Meddling Mage and Decree of Justice

[Matt]

Let Take a look at Death Long, You have to name tendrils (otherwise they will use Tendrils to kill the mage)

That can't happen. Tendrils makes players lose life, not damage to player-or-creatures. It's not Drain Life, it's Soul Feast.

Rules Questions: Does Cycleing counts as being played? You can stifle it becuase it is an ability, and work understandstill but for Mage abilty, cannot be played, did they errata mage to allow it to hurt decree?

When you cycle a card, you are playing an activated ability of the card (exactly like playing an activated ability of a permanent. It's just in a zone other than the in-play zone.) Tapping a Welder isn't playing a spell, and neither is cycling a card.

So, Mage will only prevent a Decree from being hardcast.

Oh, also, Mage would be good WITH Duress if you could find the room.

[LeRoux]

Let Take a look at Death Long, You have to name tendrils (otherwise they will use Tendrils to kill the mage), but without a secound mage naming Death Wish before they wish for the answer, it is meaninless.

Just for your information, Tendrils of Agony can not kill a Meddling Mage as it only makes a player lose life. Otherwise, it would probably be a little bit overpowered. I've been playing DeathLong for quite a while now, and usually, a Meddling Mage naming Tendrils of Agony still isn't a problem. When you combo out (read play Yawgmoth's Will), you usually go broken enough to play a second Wish, or a maindeck bounce so you can finish the opponent with a Tendrils of Agony.

Chalice is a much harder card to face when playing DeathLong. If it's dropped for 1 soon enough, you're losing your most broken unrestricted acceleration in Dark Ritual.  Couple with 8 permission spells, it's almost impossible for DeathLong to ovvercome the Chalice, except with a nut hand.

[Revvik]

Tendrils can't touch Meddling Mage, and cycling is not playing the card.

Mage is also pretty good against that Sensei deck (at least, the posted version).  Other than that, Duress is far more powerful, and gives the deck something to do on the first turn other than Brainstorm (or Swordsing)

EDIT: What he said above.

[mask]

Let Take a look at Death Long, You have to name tendrils (otherwise they will use Tendrils to kill the mage)

That can't happen. Tendrils makes players lose life, not damage to player-or-creatures. It's not Drain Life, it's Soul Feast.

Rules Questions: Does Cycleing counts as being played? You can stifle it becuase it is an ability, and work understandstill but for Mage abilty, cannot be played, did they errata mage to allow it to hurt decree?

When you cycle a card, you are playing an activated ability of the card (exactly like playing an activated ability of a permanent. It's just in a zone other than the in-play zone.) Tapping a Welder isn't playing a spell, and neither is cycling a card.

So, Mage will only prevent a Decree from being hardcast.

Oh, also, Mage would be good WITH Duress if you could find the room.

My question was did they errata Meddling Mage not allowing the Cycleing to be activated......
i am very familar with the abilitys as i even gave examples.....

[Jacob Orlove]

Moved from the 3cC article thread. Apologies to people whose posts included on-topic information--feel free to repost it in the original thread.

-Jacob

[Matt]

My question was did they errata Meddling Mage not allowing the Cycleing to be activated......
i am very familar with the abilitys as i even gave examples.....

Why would they randomly errata it like this? That's like asking if they errata'd Tradewind Rider so you can play it at instant speed - it would be just totally giving it an ability it never had.

It seems to me that this is yet another case of a player mistaking the use of the word "play". "The named card can't be played" is not the same thing as "You can't do anything with the named card."

'Play' has a very specific definition in this game. Whenever you see it, pretend it says "cast" and things should become clearer (the only difference between 'play' and the old term 'cast' is that 'play' also applies to playing a land for the turn, not that that's pertinant to Meddling Mage).

So pretend it says "The named card can't be cast." Would that stop cycling? Well, is cycling a card the same as casting a spell? No, it is not. Meddling Mage also would not stop you from recurring a Gigapede or activating a Glory in the graveyard (both of which are, just like cycling, activated abilities played from non-play zones).

I think this is the most widespread area of rules confusion in the whole game. Yawgmoth's Will, Meddling Mage...um, Orim's Chant...