The Magic: the Gathering Rules Iceberg explained (part 3 - final)

Minor corrections:
26:42 - I said these auras have Flash. Technically they don't, rather they say "You may cast ~ as though it had flash". This is functionally identical to having Flash in 99% of situations, but the distinction does matter in a few edge cases.
31:30 - At 8 life the chance is actually slightly more than 1%, it is less than 1% once the player reaches 9 life.

0:00 Intro
0:45 Layer 9
12:43 Layer 10
27:49 Layer 11
38:18 Layer 12
39:33 Conclusion

[admiralcasperr]

If you cast a spell which resolution involves playing a subgame, you can wish in the subgame to pull out THE RESOLVING SPELL. This makes it possible to have a infinite layered game.

[bryanprillaman]

Turning things into an artifact creature refers to the rule about type changing. If I turn something into an enchantment, it’s an enchantment. If I turn something into an “enchantment in addition to its other types” then it is an enchantment/land or whatever.
If I turn something into a land, it’s a land. If I turn it into a creature, it’s a creature.

If I turn it into an artifact creature, the rules implicitly add “in addition to its other types” (205.1b)

This means there are a ton of lands that animate to an artifact creature and contain the words “this is still a land” when it’s technically unnecessary.

So like, if you animate a seat of synod with Tezzeret, agent of Bolas’s second ability, you get a 5/5 artifact creature land as opposed to just an artifact creature.

[alder-iris]

im going to assume im not alone in feeling a mounting sense of dread in the later levels of the iceberg. like, hearing about the most obscure rulings that involve layers and shit just felt like, surreal

[alexanderfluckiger]

The Ozolith is also highly relevant with all cards that have the Modular ability.

[yellowpie]

4:49 while this used to be true, rule 201.3 was updated with the release of Guilds of Ravnica to allow players to choose any name of a card in the Oracle card reference. One interesting outcome of this new ruling is that you can now name the Augment card “Ninja” from Unhinged to affect Ninja tokens created by Volrath’s Laboratory from Stronghold, meaning that silver-bordered sets do technically have an effect on black-bordered Magic.

[destructoboom]

The Grandeur creature's activated ability being paid by discarding itself is the most interesting jank I have seen in a long time. I can also confirm that it works! 34:32

[kmb]

5:00 this is no longer true. you can name any card, regardless of legality. this was changed rather recently, and is used to no end by naming "abandon hope" in modern in games that are clearly won already

[magicalmovies]

Regarding turning things into artifact creatures:
The reason is this rule:

"205.1b Some effects change an object’s card type, supertype, or subtype but specify that the object retains a prior card type, supertype, or subtype. In such cases, all the object’s prior card types, supertypes, and subtypes are retained. This rule applies to effects that use the phrase “in addition to its types” or that state that something is “still a [type, supertype, or subtype].” Some effects state that an object becomes an “artifact creature”; these effects also allow the object to retain all of its prior card types and subtypes. Some effects state that an object becomes a “[creature type or types] artifact creature”; these effects also allow the object to retain all of its prior card types and subtypes other than creature types, but replace any existing creature types."

The last part states that turning creatures into artifact creature always keeps their other types, an exeption to how it's handled in all other cases. (e.g. Blood Moon.) The causes some issues, most notably was the reason that "Darksteel Mutation" was errated to have the awkward oracle text of, in part:

"Insect artifact creature with base power and toughness 0/1 and has indestructible, and it loses all other abilities, card types, and creature types."

[autofigure]

That Ozolith rule made me physically go "OOOOHHHH" i was literally making a Skullbriar deck and edhrec showed people playing that card and i didnt know why but since the tokens are just copied that makes so much sense and its insanely good.

[presidentfrog]

The ozolith ruling is actually super important now that affinity has more modular cards to play with. When a permanent with modular dies, who gets the counters? This ruling clears that up.

[mcklucker]

Actually, in November, they changed the token rule so tokens can no longer be named with Pithing Needle or cards with similar effects.

"With the creation of Blood tokens in Innistrad: Crimson Vow, this relatively obscure interaction had the potential to become significantly more common (see Flesh // Blood). The fact that a player could stop Blood tokens with Pithing Needle's effect but not Treasure, Food, or Clue tokens is inconsistent, and players shouldn't be expected to know which tokens share a name with a printed card, so we decided to change the rule. From now on, if a spell or ability is creating a token without specifying its name, the name will be the same as its subtypes plus the word "Token." For example, a "Goblin Scout creature token" is named "Goblin Scout Token." Similarly, the name of a Blood token created in the game is "Blood Token" and choosing the name "Blood" for an effect will not cause that effect to apply to Blood tokens."

[PopcornBunni]

I have to know where "Damage causes loss of life" falls. It's simultaneously such an obvious fact and confusing that it is such a recurring piece of reminder text. The fact that it's reminder text at all, while also not being strictly true (infect, most prominently) makes it all the more bizarre.

[theemathas]

12:48 For reference, the simplest way to exile an exiled card is to use Pull From Eternity (or a processor card) while Rest In Peace is on the battlefield.

[pedropaulofaria]

Man, youtube surprisely lacks icebergs about magic, this was awesome, in the future you can make one about the lore or something

[guitarhill]

11:34 i can think of 1 thing that has to do with layers. The entire thing goes like this:

You have chimeric staff and march of the machines out. Chimeric staff is now a 4/4 creature artifact.

You activate chimeric staff’s ability, X being 10. This makes chimeric staff a 10/10 artifact creature - Construct.

Your opponent then casts imprisoned in the moon on your chimeric staff. Your chimeric staff is now a land that taps for colorless.

You then activate liquimetal coating to make the chimeric staff an artifact land that taps for colorless. Because of the rule of “Dependency” (rule 613.8), the chimeric staff is now a non-creature artifact, which march of the machines is dependent on. this makes it so that as long as liquimetal coating’s continuous effect is apllied, chimeric staff is a 4/4 artifact creature, and no effects other than march of the machines apply to it.

[dramajoe]

Just to be clear because Sylvan Library and Brainstorm are very popular cards in Legacy, if you are in a competitive REL tournament and you cast a Brainstorm before your Sylvan Library trigger resolves you are required to call a judge on yourself so they can monitor the composition of your hand. Having done this as a meme a number of times, I can confirm that you're about 50/50 whether that judge is amused or annoyed that you didn't just wait to your main phase for the Brainstorm. (the objectively better play 99.99% of the time)

[OmeGaster]

9:45 - Ertai's Meddling is actually one of six spells, I believe, that put something on the stack without casting, the other five being the Epic spells from Saviours of Kamigawa.

EDIT: I misunderstood exactly what Meddling did, so this comment is wrong. Thanks to Jem Bennett for the correction.

[davidfields]

I wish I could find the article, but there is an amazing layer interaction where some combination of humility, magus if the moon, and opalescence can make all your creatures and enchantments to be mountains permanently regardless of any of those cards leaving the battlefield.

[cubiccalico]

Something missed by this iceberg is the rule that not just creatures, but all permanents enter the battlefield summoning sick, but only creatures cannot use tap abilities while summoning sick. For this reason, Inkmoth Nexus cannot attack on the turn it entered if you animate it, and similarly, artifacts that have been animated the turn they came in cannot use their tap abilities. This has been an extremely annoying fact for my artifact combo edh list that uses infinite mana with Voltaic Construct to untap an animated artifact with a tap ability to infinitely activate that tap ability, which i cannot do if it's summoning sick. However, because the artifact is a creature when animated, i can enchant/equip it with things that give haste to get around this. Also, the commander is Kozilek, the Great Distortion and giving a 12/12 menace commander haste is extremely good when you're dropping it in as early as turn 4 or 5 sometimes.

[swahilimaster]

The layer 11 god mechanic has gotten me about 10 or so times this week with Klothys interacting with Grumgully and bard class, I forget it needs the devotion requirement without including itself to get the counters on EtB.