RNA Card Text Clarifications

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.)

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.

None of this seems relevant to the topic at hand.

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.

TY Daiane.

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
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. 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.

I have also managed to make MM work wonders, still somewhat unstable, but I have room for improvement in my current deck.