_Magic: The Gathering_(R) Rulings & Errata
A Summary of Recent Rulings
June 2004
Compiled by the _Magic_(R) Rules Team
ERRATA –- ORACLE WORDING CHANGES
* Grafted Wargear
Grafted Wargear had an unintuitive interaction with animated artifacts. To clarify this interaction, the Rules Team has issued errata to Grafted Wargear. Now, the Wargear always forces the permanent it became unattached from to be sacrificed, no matter what type the permanent is. Note that Equipment can equip only creatures, so this interaction comes up only with animated permanents. Its new wording is as follows:
Grafted Wargear
{3}
Artifact -- Equipment
Equipped creature gets +3/+2.
Whenever Grafted Wargear becomes unattached from a permanent, sacrifice that permanent.
Equip {0} ({0}: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery.)
* Duplicant
When you have Duplicant, Volrath's Shapeshifter, and Death-Mask Duplicant in the same deck, weird things can happen. We're not going to go into details, but it involved multiple imprinted cards giving Duplicant multiple values of power and toughness. For this reason, the Rules Team has come up with an improved wording for Duplicant. Its new wording is as follows:
Duplicant
{6}
Artifact Creature -- Shapeshifter
2/4
Imprint -- When Duplicant comes into play, you may remove target nontoken creature from the game. (The removed card is imprinted on this artifact.)
As long as a creature card is imprinted on Duplicant, Duplicant has the power, toughness, and creature types of the last creature card imprinted on it. It's still a Shapeshifter.
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ERRATA -- JAPANESE ONLY
* Mycosynth Golem (Japanese)
The Japanese Mycosynth Golem is missing the word "Artifact" from its type line.
The Oracle text of Mycosynth Golem is:
Mycosynth Golem
{11}
Artifact Creature -- Golem
4/5
Affinity for artifacts (This spell costs {1} less to play for each artifact you control.)
Artifact creature spells you play have affinity for artifacts. (They cost {1} less to play for each artifact you control.)
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CARD-SPECIFIC RULINGS
* Doubling Cube
Doubling Cube's ability is a mana ability. All activated abilities that add mana to players' mana pools are mana abilities.
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GENERAL RULINGS
* Additional Land Plays
If an effect allows you to play one or more additional lands in a turn, you can play the land only if you are normally allowed to play land during that turn. For example, if you play an entwined Journey of Discovery using Vedalken Orrery during an opponent's turn, you can't play two lands during that turn.
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* Skipping All the Steps of a Phase
If all the steps in a phase would be skipped, that phase never happens. Skip directly to the next phase. This would happen if a player controlled Stasis, Eon Hub, and Necropotence.
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* Sunburst and Copy Cards
To clarify the interaction between Sculpting Steel and artifacts with sunburst, the Rules Team has modified the rules for sunburst. If Sculpting Steel copies an artifact creature with sunburst, the copy will get +1/+1 counters based on the number of different colors of mana used to pay Sculpting Steel's total cost. If Sculpting Steel copies a noncreature artifact with sunburst, the copy will get charge counters based on the number of different colors of mana used to pay Sculpting Steel's total cost. The new rule is as follows:
502.37 Sunburst
502.37a Sunburst is a static ability that functions as an object is coming into play from the stack. "Sunburst" means "If this permanent is coming into play from the stack and is a creature, it comes into play with a +1/+1 counter on it for each color of mana used to pay its cost. If this permanent is coming into play from the stack and isn't a creature, it comes into play with a charge counter on it for each color of mana used to pay its cost."
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* Multiplayer Rules
The Rules Team is currently working on a draft of an official Magic multiplayer rules system. We hope to present the first draft to the rules gurus and the public for feedback in a couple of months.
We know that there are many ways Magic multiplayer games are played, and our rules may not exactly match any given set of house rules. Our goal is to provide a logical, stable rules system that all players can use if they want to (including on Magic Online).
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