T4: What's 20/20,indestructable,uncounterable and doesn't count as ur one spell?

[Mr. Type 4]

This:


HOLY @&#*!!!!

Pretty ridiculous.  And I thought Comandeer was going to be good in Type 4.  I'm not sure everyone's T4 stack is equipped to handle this monstrosity.

[49 Cents]

Guess I'll draft Repeal a bit higher then..

[Glix]

Everyone better play this thing, its so damn cool!

Wizards better print a Marit Lage token for it.  I'm sure that its fairly easy to deal with as well, with all the wrath effects and such.

[Mr. Type 4]

I'm sure that its fairly easy to deal with as well, with all the wrath effects and such.

It's indestructable.  Only certain Wraths (Final Judgement) and powerful effects (Legacy Weapon, Smokespew Invoker) can touch it.  There are of course a few white cards like Sword to Plows that can get that guy, but Indestructable is a pretty potent ability... you very well may need to draft Repeal higher.  This makes me happy I gave in to my friend and put in Capsize.

[Harlequin]

Aether Snap kills him too!  I love that card, it has been in my T4 stax sinse the begining.

Tornado-Snap or the F*ing win!

[chrissss]

Stps, one mana 20 life

This card is nice, amazing art, I wanted to make a thread about this, but you beat me to it!

ps: where did you get those visual spoilers?

[ashiXIII]

There is a Marit Lage token for it. Wizards showed it on one of their commercials. Capsize is absolutely ridicious in this format, especially if you have less than 4 people playing a game. When it gets down to 1 on 1, there is no card (that I can think of) stronger than Capsize. It ranks way up there with Mischievous Quanar, and Nezumi Graverobber, and these cards are all better than other bombs like Memnarch and Legacy Weapon.

[RaZe]

Cards in my stack that can deal w/ Marit Lage [36/300 cards]

1:10 cards

Evacuation
Repeal
Capsize
Clutch of the Undercity
Recoil

Swords to Plowshares
Second Thoughts
AWOL
Devouring Light
Exile
Sickening Shoal
Soul Nova
Wing Shards

Final Judgement
Flowstone Slide
Decree of Annihilation

Azorious Guildmage
Consumptive Goo
Smokespew Invoker
Flowstone Overseer
Bane of the Living
Duplicant
Crowd Favorites
Echo Tracer
Hoverguard Sweeper
Memnarch
Temporal Adept
Tidespout Tyrant
Empress Galina

Legacy Weapon
Fyndhorn Pollen
Fevered Convulsions

Confiscate
Flickerform
Yavimaya's Embrace
Treachery

But I'll still try it out in the stack, seems very promising. Requisition is still the best card I've seen for T4 from Coldsnap.

[Mr. Type 4]

So I experimented with this last night.  It didn't come up a lot, but it did in one Game, and  I got killed by that thing. I made an effort to Dominate another player's Glarecaster and it got countered. The guy with the Depths, however, did not win the game, as he was quickly taken out. 

Raze - I noticed that your list is missing Dominate, which is easily one of the best cards(of course, it's still does't crack the top 20, but there are a lot of reallly good Type 4 cards).  I'm pretty sure that if you allow Consumptive Goo that Dominate is on par with the power level of your deck.  My list also has Sway of the Stars which gets rid of Merit, but that card's inclusion is much more debateable.  Your list does not include cards that can come out to punish the player that has Merit.  Stuff like Reflect Damage and Shining Shoal can really turn the tables on that guy. 

I noticed when Merit Lage came into play that there were ALOT of ways to beat it, but it isn't that hard to protect.  It's probably fair(as fair as a 20/20 indestructable flyer can be), but it is going to make winning from a strong board position a lot easier, much like Greater Morphling (which I had taken out for a while, but it's going back in so he can fight with ol' Merit).  There's enough cards that destroy Merit Lage, but it is likely that you may have to have two players work together to kill it off.

This card is really good, but Comandeer is still probably better, as Desertion is already one of the best cards in the game(That card definitly makes my Top 20), and Comandeer is like the most awesome Desertion ever. 

[RaZe]

I do have Dominate and Sway in my deck. [Although I'm debating on taking out Sway for more pro-active spells] I overlooked it. Add Govern the Guildless and that makes it 39/300 then. Vesuvan Doppleganger works too so make that 40/300. And my stack doesn't even have Binding Grasp, Control Magic and Persuasion, and Clone. [No more space T_T]

Shinning Shoal and Reflect damage are also in my stack but I didn't include it in the list because it's effectiveness depends on the defending players life total. My friends and I are gonna try to up the starting life count to 100 this weekend and with that, a 20/20 creature isn't that scary anymore. If the games tend to be too long, then we'll put it back down.

Greater Morphling is a fking bytch to kill. I was playing 1v1 and the damn thing went to eat my 100 life ftw. And it didn't help that my buddy had Hunted Crossroads pre-GM.

[Mr. Type 4]

Yeah, I think there's more than enough stuff out there to handle this guy, but he does make you value some effects a bit more than before.  Treva's & Crosis' Charm are both good cards that also kill it. 

Actually, I think there are fewer good ways to kill Greater Morphing, but I suppose that guy only pushes 18 points of damage (we play the errata: You may only use Rampage and Bushido once per turn)

We've experimented with starting at higher life totals before, and I don't think it really changed the game all that much.  It just changed the way people managed themselves, as when you're playing a longer game it's okay to let more things slip through in the early game.  The game still had the same power shifts and all that, it just seemed like the early game wasn't as big of a deal.  Also it really powers up cards like Chainer, Promise of Power and Moonlight Bargain. 

[RaZe]

When my friend got G.Morphling out, I had the dumb luck to draw Solar Tide of all the Wrath Effects. I was like you've gotta be shitting me. [And we have the same errata as well] i figure it would be nice to go through more than half our decks for a change [300/4 = 75 library.] and be able to see more interactions with the cards. I weakens a few cards granted, but I hope the overall game play gets better involving more strategies and deeper calculations.

[Mr. Type 4]

Oh, man...

Rimescale Dragon 
Snow Creature - Dragon  5RR
Flying
2S: Tap target creature and put an ice counter on it. ( can be paid with one mana from a snow permanent.)
Creatures with ice counters on them don't untap during their controllers' untap steps.
 
5/5


That's going to be pretty good.  Does anyone know if the Dragon's text causes the creature to not untap, or does the ice counter itself do it?  To clarify: If I ice everything on the board in reponse to you killing my dragon, will the stuff untap?  It makes it all the more interesting that other things in this set deal with ice counters.

[Mr. Nightmare]

Random question:  Do you have infinite Snow Mana?  I don't think this has been brought up yet.

[Mr. Type 4]

Why not have infinite snow mana?  I will be allowing it for sure.  These cards are pretty pointless otherwise, as we're not about to put in some snow covered lands just so this dragon will be good, but yeah, good question.  I assume you could do it whatever way you want in your stack, but I think we'll all agree that these coldsnap cards will suck without infinite snow manas.

This is pretty damn good, too:

Deepfire Elemental  4RB
Creature - Elemental 
XX1: Destroy target artifact or creature with converted mana cost X.
"Ohh, it's the deep burn. Oh, it's so deep."
4/4

I have Gorilla Shawman in my deck, and he's good, so I can imagine how awesome this is going to be.  The only downside to this is that it's a destroy effect, so it can't get indestructables or things that regenerate, but it sure is going to regulate on some things. 

[Harlequin]

Oh, man...

Rimescale Dragon 
Snow Creature - Dragon  5RR
Flying
2S: Tap target creature and put an ice counter on it. ( can be paid with one mana from a snow permanent.)
Creatures with ice counters on them don't untap during their controllers' untap steps.
 
5/5

That's going to be pretty good.  Does anyone know if the Dragon's text causes the creature to not untap, or does the ice counter itself do it?  To clarify: If I ice everything on the board in reponse to you killing my dragon, will the stuff untap?  It makes it all the more interesting that other things in this set deal with ice counters.

I think the answer is yes.  Basically so long as it is 2 separate abilites.  the 1st is activate, and the second is static.  The static ability is basically saying "Don't untap stuff that [meets condition]"  Basically its Meekstone but with the condition being "anything with an Ice counter"  Had it all been part of the same ability then I don't think it would wear off.  Interestingly enough the counters don't go away.  So you Ice all my guys, I Urza's Rage him in response.  he goes to the yard.  Someone now plays Cursed Totem, and on your next turn you Hymn to Rebirth your dragon.  now you can't give guys new counters (thanks to the curse) but the guys with the old Ice counters will not untap.  
=========
Holy CRAP did anyone else realise that the dragon actually prevents the Marit Lage from breaking out of the Ice??  Thats so cool.  (assumeing you give "defensive" abilites ultimate resolution).  That is tech.

[Mr. Type 4]

That's what I thought.  It makes the most sense.

Oh, man, great interaction with Dark Depths.  I imagine I'll have to put that clause specifically into future drafts of the defense ability rule. 

[Mr. Nightmare]

What's the defense ability rule?  (In a nutshell, I'm sure)

[LordHomerCat]

As to the dragon ability specifics:

If the Dragon is not in play, everything untaps normally. the "Creatures with Ice Counters don't untap" ability is only there when the Dragon is in play, much like Meekstone or something.

Everything keeps its Ice counters, so as Paul said, if you Ice everything, then the dragon dies, then the dragon comes back, everything with Ice counters stops untapping again.

Ice counters, like any named counter, don't carry any specific abilities with them.  For instance, another card in the same FAQ has its own Ice counter interaction, which, like the dragon, only exists when it is in play.  Of course, Ice counters from other permanents are interchangeable, so if you can somehow make Dark Depths a creature, you can load it up with relevant counters.

Also, this doesn't seem to have any good interaction at all with Dark Depths, unfortunately, since it says "Tap target CREATURE", so unless you want to do some Sharpie modding to buff up the card, Marit Lage is still going to pop out of the ice.  At least you can tap him down though, so you are safe as long as your dragon lives?

EDIT: The defensive rule in a nutshell: If you both have conflicting abilities, say, Masticore vs. Mist Dragon, the defensive ability always wins, so as to prevent "I Ping", "Phase out in resp.", "Ping in resp.", etc etc forever. 

[Harlequin]

Right basically, the person who is preventing something from happening wins.  In general its the person who plays the final ability in the loop wins.

So lets say I control the dragon, and I control a Darksteel colossus that is attacking you.  You control Dark Depths.

Now Your going to die if you take the hit from DSC, so you decide to bust out the Marit Lage.  So you anounce I remove 10 Ice counters from Dark Depths.  And I say... well in-response to you removing 10, I put 10 Ice counters on Dark Depths useing the dragon.  Now you could argue that you are createing the token on the defensive.... but in actuality, I am defending the board possision.  So in a nutshell, I win (and at some point we make you stop trying to activate the Depths.

===

Another example:  You control Azuros Guildmage, and I control the Dragon.  You play Dark Depths, and make the attempt to crack it.   So you staca: remove a counter, I stack and add a counter, you 'stifle on a stick' my Dragon.... and we go round and round and round.  But because your ability is the last one on the loop, you WILL get the Marit Lage.

[Mr. Nightmare]

Gotcha.  Makes perfect sense, thanks.

[Mr. Type 4]

Yeah, I realized you can't ice that land shortly after I left work today, which is probably for the best because it's confusing.  The defensive ability rule is pretty specific, although understanding th basic gist of it is generally enough for most people.  However, I've played A LOT of Type 4, and sooner or later you encounter a number of rules lawyers(and I have personally been guilty of rules lawyering from time to time), and you have to actually make concrete rules. 

There is an amount of variance out there, as we can see here:

Another example:  You control Azuros Guildmage, and I control the Dragon.  You play Dark Depths, and make the attempt to crack it.   So you staca: remove a counter, I stack and add a counter, you 'stifle on a stick' my Dragon.... and we go round and round and round.  But because your ability is the last one on the loop, you WILL get the Marit Lage.

Now, obviously this play can never happen because Dark Depths is a land, so the Dragon won't be putting counters on it BUT we always play that Azorius Guildmage trumps ALL other abilities, something I debated when Dissension came out, but after lots of discussion we decided it was best if that card always worked consistently to avoid unnecessary confusion. I have worked on my version of the Type 4 comp rules for a long time, and the goal of it is to manage all the infinite stuff so that it works in a way that is easy to understand for causal players.   I'm sure that many of you already have a good understanding of how you like the defensive ability rule to play out in your Type 4 circles, and I encourage you to handle things in whateverway works best for you, but for those who are looking for some guidance, here is the rule exactly as we play it:

From the "Official" Type 4 Comp Rules:

Defensive Abilities Rule A: As is the nature of infinite mana,  in gameplay two abilities will conflit with eachother infinitely.  For example, if someone has Masticore and wants to use it kill a Morphling, which wins?  For Type 4 games, the defensive ability wins out. Loosely definied, a defensive ability is one which prevents the removal of permanents or damage to players.  This rule only applies if both conflicting abilities can be performed infinitely, otherwise one should obviously overtake the other.  In the example case above, the Masticore would only be able to kill the Morphling if the Morphling's controller decided not to use the untargetability or +toughness abilities.

Defensive Abilities Rule B: More specifically, abilities that can be considered defensive are ones that perform one of the following functions:
Protection from a color(or creature type, card type, etc.)
Regeneration
Returning a permanent to its owner's hand(when the effect is controlled by the permanent's controller)
Phasing out (when the effect is controlled by the permanent's controller)
+ Toughness
Damage prevention
Untargetability

Defensive Abilities Rule C: Sometimes two abilites conflict with eachother and it is not clear which is defensive.  For example, one player controls Night Soil, and another controls Withered Wretch.  Both cards seem to have equal rights to removing cards from the graveyard, so which ability wins out?  In this case, which ability is defensive changes based on which player is the aggressor.  Whichever player activates first is the aggressor, and therefore the other ability becomes defensive, and wins out.  Due to this rule, when two cards are in play that conflict with eachother as the ones in the example do, it often causes a stalemate between the conflicting cards until one is removed.

Defensive Ability Rule D: Azorius Guildmage's "Counter target activated ability" ability wins out over all other activated abilities.  In the rare case that there are two Azorius Guildmages in play with two different controllers, refer to Defensive Abilities Rule C. 

[Mr. Nightmare]

Looking at D and C, if I control AGM, and you control both AGM and Dark Depths, You acticvate Depths, I activate AGM targetting Depths, you activate AGM targetting My AGM, then I activate my AGM targetting yours, what wins?

[Harlequin]

If your going to have Rule D "which I personally have never seen" Then you should make the guildmage Legendary, to make that rule less applicable.

In our Type 4 group.  We typically rule everything based on rule C.  who ever starts the loop more or less looses.  Its the person who controls the ability which "ends" (or a better definiation would be the ability which occurs before the ability that matches what started the loop).

So If you have a loop that looks like:

A; B, C, B, C, B ...  Then The final stack would resolve:  C then B then A.

something like
A, B, C, D, A, B, A, B, A, B ... would resolve:  B -- A -- D -- C -- B -- A

Basically you isolate the loop:
A, B, C, D, {A, B, A, B ...}  and only resolve one itteration of that.
A, B, C, D, A, B (stop)  And resolve in LIFO order.

[Mr. Type 4]

Looking at D and C, if I control AGM, and you control both AGM and Dark Depths, You acticvate Depths, I activate AGM targetting Depths, you activate AGM targetting My AGM, then I activate my AGM targetting yours, what wins?

Hopefully we won't ever have multiple guildmages running around, but I have a few cards in my stack (and I'll be t the rest of you do, too) that can make it happen.  This is actually easily resolveable as the only abilities that are conflicted are the two guildmages, and you activated your counter ability first, so mine become defensive.  Mine wins, I get my token.  Now we can fight over tapping it.  You try to tap it, I activate my AGM, you activate yours, yours wins, my thing is tapped. 

If your going to have Rule D "which I personally have never seen"

Yeah, rule D is fairly new.  It's the first time I've ever posted it on here.  If anyone is interested in seeing my complete Type 4 comp rules, PM me.

Then you should make the guildmage Legendary

I don't think this happens enough to make changes like that necessary.  Adding in more Type 4 specific errata makes things even more complicated.  Everytime you play with new players you have to give them this speech about Type 4 specific errata, and I'd rather not have to make that any more complicated than it already is.  For the most part these rules simplify 99% of situations, and there are FAR more complicated interactions to map out, especially ones involving Memnarch.  Especially since Memnarch insists on turning things into artifacts before it can do anything. 

Basically you isolate the loop:
A, B, C, D, {A, B, A, B ...}  and only resolve one itteration of that.
A, B, C, D, A, B (stop)  And resolve in LIFO order.

This is how we used to handle "conflicting non-defensive infinite abiliity" issues before we drafted Rule C.  This always invloves a lot more argueing than I like to deal with, but we are an argumentative group.  Whatever your group is most comfortable with is probably best, and some Type 4 decks probably are more suited to managing conflicting infinite abilities in different ways based on card choices.




Back to the subject at hand, I've played a lot of games with Dark Depths now, and I'm just not sure.  It doesn't seem to just win the game for anyone, but that thing usually gets to smash someone right out of the game, and I'm not sure that it's healthy. 

[Mr. Nightmare]

Looking at D and C, if I control AGM, and you control both AGM and Dark Depths, You acticvate Depths, I activate AGM targetting Depths, you activate AGM targetting My AGM, then I activate my AGM targetting yours, what wins?

Hopefully we won't ever have multiple guildmages running around, but I have a few cards in my stack (and I'll be t the rest of you do, too) that can make it happen.  This is actually easily resolveable as the only abilities that are conflicted are the two guildmages, and you activated your counter ability first, so mine become defensive.  Mine wins, I get my token.  Now we can fight over tapping it.  You try to tap it, I activate my AGM, you activate yours, yours wins, my thing is tapped. 

I don't really understand the difference.

Activating DD

A= Dark Depths activation
B= AGM1 Stifling the Activation
C= AGM2 Stifling AGM1
D= AGM1 Stifling AGM2

ABCDCDCDCDCDCDCDCDCD ...

Tapping DD

1= Tapping DD
2= AGM2 Stifling AGM1
3= AGM1 Stifling AGM2

123232323232323232323 ...

If the second stifle works in the second case, why doesn't the third stifle work in the first case?  It has a different target, and so its a different iteration of the ability.  A is the offensive move, B is defending from that, C and D are basically both defensive, and as such D should cancel C, so shouldn't B still resolve?  That's how it works in the second case.

[RaZe]

I've had the Double Azorious boardstate once before. And one of them had Flowstone Overseer with it. It' was the the most rules confusing scenario we've ever had.

I had typed up my own rules but it might not be adequate to handle thes kinds of scenarios.

Defensive Abilities > Offensive Abilities. If there is a confusion, the Active player's abilities win. If neither one is the active player, the resonding player's ability wins.

The player w/ AGM and FO was the active player so he killed off the other AGM.

If you were to say that '"defending the board possision" is defensive, the shouldn't the lone AGM have won? It's a whole big mess I'm still not too sure how to deal with.

[Matt]

You don't need to make up rules. The actual Magic rules already cover instances of infinite activated abilities.

421.3. If a loop contains optional actions controlled by two players and actions by both of those players are required to continue the loop, the first player (or the first involved player after the active player in turn order) chooses a number. The other player then has two choices. He or she can choose a lower number, in which case the loop continues that number of times plus whatever fraction is necessary for the active player to "have the last word." Or he or she can agree to the number the first player chose, in which case the loop continues that number of times plus whatever fraction is necessary for the second player to "have the last word." (Note that either fraction may be zero.) This sequence of choices is extended to all applicable players if there are more than two players involved.
Example: In a two-player game, one player controls a creature with the ability ": [This creature] gains flying," and another player controls a permanent with the ability ": Target creature loses flying." The "infinity rule" ensures that regardless of which player initiated the gain/lose flying ability, the nonactive player will always have the final choice and therefore be able to determine whether the creature has flying. (Note that this assumes that the first player attempted to give the creature flying at least once.)

[RaZe]

You don't need to make up rules. The actual Magic rules already cover instances of infinite activated abilities.

421.3. If a loop contains optional actions controlled by two players and actions by both of those players are required to continue the loop, the first player (or the first involved player after the active player in turn order) chooses a number. The other player then has two choices. He or she can choose a lower number, in which case the loop continues that number of times plus whatever fraction is necessary for the active player to "have the last word." Or he or she can agree to the number the first player chose, in which case the loop continues that number of times plus whatever fraction is necessary for the second player to "have the last word." (Note that either fraction may be zero.) This sequence of choices is extended to all applicable players if there are more than two players involved.
Example: In a two-player game, one player controls a creature with the ability ": [This creature] gains flying," and another player controls a permanent with the ability ": Target creature loses flying." The "infinity rule" ensures that regardless of which player initiated the gain/lose flying ability, the nonactive player will always have the final choice and therefore be able to determine whether the creature has flying. (Note that this assumes that the first player attempted to give the creature flying at least once.)

The bolded part is all of what I understood of all that. Maybe I need to read the rules a few more times. But in a multiplayer game, you can have situations when neither one of them is the active player. [From my understanding the active player is the player whos turn it is]

[Matt]

Yes, that is what the active player is. For multiplayer games, it's typical to say: the player whose turn it is, is the Active Player, the player whose turn is next is the "next most active" and so on, until the player whose turn it was last turn is the "least active." This is used in many situations, such as determining who gets to respond to any spell and when.