when talking about blood moon, and how it still works even if you remove its effect. Glad you circled back around to it.

One interesting ruling that would have loved to see mentioned is the interaction between Lier and Adventure Spells. Apparently, you can cast the adventure side from the graveyard using Lier's Ability to give Flashback to Instant and Sorceries, and then you get to decide if you wanna use the Flashback's Replacement effect or the Adventure one. This way, as long as you have Lier, you have an infinite stream of spells.

#4 on this list is actually a fun interaction in my Tayam, Luminous Enigma deck. Because you pay costs all at the same time, you can sac a creature to Ashnod's Altar while also removing its counters to pay for Tayam's ability. This is an integral part of many of the combos in my deck.

I used to play Panglacial Wurm in my Volo deck. It was fun to cast a rampant growth or something and catch my opponents off guard when I declared casting Panglacial Wurm, and getting a copy on the stack from Volo. I became the archenemy alot. lol

Loving these, keep it up

You forgot Mutate. The entire mechanic is an absolute rulings horrorfest. Here's just a handful of ludicrous madness that can happen with this absolutely absurd keyword: - Mutate is the only thing that changes copyable values, allowing legendaries to stop being legendaries, non-legends to start being legends, etc. - Copying a Mutated creature copies the entire pile in the way it's in right now. - Everybody knows about the stupid Leadership Vacuum trick to stuff your entire deck into your command zone as a sheer display of dominance. - Copying a Mutating creature spell allows a second mutate action to occur, but it HAS to mutate onto the same creature. - Auspicious Starrix. - If something turns into an enchantment (ex. Heliod) while it's mutated, it stops being... Anything. It's just a permanent. - Remember the sword that turns planeswalkers into creatures? Yeah, Mutate allowed this to happen first outside of planeswalkers that become creatures on their own. - Because Mutate says you can mutate onto something "You Own", it means you can mutate something that you don't control as long as it's YOUR card featured in YOUR deck. And some other wacky garbage that I'm sure is just delightful to learn more about :)

Continuing the explanation of Trinisphere: Convoke, Delve, and Improvise work around Trinisphere because they get used after the cost you pay has been finalized and you actually start paying. Paying life or mana for phyrexian mana on the other hand, is determined before the cost is finalized, so a Dismember will cost either {1}{b}{b}, {2}{b} and 2 life, or {3} and 4 life. Replacement effects being chosen by the controller of the affected stuff can lead to some weird sounding situations. If three players each have a Notion Thief, then when player A gets a card draw that would get stolen they decide out of player B and C whose Notion Thief would replace it, then that player decides out of A and C/B (the one that isn't deciding) who would have their replacement apply next, and finally the last player that wasn't chosen will have theirs apply and they get the card draw instead of anyone else. So any of the three players could end up with the draw, depending on how the choices are decided. Similarly, replacement effects adding to, subtracting from, doubling, or halving amounts of things get applied by the controller of the affected thing in the order they want, so 1 damage and replacement effects for +2 damage (Torbran) and double damage (Furnace of Rath) can be minimized to take only 4 damage [(1*2)+2] or maximized to 6 damage [(1+2)*2]. Usually you would minimize it to protect your stuff or self, but if you have a Stuffy Doll or Hornet Nest, you may want more damage dealt. Damage prevention makes it even weirder, as if you make the damage 0 at any point, most other damage replacement effects will stop trying to apply since they are looking for instances of 1 or more damage. So from the situation before, it can all be prevented with an effect that just prevents 1 damage.

I love that half of this is just explaining the Magic the Gathering version of PEMDAS

"My advice would be just not playing Panglacial Wurm" You will never take Funny Silly Surprise Worm™ away from me!

Some cool rules interactions include Sylvan Library + Pursuit of Knowledge (skip all 3 draws from the Library, you don’t pay any penalty for not putting anything back, and then you can draw 7 with Pursuit), Tangle Wire + Smokestack (you can order the effects for all players and really screw people), and does anyone know what really happens when Knowledge Pool, Possibility Storm, and Shared Fate are all in play at once?

Hirus voice is so iconic. Dudes the best kind of nerd and plays everything

15:56 "so all 4 of these enchantments" TIMESSTAMPS A GOGOGO!

My version of the Humility/Opalesence interaction is a Theros God and Starfield of Nyx. That was my first time ever hearing of layers

In regards to Blood Moon, there are two other wild interactions. First is Dryad Arbor, which is a Land Creature-Forest Dryad. Blood Moon turns it into a Land Creature-Mountain Dryad. The second is artifact lands. Blood Moon turns lands like Ancient Den into an artifact mountain. It still keeps its artifact type to help with affinity. Darksteel Citadel would also be an artifact mountain, but no longer has indestructible.

I have been playing Magic for roughly three years now. I've played hundreds of decks and played with my friends many times. To this day we are still learning new rulings. Magic is such a old and vast game with unique rulings. You can really "break" the game using enough weird cards and rulings. Nothing is static if you don't want it to be. It's awesome. We've had to pause quite a few games to pull up the rulings on interactions and ability nonsense just so we could confirm. 🤣

Heh on the Zur ruling. During the OG Dominaria prerelease I had In Bolas's Clutches and the Merfolk that flickers a Historic permanent. So yes, I did use these rules interactions to steal something else they were protecting. First moment of their objection I didn't try to explain and just called for the Judge. XD

Please make a Part 2 talking about all the problems that can arise with the card Life and Limb! Its the later version of the Opalesence + Humility judging nightmare

I was very much aware of how Zur works. When I run my Zur Commander deck, I always grab Diplomatic Immunity first.

I thought I knew a lot about this game, but I learned a lot of new things from this video. Ironworks interaction with Myr Retriever is really neat, as well as Auras and Curses not needing to target anything when they are not cast, and Morph being a Special Action that doesn't use the stack, and also beats out Split Second. I knew that Trinisphere applied after cost reduction, but I didn't know the complete cost modification order. In spite of playing Trinisphere in the Sideboard regularly. The Layer System is also genius. Timestamps can also come into play with Blood Moon. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove is an example I ran into several times when playing Modern. If the opponent has played his Dryad after my Blood Moon, then his nonbasic lands first become Mountains, and then they gain all other land types. If I now play a second Blood Moon afterwards, all his nonbasic lands just become Mountains again. Another really interesting thing is state based actions. Many old cards that have basically lifelink don't actually have lifelink. (At least not anymore, they changed the errata back to the original printed wording.) Lifelink is a static ability, while these older cards have triggered abilites that use the stack. If you have a 6/2 creature with the Enchantment Spirit Link that says: "Whenever enchanted creature deals damage, you gain that much life.", and you are at 1 life and block a 5/5 trample with it, you loose the game as a state based action, because you hit zero or less life, before the Spirit Link ability goes on the stack. If your creature had actual life link, you would survive. I heard about the Panglacial Wurm thing before, and another really funny thing is only finding 2 cards with Gifts Ungiven. Oh, and Trample and Deathtouch, which allows you to only deal one damage to the blocking creature and the rest to the player, since one damage is leathal damage with deathtouch. This whole video is just mindblowing. Layers and Timestamps are a genius way to resolve these crazy paradoxes. But citing people making mistakes when it comes to the rules as a reason for banning Crak-Clan Ironworks is a joke. When it's such a common card, people, especially judges, should just learn the darn rules... It was mainly banned because the deck was really strong I hope. I'm sorry if I made any errors in my musings, I'm not a judge, but it's what I read online and been tought by other players.

Life and Limb + Xenograft (naming sapplings) + Magus of the Moon is a very fun rulings nightmare :)

Your rain of gore reminded me of a very similar type of ruling: karmic justice. Whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls destroys one of your permanents, they sac a perm. So them bolting your elf doesn't trigger your justice because state based actions killed the elf, not the opponent's lightning bolt. Counter intuitive similar to rain

Aw man, was expecting for the Opalescence and Humility part, u’d add in Replenish into the mix 😆