Oko, Thief of Crowns and Mutate
Asked by Phostration 3 years ago
As we all know, mutate is a fairly confusing new mechanic. I want to know about some interactions I have listed below:
1) I have a stack of mutated creatures, Oko uses +1 to turn it into an elk. It loses all abilities including abilities added by mutate cards that are under it?
2) a creature is already an elk. I mutate a creature above or under the elk. Does the mutate actually work or does the "no abilities" keep affecting the elk.
I am an avid modern and casual player, so unfortunately I have to deal with Oko, Thief of Crowns a lot.
Thanks!
Phostration says... #2
I play modern and casual haha. So even though the ability was used previously the "creature loses all abilitys" persists as long as it is in the field? That's rough. Gonna have to tell my friend that if he wants to play his Simic Food deck So Hungry.. against my Simic Mutate deck The Surgeon General Agrees then he's gonna have to make it modern legal or we need to set some house rules haha. Thanks for the answers.
June 7, 2020 8:39 p.m.
Tylord2894 says... #3
Right, in the game's eyes, when a creature mutates onto another, it is still the same object that was on the battlefield prior. While it might have vastly different traits, it is still the same object. This is why you can play a creature, and then mutate onto it during the next turn and then attack with it. That's also why the Oko ability persists through a mutation.
Tylord2894 says... Accepted answer #1
The answer is both cases is that the creature has no abilities.
Magic uses a system of layers to determine the characters of game objects, such as creatures. These layers are checked constantly throughout the game to determine what's what. In total, there are 7 layers. The first layer determines the copiable values of something. Mutate and Clone effects are about the only things that apply here. This is where a creature in a mutation pile will get its extra abilities from the cards that aren't on top. A few layers later, we get to layer 6. Ability-adding/removing effects do their thing here. This is where Oko, Thief of Crowns will remove the abilities of a mutation pile. Since that pile already has the abilities from its cards, all of those abilities are stripped.
Let's run through a quick example. You have a Cubwarden on top with a Gemrazer on the bottom. From layer 1, the creature with have all the abilities of the two creatures put together. When it gets Oko-ed, it will lose those abilities in layer 6 because its abilities were merged together several layers prior.
Layers are kind of confusing, so if you have more questions, just ask.
Quick side note, you said that you're a Modern player, you do know that Oko is banned in Modern, right? Just making sure.
Hope this helps!!
June 7, 2020 8:27 p.m.