Dreadnought and sacrifice

[Toad]

My opponent has a Phyrexian Negator and an Illusionary Mask on the board, along with a Dreadnought in his graveyard. I use my Welder's ability to exchange the Dreadnought and the Mask.

If ~this~ would come into play, sacrifice any number of creatures with total power 12 or greater instead. If you do, put ~this~ into play. If you don't, put it into its owner's graveyard.

Crystalkeep gives an interesting ruling about this card :

# The sacrifice is not optional. The last sentence is equivalent to "If you can't sacrifice enough power in creatures, put it..."

Does that mean the opponent has to sacrifice as many creatures as he can in order to reach the 12 power threshold, as sacrifice is not optional ? i.e here, will his Negator be sacrificed ?

Matt

[rvs]

IF you have 12 in power, you HAVE to sacrifice. If you don't, you don't sacrifice and Dreaddy goes to the GY.

[Bram]

Let's make it more interesting and pose a question that I have pondered on a while ago.

Is Toaddies opponent allowed (for whatever reason he should want to) to TRY and sac the Negator to it? According to Morefling, he doesn't HAVE to. But can he do it regardless (even though the Naught will still go to the 'yard)?

[Kowal]

Err, actually, you do have to try to sacrifice to get to the 12, whether or not you can make it.

Yes, welder totally owns my junk.  That's why I pack 4 Ground Seals.

[rvs]

Err, actually, you do have to try to sacrifice to get to the 12, whether or not you can make it.

Yes, welder totally owns my junk.  That's why I pack 4 Ground Seals.

You're wrong. Mercator says so :p

[Toad]

Yeah, he said so on #mtgjudge. This problem is really tricky  

[hulk3rules]

I'm pretty sure this question came up on the old TMD once and the consensus was that you have to try to sacrifice what you can, i.e. the negator would in fact die, as long as the dreadnought.  I can't quote any rulings to back this up though

[Jaapmans]

The sacrifice is mandatory. Read the card, it's pretty obvious. It doesn't include 'you may sacrice any number of creatures with total power 12 or greater'.  The may (or lack of it) is important here.

Mercator is a reliable source for rules, but even the best judges sometimes make mistakes (same with me )

Jaap

Phyrexian Dreadnought

Artifact Creature
12/12
Trample
If Phyrexian Dreadnought would come into play, sacrifice any number of creatures with total power 12 or greater instead. If you do, put Phyrexian Dreadnought into play. If you don't, put it into its owner's graveyard.

[Toad]

It doesn't include "You may sacrifice ..." but "Sacrifice any...". And "any" can be 0, no ?  

Well, I'm sending the question to a beloved French lvl4 judge, I'll tell you then.

Matt.

[Bram]

What, level 3 isn't high enough for ya?

[Jaapmans]

For your information: Paul Barclay (rules manager WotC) confirmed my answer, while we were having coffee.

As I stated in my previous reply, every judge is making mistakes, including myself, but this answer is not wrong (not with the confirmation of Paul Barclay).

Jaap

[Toad]

From David Marantz. (DavidM on #mtgjudge)

Oui, il doit sacrifier son Negator.

Lorsque Phyrexian Dreadnought arrive en jeu, il faut sacrifier des créatures, jusqu'à ce que l'on en ait sacrifié suffisemment pour totaliser une force de 12. Si toutes les créatures en jeu sont insuffisantes pour remplir cette condition, elles sont toutes sacrifiées et le Dreadnought va (ou reste) au cimetière.

I hope that helps  

This basically means : "Yes, he has to sacrifice his Negator. The opponent has to try to sacrifice up to 12 creature points. If there are not enough critters on the board, then all critters are sacrificed and the Dreadnought goes back to the grave."

[rvs]

so I was right in my initial response :p - I vaguely remembered Rune saying something similar in #mtgjudge a few weeks back. For the record, however, this is the first time Mercator has been wrong, and I've been checking up for questions with him for a long time already.

[Jacob Orlove]

It's interesting to note that he'll still lose the Negator even if you were switching out a dreadnought (assuming there was only one nought in play). That's because Welder now has the card in play go to the graveyard before the card in the graveyard comes into play. This means that when the opponent would have to sac 12 power worth of stuff, all that he'll have out is the Negator, which, as we've shown, means he ends up with nothing.

Yeah, Welder wrecks Dreadnoughts.

[Gilthanas01]

That same situation (Judges not knowing the correct ruling on Dreadnought) screwed me out of a top 8 in a side event at Grand Prix Atlanta. My opponent was playing Full English Breakfast variant, and had Survival in play. I was playing Stax, and had him about halfway under control after destroying all his lands that produced green, but he had 2 BOP's and a Wall of Roots, so I welded his 'nought into play for his Mox Emerald (his only remaining non creature green source) I thought this was frickin' brilliant, since I knew the correct ruling on the 'nought ( I meant to wipe him out of green completely by forcing him to sac his critters. He just looked at me like I was nuts, called a judge, who misruled. I appealed, the second judge misruled, and I couldn't get them to go get the level 3 that was there. Pissed me the hell off, and I ended up losing cause I couldn't stop him from Survivaling.... At least the prize that day was just a foil Serra, so I didn't miss too much, lol...

[rvs]

it's funny this ruling also came up at the GP A'dam side-event where the judge didn't know about it either. So I told him to re-check, and indeed found out what happened.

[TracerBullet]

Interesting to note- The wording on Goblin Welder was changed at the beginning of December, effectively changing it's interaction with Phyrexian Dreadnought and Volrath's Shapeshifter-


Goblin Welder

Color= Red  Type= Creature - Goblin  Cost= R UL(R)  
Text (UL+errata): 1/1. ; : Choose target artifact a player controls and target artifact card in that player's graveyard. If both targets are still legal as this ability resolves, that player sacrifices the artifact in play, then puts the other artifact from his or her graveyard into play. [WotC Rules Team 2003/12/01]

The artifact in play is put on top of its owner's graveyard. It is not placed into the same spot in the graveyard the other artifact was. [WotC Rules Team 1999/03/18]
The exchange fails (and nothing happens) if either target is not legal at the start of resolution. [D'Angelo 1999/02/13]
The effect works exactly like "Put target artifact a player controls into the graveyard, and put target artifact in that player's graveyard into play. This entire effect is canceled if either target is not legal at the start of resolution." [D'Angelo 1999/02/13]


If you have a Shapeshifter in play and a Dreadnought as the top card, and your opponent tries to Weld the Shapeshifter for the Dreadnought, you can no longer sacrifice the Shapeshifter to satisfy the Dreadnought's Replacement-CIP ability.  Under the old rules, the WelderSacrifice and the Dreadnought-Sacrifice were simultaneous and so you could choose to sacrifice the Shapeshifter to the Dreadnought and have the Dreadnought successfully enter play.  Under the new rules, the Shapeshifter is sacrificed first, then the Dreadnought's replacement-CIP ability happens, and usually fails (you'd have to have another 12 power worth of creatures in play).

Pat

[Jacob Orlove]

It's interesting to note that he'll still lose the Negator even if you were switching out a dreadnought (assuming there was only one nought in play). That's because Welder now has the card in play go to the graveyard before the card in the graveyard comes into play. This means that when the opponent would have to sac 12 power worth of stuff, all that he'll have out is the Negator, which, as we've shown, means he ends up with nothing.

Yeah, Welder wrecks Dreadnoughts.

So, um, yay for repeating what I said?