So, I don't think this card is really vintage playable, although it is really cute and perhaps has angles to shoot. (Kismet on legs! Stasis is back BABY).

No, the reason I posted this is because this forum has some of the most intelligent folks in Magic, and I'm very unclear on how this works from a rules perspective. The question for me is what happens when you have Archelos out and play something that ETB tapped like, say, a Guildgate. Both cards have text directing the card to enter the battlefield tapped or untapped. So, what happens?

Assuming they are both replacement effects, I think the answer is that the card MUST enter the battlefield untapped. Rule 616.1 says that if two replacement effects try to apply, normally the player controlling the permanent being effected chooses. But, if one of the effects is on the effected card itself, then the self-replacement effect must be applied first. Rule 614.15. So, the Guildgate's own ability tells it to enter tapped, and then the Turtle's tells it to enter untapped, and so the latter one controls.

But, it's not clear to me that these are replacement effects at all. They're not written in the form "If a permanent would X instead it Ys." Has anyone encountered this before?

Note that some cards like Thalia don't raise this issue because cards traditionally do not say "This card ETB untapped" in their card text, so there is no conflict between effects to resolve.

This is another example of something I've been saying for years:

http://www.themanadrain.com/topic/1473/the-reserve-list-the-reddest-red-herring

In short, the Reserve List does nothing whatsoever to stop Wizards from printing all the broken nonsense they like and giving us substitutes or replacements for Reserve List cards. They do it all the time. Every time some whackadoodle on Youtube or Twitter complains about the Reserve List, they're just plain wrong. If you want to improve access to eternal formats, you print functionally different cards that compete or replace Reserved List cards. The reason we don't get them isn't because WotC can't do it, it's because it wrecks Standard and other formats.

I don't think WotC has been playing around with nonfunctional reprints any more frequently in recent sets. Hell, we get a Mox [Whatever] almost every other year. It's just that since War of the Spark, power creep has been going really bonkers. Multiple fetchable duals and trilands. A true Mox for Commanders only. They seem more willing to swing the wrecking ball at Standard, which I'm all about!

I wonder if we're getting the point where Scry duals or some other nonsense is actually on the radar?

@thewhitedragon69 Hah!

I'd be more worried about bolt, but sure.

You know whats even worse? You see your storm opponent cast this, decide not to pay life to make sure she has to get maximum storm because she's likely to choose 19, but then she chooses 1.

Or... both players bid 19 so everyone loses life and no one draws

@griselbrother Right, sorry, my post is a little unclear: I mean you wheel for the price of 19.

Even so, isn't a one-sided wheel like that basically game over? It's better than even Windfall.

Turn 1: Land, Mox, Mox, Ritual, Wheel for 19?

So this has a powerful effect, similar to Arbiter, but for 1 more mana and you get Flash and a stronger penalty. Is that worth it? How much difference is there in how much play we see in similar cards? Notion Thief versus other cheaper cards that prevent card draw, for example?

All of the Court cards seem really, really strong in a hard control shell. They each provide card advantage and a win condition that usually requires nothing more than sitting back and protecting it.

Imagine you drop Moat and you have the Black or Blue Courts out. You can just sit back behind a wall of countermagic and win. The Blue one, in particular, is 3 mana for a 4, maybe 5 turn clock. Is this enough to bring some kind of old-school UW Control back? Can Weismann live again?

This card is bad. Winds of Change is not played, this is worse.

HOWEVER - the idea of lands that are not lands is huge business for Charbelcher and Rogue Hermit (Oops all Spells). Both decks can now run much more reliable and normal manabases. Heck, the blue spell/lands pitch to Force of Will as well!

Since Rogue Hermit essentially pays 2B for Undercity Informer and threatens to win on the spot, is that deck about to get better? Does Zendikar do for that deck what Thassa did for Doomsday?

@brass-man said in Humility + Decree of Justice:

I honestly don't know if they've changed the layering rules in the past few years, but I think Humility'd creatures retain their bonus from +1/+1 counters. That means a Humility will actually make every creature in a Workshop deck except Foundry Inspector bigger. With Shop-Aggro representing such a big portion of the aggro decks in the format, it really dampens how flexible the card would be in Vintage specifically.

You are absolutely correct. Rules text below. Basically, power and toughness-setting abilities are applied in Layer 1 and then things that modify power and toughness are applied later. You can make a funny deck using Humility and creatures that have +1/+1 counters. You will have the biggest dorks on the board!

**613. Interaction of Continuous Effects613.1.
The values of an object’s characteristics are determined by starting with the actual object. For a card, that means the values of the characteristics printed on that card. For a token or a copy of a spell or card, that means the values of the characteristics defined by the effect that created it. Then all applicable continuous effects are applied in a series of layers in the following order:

613.1a Layer 1: Rules and effects that modify copiable values are applied.

613.1b Layer 2:Control-changing effects are applied.

613.1c Layer 3:Text-changing effects are applied. See rule 612, “Text-Changing Effects.”

613.1d Layer 4:Type-changing effects are applied. These include effects that change an object’s card type, subtype, and/or supertype.613.1e

Layer 5:Color-changing effects are applied.

613.1f Layer 6:Ability-adding effects, keyword counters, ability-removing effects, and effects that say an object can’t have an abilityare applied.

613.1g Layer 7:Power-and/or toughness-changing effects are applied

613.2. Within layer 1, apply effects in a series of sublayers in the order described below. Within each sublayer, apply effects in timestamp order (see rule 613.7). Note that dependency may alter the order in which effects are applied within a sublayer. (See rule 613.8.)

613.2a Layer 1a: Copiable effects are applied. This includes copy effects (see rule 706, “Copying Objects”) and changes to an object’s base characteristics determined by merging an object with a permanent (see rule 721, “Merging with Permanents”).“As . . . enters the battlefield”and “as . . . is turned face up”abilities generatecopiable effectsif theyset power and toughness, even if they also define other characteristics.

...

706.2. When copying an object, the copy acquires the copiable values of the original object’s characteristics and, for an object on the stack, choices made when casting or activating it (mode, targets, the value of X, whether it was kicked, how it will affect multiple targets, and so on). The copiable values are the values derived from the text printed on the object (that text being name, mana cost, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, power, toughness, and/or loyalty), as modified by other copy effects, by its face-down status, and by “as . . . enters the battlefield”and “as . . . is turned face up”abilities that set power and toughness (and may also set additional characteristics).**

@thewhitedragon69

Yea this dude.