Blood Moon/Blood Sun and Vesuva
Asked by chosenone124 6 years ago
I control a basic Forest and a Gruul Guildgate.
Scenario 1: I control Blood Moon. I play Vesuva. If it copies the Forest, what happens to Vesuva? What happens if I copy the guildgate? What happens if I copy nothing?
Scenario 2: Same questions as scenario 1, but Blood Sun instead of Blood Moon
Scenario 3: Scenario 1, but I control both the Sun and the Moon
The replacement effect on Vesuva cannot be applied as it lacks that ability. In scenario 1, Blood Moon gets applied, and when you check what replacement effects modify how Vesuva enters the battlefield, you see that a nonbasic mountain is trying to enter the battlefield and there are no replacement effects to apply. In scenario 2, Blood Sun gets applied, and when you check what replacement effects modify how Vesuva enters the battlefield, you see a land with absolutely no abilities is trying to enter the battlefield and there are no replacement effects to apply. In both cases Vesuva enters the battlefield untapped without becoming a copy of anything.
February 18, 2018 11 a.m.
From gatherer on both blood moon and sun" the basic rules states "If a land has an ability that causes it to enter the battlefield tapped, it will lose that ability before it applies. The same is also true of any other abilities of a land that modify how it enters the battlefield or apply as it enters the battlefield, such as the first ability of Unclaimed Territory."
So Vesuva entes the battlefield untapped as a land with no mana abilities in all three.
February 18, 2018 7:22 p.m. Edited.
chosenone124 says... #5
Rhadamanthus Why do Blood Moon/Blood Sun remove the "ETB tapped" part of Gruul Guildgate but don't remove the "ETB tapped" part of Vesuva?
Neotrup doesn't the layer system make Vesuva's layer that makes it a basic apply before Blood Moon's layer than removes the ability? Both are dependent on the other (Vesuva makes itself a basic, granting immunity to Blood Moon, Blood Moon removes Vesuva's ability, so two way dependency), and both apply simultaneously as the land enters the battlefield. I thought in cases like this we just apply layer 1 (copy effects) before the other layers
February 18, 2018 7:27 p.m.
Vesuva comes in to play untapped in all instances. Blood Moon makes it have the ability to produce red mana. (I forgot about that earlier). But has no mana ability with Blood Sun
There was a rules update that changed how blood moon / blood sun interacted. Rhadamanthus quoted the correct rule but did not apply it correctly. The new rules apply static effects to the permanent as it is trying to come into play. So any come into play effects are removed prior to entering the battlefield. Which is why Blood Moon's gatherer page got an update similar to the one for Blood Sun that I posted earlier.
quoting from notes on the update on wizards "So this rule's changing. Now, to determine what replacement effects will apply to a permanent entering the battlefield, you look at continuous effects that modify that permanent's characteristics coming from the permanent itself along with those that already exist and will affect that permanent. Dimir Aqueduct enters the battlefield untapped under Blood Moon. Humility causes creatures with modular to enter without their +1/+1 counters. Metallic Mimic can distribute +1/+1 counters happily to your army of Ferrets under Arcane Adaptation."
February 18, 2018 8:21 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #7
The reference to 616.1 in the quoted rule is very important to this interaction. There are certain types of replacement effects that need to be applied in a specific order to determine how something enters the battlefield. The order is:
A) Self-replacement effects
B) Effects that modify under whose control a permanent would enter the battlefield
C) Copy effects (in this example, Vesuva's own ability)
D) Everything else
After applying Vesuva's copy effect, you have either a Forest entering tapped or a Gruul Guildgate entering tapped. They're not entering tapped because of any of their own abilities or other replacement effects, but due to the results of the copy effect we had to apply in step C above. Nothing that Blood Moon or Blood Sun does will alter that.
The Gatherer ruling quoted by pskinn01 is essentially for any possible land other than Vesuva. Gatherer rulings are roughly on par with reminder text, in that they explain how the card works the vast majority of the time but there could be exceptions hiding in weird corner cases. Vesuva is the only card of its kind, and cards like that lend themselves very well to corner cases.
February 18, 2018 9:55 p.m.
Rhadamanthus: your interpretation is wrong. Both sun and moon turn off the replacement effects before the cards enter play. So it axes all replacement effects on the lands, and how they enter play.
Look here as this is might explain it better. Its from Eli Shiffrin, the mtg rules manager and another wizards employee in the comments about Vesuva.
February 18, 2018 10:26 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #9
I had something else typed here but now I'm confused. I need to think about this some more, but I'm starting to see your point. I may have been coming at this from the wrong direction earlier.
February 18, 2018 11:19 p.m. Edited.
Rhadamanthus says... #10
I'm really sorry, I was majorly overthinking it. I was treating the Blood Moon/Sun ability as a replacement effect but it's totally not. Sorry about the confusion. The responses from Neotrup and pskinn01 are the correct ones.
February 18, 2018 11:38 p.m.
chosenone124 says... #11
In the past, Rhadamanthus was right. The old Blood Moon caused it to enter as a Forest. But then the rules change makes things different. I guess we don't need to play the layer system game anymore.
Rhadamanthus says... #1
After digging through the rules, I can see why you picked Vesuva for this question, as it doesn't act like most other lands when interacting with Blood Moon and Blood Sun. When the rules tell us to:
the "replacement effects that have already modified how it enters the battlefield" part is very important, as Vesuva's copy effect is one of the types of replacement effects that qualify for the exception. We have to apply the results of the copy effect first before taking other things into account.
In Scenario 1 with Blood Moon, Vesuva will still enter tapped if you apply the copy effect, as that's part of what its copy effect does. If you copy Forest then it will be a Forest. If you copy Gruul Guildgate then it will only have the Mountain subtype, can tap for , and won't have the other abilities from the Gate. If you copy nothing then it will enter untapped, have the Mountain subtype, can tap for , and won't have its printed ability.
In Scenario 2 with Blood Sun, the Sun won't really do much. If you copy either Forest or Guildgate, Vesuva will still enter tapped from its own copy effect. Sun will remove the "etb tapped" ability if you copy the Guildgate, but I doubt that will ever matter. If you copy nothing then Vesuva will enter untapped and have no abilities.
The results of Scenario 3 with both Moon and Sun are the same as Scenario 1.
February 18, 2018 9:28 a.m.