RNA Card Text Clarifications

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  • cmassive13
    cmassive13 Posts: 23 Just Dropped In
    I’ve already said this, but I’m curious as to why some enchantments (such as Cindervines or Ethereal Absolution) say “while this enchantment is on the board, [effect]”? It’s not a template I’ve seen them use before, and all it does is add unnecessary clutter for a default setting
  • wereotter
    wereotter Posts: 2,070 Chairperson of the Boards
    Tremayne said:
    I see, it seems that we are talking about several different subjects concerning gems. You might be right that I’m mixing observations about conversion of gems with destruction of gems.

    now we are entering the most basis part of MTGPQ and I can’t seem to find anything about this in the support pages. Can anyone direct me to the suppprt page(s) that describes how this works?
    I remember Brigby telling us what all the effects were back during the Kaladesh block, but it's been so long ago now that finding that thread would be a daunting task.... but I think the three types of gems that can't be converted are activated gems, support gems, and energized gems. All gems are fair game for effects that destroy random gems or sections of gems (Abbot of Keral Keep, Seismic Shift, etc.)
  • Tremayne
    Tremayne Posts: 1,673 Chairperson of the Boards
    @wereotter - Well assuming that nothing has been changed since then or nothing has been added.

    My perception of the gems are as follows.
    Types
    ordinary gems (in five colours)
    loyalty gems
    support gems
    energized gems
    void gems
    activated gems

    Gems that can be converted
    ordinary gems - it is my perception that only ordinary gems can be converted. When I cast green gem converters, like Riskars Expertise, loyalty gems seems to remain on the field (possibly this is observation bias, but it is quite strong for me).

    Gems that can be destroyed
    I agree that every gems can be destroyed, but can every gem be targeted by gem destroyers? If I cast Demolish, any gems in the 3x3 grid centered around the support gem is destroyed, unless it is another support gems with a counter bigger than 1.

    Since a lot of gem destroyers are area effects, it is difficult to determine if all types of gems are eligible for targeting. Why does this matter, you might wonder. Well assume only ordinary gems are targetable by gem destroyers, then the infinite situation is much more likely to occur.

    so the question is does anyone know which types of gems are targetable?
  • wereotter
    wereotter Posts: 2,070 Chairperson of the Boards
    I'm pretty sure void gems can be converted too. I seem to recall being able to change a lot of void gems to green in the Nissa v. Eldrazi duel deck events, but I might be remembering that incorrectly. But I do think you're correct that loyalty gems can't be converted.

    But I think when we're looking at these cards specifically, a good way to figure it out is to ask "what gems can Chandra, Torch of Defiance's first ability hit?" and don't recall every seeing a gem that her first loyalty ability wouldn't hit when destroying random gems. Same with Harness the Storm, they can hit anything. Especially since it says random gems, I don't think Rakdos is targeting anything, so all gems are fair game.
  • Tremayne
    Tremayne Posts: 1,673 Chairperson of the Boards
    I hope you are right. I do not have enough observations on this, simply because I have never cared about it so far.

    I like everybody else will just have to wait and see.
  • Brakkis
    Brakkis Posts: 777 Critical Contributor
    None of this seems relevant to the topic at hand.
  • Tremayne
    Tremayne Posts: 1,673 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited March 2019
    @Brakkis - how did you arrive at this conclusion?

     I expressed doubts about the cards mentioned above and the interpretation required some additional information in order to determine the interpretation.
  • Brakkis
    Brakkis Posts: 777 Critical Contributor
    Because whether the cards destroys multiple times or not is the key information necessary. Whether it'll go infinite because of energize gems is redundant information in addition to that first step and should be broached as an entirely separate discussion rather than degenerating an entire topic into what can and can not be converted.
  • Tilwin90
    Tilwin90 Posts: 662 Critical Contributor
    Void gems don't convert any longer via regular conversion... Oktagon took care of that in the - I think - DOM release. 
  • Brigby
    Brigby ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 7,757 Site Admin
    Hi Everyone. Thanks for identifying these cards. I've gone ahead and passed this thread to the development team, so they can clarify to us what the intended behavior is. I'll provide an update once I hear back from them!
  • ManiiNames
    ManiiNames Posts: 213 Tile Toppler
    TY Daiane.
  • Theophilus
    Theophilus Posts: 124 Tile Toppler
    Regarding Mirror March, the destruction of random gems eventually led to the destruction of Mirror March. When that happened I lost all of my reinforcements and haste. Is that how it should work? Ultimately, since the support destroys the reinforcements, then I would think that if the support is destroyed then the reinforcements should remain when the turn is over. The destruction is not a condition placed upon the reinforcements, but provided by the support at the end of the turn. If the support isn't there at then end of the turn, then neither is the unresolved effect.
  • Tilwin90
    Tilwin90 Posts: 662 Critical Contributor
    edited March 2019
    Yes and no. Because the enter the battlefield effect is bound to the same ability as the end of turn reinforcement removal, it should occur regardless of whether Mirror March is on the battlefield or not, though probably the wording is messed up to begin with.  (see option 2)

    Option 1
    Paper magic has a much more elegant wording: "Whenever a nontoken creature enters the battlefield ...  Those tokens gain haste. Exile them at the beginning of the next end step."

    In MTGPQ this could probably better read as follows:
    "Whenever a nontoken creature enters the battlefield under your control, if there are 9 or more red gems on the board, reinforce that creature, destroy 5 random gems, then repeat this process. At the end of your turn, that creature loses all reinforcements."

    Option 2
    If they wanted to make it as a separate ability BOUND to Mirror March they could have worded it as follows:
    "Whenever a nontoken creature enters the battlefield under your control, if there are 9 or more red gems on the board, reinforce that creature, destroy 5 random gems, then repeat this process.

    At the end of your turn, remove all reinforcements of creatures reinforced this turn by Mirror March."
    Notice how they are separate abilities on separate lines, each with its own trigger. Should Mirror March leave the battlefield before the end of your turn, its second ability would no longer trigger. I actually like this approach better since then it is a bit more abusable and fun to try and break.

    But there is definitely NO trigger stating that the creature reinforcements are removed when Mirror March leaves the battlefield, so that looks like a bug to me.
  • Theophilus
    Theophilus Posts: 124 Tile Toppler
    Thanks for the response.

    I'll play around with it some more to see if it happens again. When that happened I took it out of my deck, so I really haven't played it much.

    Another thing I was wondering about: Does it remove ALL reinforcements even if some of those reinforcements occurred before the current turn?

    I haven't played paper Magic since The Dark, or maybe Fallen Empires, so I have no idea how some of these cards play out in that format. 
  • Tilwin90
    Tilwin90 Posts: 662 Critical Contributor
    @Theophilus
    There are no reinforcements in paper magic. In other words, March of the Multitudes creates individual vampire creature tokens, which each count as a separate 1/1 soldier. Due to the user interface of MTGPQ it would be impossible to follow the same approach -> hence identical creatures onto the battlefield are stacked together.

    Now naturally this has disadvantages, such as:
    - Anthem effects (creatures you control get +1/+1) or pestilence effects (creatures your opponents control get -1/-1) are often less powerful
    - Damage removal effect (deal X damage to target creature) are also less powerful as creature stacks tend to get bigger - though it should be noted in paper magic damage on creatures is "erased" at the end of each turn.  
    - Targeted creature removal is much more powerful. A single Murder can destroy a stack of twelve 1/1 tokens, but in paper magic you would be able to remove only one of those creatures.
    - All effects that count your creatures (but not your reinforcements) are also much less powerful than in paper magic. Recently they've started to deal with this by adding reinforcement count clauses to cards (starting with Ixalan).


    Back to Mirror March, since in paper magic it creates distinct token copies of the creature entering the battlefield, those copies and ONLY those copies go away at the end of the turn. If somehow you have copied that creature some other way (say via Quasiduplicate), those copies are not affected by Mirror March (they neither trigger it when entering the battlefield, since they are tokens, nor get exiled at the end of turn)!
    In MTGPQ since it would probably be quite quirky and even tricky to implement a removal ONLY of the reinforcements generated by Mirror March, it actually erases all reinforcements on creatures that have been reinforced the same turn with Mirror March.

    It's not a very good card in paper magic, though some kitchen table fun decks have been built with it - I hope nobody minds me pointing to this magic match.

    What I like in MTGPQ is the destroy gems clause and bombastic reinforcing of very big creatures (such as Gaea's Revenge) that could be fun. But all in all it's probably a mediocre card too when compared to many other mythics. :smile: By this I mean that someone MIGHT be able to build a fun deck around it, but there are probably more powerful alternatives to it in the case of a complete or near-complete card collection.

  • Stormcrow
    Stormcrow Posts: 462 Mover and Shaker
    Theophilus said:
    I'll play around with it some more to see if it happens again. When that happened I took it out of my deck, so I really haven't played it much.
    FWIW, I got absolutely and unexpectedly murdered last night by Mirror March into Zacama, which managed to get reinforced up to something like 207/207 without blowing up the support. (Of course, Zacama created 9 red gems when it came into play...) There's definitely ways to make it work.
  • Tremayne
    Tremayne Posts: 1,673 Chairperson of the Boards
    I have also managed to make MM work wonders, still somewhat unstable, but I have room for improvement in my current deck.
  • Theophilus
    Theophilus Posts: 124 Tile Toppler
    I just had it happen again where the random gem destruction caused gem matches that ultimately led to the destruction of my Mirror March. I lost all of my reinforcements and no combat damage was dealt. I now wonder if this isn't due to the loss of haste when the support gem is destroyed. Since I can't see the details of the sequence of each stage of the turn, I cant see how it was all resolved. If losing the support causes the immediate loss of haste, then my creature doesn't attack and loses all of its reinforcements at the end of the turn. That stinks.

    If this is the case, maybe the haste should be a permanent effect that attaches to the card. It's not like it matters beyond the current turn.

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