Bonesplitter & Humility

[Legend]

I suspect that Bonesplitter (or any other power-enhancing equipment, or other permanent power-enhancers such as Tooth of Chiss-Goria) allow its controller to get around a Humility. The Humility turns all creatures into 1/1's with no abilities. I put a Bonesplitter onto one of my creatures - can the creature now hit as a 3/1 for 3 damage? Does this also apply/not apply for non-equipment pump cards such as Rancor? What about one-shot pump such as Giant Growth?

[Dr. Sylvan]

Ask The Judge: Humility

Q: Humility makes creatures 1/1 even if the have enchantments like Holy Strength on them... Right? But does it also negate the effect of, say, a Hatred or a Howl from Beyond?
Thanks,
Patrick

A: Patrick,
Not quite right. It depends in which order the Humility and Holy Strength came into play; you apply them in order. If Humility was first and then Holy Strength, your creatures is 2/3. The other way around, it's 1/1. Humility will not negate a Howl from Beyond or Hatred.
Sheldon

I'm presuming this means that you have to change the timestamp of the equipping by shifting it onto another creature and then back. If it's on your only creature when Humility comes into play, you're stuck with a 1/1 until you can change the timestamp somehow.

[Legend]

So if I have two or more creatures and a Bonesplitter, I can get around Humility? If anyone can provide more detail on this matter, and also clarify how this works for other cards such as Rancor, Giant Growth, and Tooth of Chiss-Goria, that would be good. I had also looked at that "Ask The Judge" from starcity.com, but it did not really clarify the matter all that well for me. Does moving equipment around in fact change the "timestamp?" What about if I have only one creature in play, but I moved a Bonesplitter onto it for the first time? How about if I had a Bonesplittered creature as my only creature, then the Humility came into play? The matter remains somewhat unclear to me.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Well the example is for Holy Strength, so I'm confident Rancor works identically. I believe the other effects are also determined by timestamp.

Judges?

[Matt]

Pump effects that happen after Humility comes into play get around it. Everything from Giant Growth to Crusade, IF the Crusade come into play after the Humility. If it came before, Humility overrides it. At least this is how it was prior to 8th eidition, I know they made some minor modifications to the rules governing continuous effects.

[Jebus]

To expand on Equipment, the timestamp for the Equipment is based on when it becomes attached to the creature.

418.5e An object’s timestamp is the time it entered the zone it’s currently in, with three exceptions:
(1) If two or more objects enter a zone (or zones) simultaneously, the active player determines
their timestamp order at the time they enter that zone. (2) Whenever a local enchantment or
Equipment becomes attached to a permanent, the enchantment or Equipment receives a new
timestamp. (3) Permanents that phase in keep the same timestamps they had when they phased
out.

So, if a Humility and a Bonesplitter is in play, Equipping a creature will yield a 3/1.

If a creature is already equipped when the Humility resolves, then it becomes a 1/1 until you can attach the Bonesplitter to it again (move it to something else, then move it back).

[Legend]

Thank you.

[Jacob Orlove]

So Mirrodin's gonna beat Tempest, then?

[Legend]

Already happened. I played the finals with Negator last night, and Mirrodin won the championship 3-1.  We played the match as if Bonesplitter could get around Humility - the purpose of this thread was merely to confirm that what we had done was in fact correct. Although we were fairly sure that this was the proper ruling, I did not want to take any chances. The match report is up in the Casual Mill, along with all the other late-round match reports.