evermind

[Ender]

Ok.. this is a pretty easy question but somewhere along the lines I got utterly confused... anyway.

You play Glacial Ray and splice onto it Evermind (so evermind stays in hand). Is the spell blue or red?

I always thought it was blue but I looked it up on SCG.com one day.

If Evermind is in your hand, you can play its splice onto Arcane ability. However, the splice ability doesn't copy characteristic-setting abilities. This means that the text "Evermind is blue" isn't copied onto the Arcane spell.

Ok... no problem.. so I double check with wizards.com's oracle text and offical rulings.

Aug 1, 2005 - If Evermind is in your hand, you can play its splice onto Arcane ability. The splice ability copies characteristic-setting abilities. This means that the text "Evermind is blue" is copied onto the Arcane spell, making it blue.


well... damn...

[Komatteru]

Blue.

I don't see that part about not copying characteristic settings of card text.  Here's the relevant rule:

502.40c The spell has the characteristics of the main spell, plus the text boxes of each of the spliced
cards. The spell doesn’t gain any other characteristics (name, mana cost, color, supertypes,
types, subtypes, etc.) of the spliced cards. Text copied onto the spell that refers to a card by
name refers to the spell on the stack, not the card from which the text was copied.
Example: Glacial Ray is a red card with splice onto Arcane that reads, “Glacial Ray
deals 2 damage to target creature or player.” Suppose Glacial Ray is spliced onto
Reach Through Mists, a blue spell. The spell is still blue, and Reach Through Mists
deals the damage. This means that the ability can target a creature with protection from
red and deal 2 damage to that creature.

Splice does not change any characteristics of the original spell.  It simply adds text to the box there.  Splicing on a card does not change its card type, color, converted mana cost, etc.  HOWEVER, the "Evermind is blue" text get copied as well.  By the above paragraph, when text that refers to a card name gets spliced onto a card, it refers to the card ON THE STACK, not the one it was spliced on to.  Therefore, the card on the stack will look like this

Glacial Ray
1R
Instant - Arcane
Glacial Ray deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
Draw a card.
*Glacial Ray* is blue.

[UR]

What JDizzle said... this is from gatherer;

Aug 1, 2005 - If Evermind is in your hand, you can play its splice onto Arcane ability. The splice ability copies characteristic-setting abilities. This means that the text "Evermind is blue" is copied onto the Arcane spell, making it blue.

[LordHomerCat]

I believe that the issue is, when Evermind came out, they originally stated that the Ray-Splice-Evermind spell would NOT gain that part of the text (and become blue) for some reason, and that is when the Ask-The-Judge came out on the topic.  A short while later, they changed their minds, as it seemed dumb to only splice part of the text, and so the spell gained "~this~ is blue)."  They probably just didn't ever put a new question in Ask the Judge about it.