Substance

[Bram]

I just recieved a PM from a basic user called Rastadon who can't post here. He found something interesting on Gatherer.

Has anyone ever seen the weird oracle wording Wizards gave the Mirage pseudo-instant enchant creatures like Grave Servitude, Mystic Veil and Armor of Thorns?

You may play Armor of Thorns any time you could play an instant. If it was played any time a sorcery couldn’t have been played, it gains substance until end of turn and gains “When Armor of Thorns doesn’t have substance, sacrifice it.�
Enchant nonblack creature
Enchanted creature gets +2/+2.

Obviosuly it's some fancy new way of getting the card to work properly under the rules, but I'd just never seen it before. Also: any ideas on why this is necessary?

[Limbo]

As can be seen here we discussed this in the rules forum.

Main reason to do this is the counter-intuitive interactions with these cards.

For example, a 2/2 creature enchanted with armor of thorns (resulting in a 4/4) that receives 2 damage would die under the old rules (first, the end of turn trigger of the armor of thorns would destroy it, BEFORE the clean-up step). With the new rules, the sacrifice takes place during the clean-up step, so the critter does survive.

Another change it with necromancy. From now on, it is not possible to abuse the end of turn trigger trick. Under old rules, you could resurrect a creature after the end of turn trigger, so you would have the creature also in your next turn. With the new situation, the creature will only survive one turn.

Main reason to do it NOW is the introduction of Mirage on Magic Online.

[Bram]

OK, thanks. Locked.