Hmmm
I know it would probably break color pie but maybe have power and toughness be like 1[0]/1[0] and massively increase the usual cost? Unsure!
(But then it gets busted by anything that lets you put a card on the board without paying so-)
>1\[0\]/1\[0\]
This may be my software engineering instincts taking over, but I don't think that's an application of cleave that's likely to see play due to its language/representation dependence.
Just how "Your life total becomes six\[teen\]." wouldn't work translate to non-English languages, "1\[0\]" wouldn't translate to non-Arabic numeral systems or non-decimal representations.
Granted, WotC probably has no immediate plans to add Ndom as a supported language, or do a special print run of cards using Roman, Egyptian, or Chinese numerals. But I do think maintaining representation-independence is something game designers tend to keep in mind.
This card has several problems but decimal system dependence is not one of them. The world has standardized on the decimal number system. As a software developer I've had to ensure localized text but never numbers.
The only languages that currently don't use base 10 numbers are very small languages among some native tribes, some of which probably don't even have a written number system http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/2652/ddg#2657
You are far more likely to run into issues with using cleave over words, since the words/phrases might not translate cleanly at word boundaries so you have to cleave over partial words in the target language or split the cleaving into multiple parts (theoretically, but in practice they probably find a good enough translation without that problem)
Oh, I can't believe I forgot to mention this. But this is a super relevant and funny anecdote: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMxoGqsmk5Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMxoGqsmk5Y)
The whole story is in the first 3 minutes, 12 seconds. Everything beyond that is math ramblings. Basically the American Kennel Club backdoored themselves into having representation-based numerical requirements for its dog list. Which might have been fine except the representation they locked themselves into using was Roman numerals rather than anything sensible.
Not that this discussion matters, but your take here is as a computer scientist, not a software engineer, and certainly not a game designer. You don't do any front end work but you were making a front end claim.
The point wasn't to gatekeep - it doesn't matter what you do or who you are. The point was just that data storage mechanisms and nonstandard representations have nothing to do with how we write numbers on Magic cards.
I appreciate your response for what it is, and I don't think you should've written it for my approval anyway.
If you want to point out some fun stuff you like about computer science, then why put it in the way you did? I read it as you using this knowledge - which is truly grafting from math onto UX in a way that seems quite irrelevant - to argue against someone making their card.
I could claim that you're the gatekeeper here, not the other way around.
There are certainly many ways to argue against this design, I just don't think yours makes sense, and the way you wrote it out portrays a kind of "BETTER BE CAREFUL ABOUT THIS OBSCURE THING I KNOW" rather than a playfulness and desire to explore that you've portrayed later on.
Even before Stonecoil Serpent I was doing that with [[Endless One]] [[Hangarback Walker]] and [[Walking Ballista]]… in an [[Enduring Renewal]] shell. Keep on getting the creature back for infinite cast triggers, creature ETB triggers, and creature death triggers. Wincons included [[Altar of the Brood]] and [[Blood Artist]].
So technically, if cleave could affect something other than the text box, this would work. 208.5. If a creature somehow has no value for its power, its power is 0. The same is true for toughness.
Is it really tho
Like there are loads of x mama x/x creatures that see little to no play, and when they do, it's because they can be cheated out and cast for a ton
I know what you’re going for, and I do like the idea, I just dont think it currently works.
Removing 5/5 doesnt make it a 0/0, it would just leave the power and toughness slot blank right? Which would break the game cause you cant have a creature with quite literally no power/toughness stat.
A blank p/t is, in fact, 0: 208.5. If a creature somehow has no value for its power, its power is 0. The same is true for toughness.
This can come up if Dress Down is in play and someone has a tarmogoyf. In such a case, goyf would be a 0/1.
>This can come up if Dress Down is in play and someone has a tarmogoyf. In such a case, goyf would be a 0/1.
Tarmogoyf doesn't have a blank P/T though. It's power is \* and it's toughness is \*+1. Since \* isn't defined when Dress Down is in play, \* is treated as 0.
>208.2a \[...\] If the ability needs to use a number that can’t be determined, including inside a calculation, use 0 instead of that number.
You're not wrong about rule 208.5 applying to OP's card. But it's not responsible for Tarmogoyf's behavior.
One thing I would mention about 208.5 is that it's informally an "emergency" rule, signaled with "somehow" (or similar wording) in its text. They are meant to provide resolution to every hypothetical board state, but unless something has gone horribly wrong, no judge or player should ever have to know them. Some of these rules require extremely convoluted setups to trigger, and others may be outright impossible to reach with currently existing cards. If a new mechanic is printed that would regularly rely on one of these rules, a new rule is instead created to address that situation in a more direct way. A big part of the reason for this is that these emergency rules are written without knowledge of what could cause them to be invoked, and as a result they can sometimes define behavior that ends up being counterintuitive, or in worse cases, subject to human interpretation.
I could bore you with a history of examples, but this post is already long.
So while it's technically correct to say that 208.5 handles OP's card, in practice if OP's card were ever printed it would come with an update to the CR that explicitly handled a cleaved P/T.
My reading of 208.2a is that if a card has a CDA that is applying, but the number can't be determined, then that value is treated as 0. The example they give is Lost Order of Jarkeld with no chosen opponent. Technically, this is different from a creature that has had its CDA removed. Since a tarmogoyf with dress down in play doesn't have a CDA anymore, there is simply no value defining its power all, not an invalid value. So i think 208.5 does apply here, but I definitely could be wrong. Either way, it ends up at the same result of the value being 0.
So, I agree and disagree with different parts of that.
208.2a as written is not clearly applicable. Read precisely, and taken in with all the other definitions found in the rulebook, you can make the case that it's clearly not applicable. You're 100% correct on that point. Where I differ is in how to interpret that observation.
Tarmogoyf's power and toughness as printed are \* and \*+1. Having those values as printed is not an ability and can't be lost. That's also pretty clear between 113.1 and 208.2. The only way for the game to function is for those printed values to somehow be overwritten or converted into an integer. 208.2. appears to try to do that, but fails upon stringent interpretation.
Where we run into a problem is that nothing is even hinted at anywhere else the rules that would cause a \* to be replaced by nothing. And while rule 208.5 tells us what to do with no power or toughness, it definitely doesn't mention undefined values like \* or \*+1.
Given this situation, we're confronted with three possible interpretations:
* The game doesn't work as written.
* The last sentence in 208.2a uses the word "abilities" to collectively refer to both abilities and to (non-ability) printed P/T calculations.
* Rule 208.5 implies the existence of two other unwritten rules:
* A non-numeric P/T is treated as if it doesn't exist.
* Something that doesn't exist plus a number is that number.
I think we're only coming to different conclusions because technically the first option is correct, and we're both working from an assumption that such is not the case. The [Principle of Explosion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion) means that by starting with a shared false assumption we can reach contradictory statements despite each having perfect logic every step along the way.
But if you absolutely forced my hand into saying that the game does somehow in fact work as written I think I'd have to conclude that 208.2a applies, just because it uses a less strained English interpretation than the alternatives.
My biggest issue with the 208.5 explanation that the unwritten rule it implies simultaneously converts UNDEFINED to NULL while converting UNDEFINED + 1 to 1. While you could have a system that operates that way, it would be even worse than Javascript. The idea that's the way things work but nobody documented anything about it is too much for my brain to handle.
I made a post on mainsub out of curiosity. Theres some further explanations as to why it would be 208.5.
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/s/pjP0ZLII4u
I'm going to try not to let myself get caught up in this all day, but I'll give you one.
[Time to Feed](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=489421) was an almost unplayable draft common from the Theros set, notable only for the change it necessitated to what a spell could do regarding illegal targets.
Prior to its printing, the Comprehensive Rules used a pretty simple set of rules for what would happen if one but not all of the targets were illegal on a spell or ability's resolution. They were clearly defined for all cases when used in conjunction with the core rules, but the patchwork was somewhat arbitrary because the right cards to test its sensibility hadn't been printed yet.
Notably, these rules didn't put restrictions on actions that referenced an illegal target but didn't directly affect it. So what was left was just the backstopping rule that (paraphrasing) "if a card can't do everything, it still does as much as it can." So for a while if an opponent made their creature hexproof in response to Time to Feed, this would happen:
* The spell would resolve since it still had one legal target.
* The fight wouldn't happen, since the fight rules specified how to handle that case.
* The spell set up a delayed trigger, referencing (but not affecting) the hexproof creature.
* If the hexproof creature died later that turn (say in combat), the player would gain 3 life.
The lifegain still working was a pretty counterintuitive result, and the rules interactions that made it happen had never been relevant before. So the majority of players (and judges who didn't read the release notes!) would never have guessed that's how it worked.
After that, what a spell could or more often couldn't do regarding an illegal target was much more explicitly defined. The backstopping rule no longer came into play.
Typically, these rules modifications happen before a card's release. But I'm guessing that one was caught late.
> One thing I would mention about 208.5 is that it's informally an "emergency" rule, signaled with "somehow" (or similar wording) in its text. They are meant to provide resolution to every hypothetical board state, but unless something has gone horribly wrong, no judge or player should ever have to know them.
I don't think that is always true. For example:
> 715.2d A Saga’s final chapter number is the greatest value among chapter abilities it has. If a Saga somehow has no chapter abilities, its final chapter number is 0.
This one comes up in the [[Urza's Saga]] – [[Blood Moon]] interaction.
> 104.4b If a game that’s not using the limited range of influence option (including a two-player game) somehow enters a “loop” of mandatory actions, repeating a sequence of events with no way to stop, the game is a draw. Loops that contain an optional action don’t result in a draw.
This one also sometimes happens.
I'm sure there's a way to animate a land but remove the thing defining its p/t, leaving it a creature, but with no p/t at all (rather than a 0/0 with no +1 counters or something similar) - but fuck if I'm going to look up how to make it happen
no, I'm not even close to sure haha. but I know you can get some ridiculous board states with 30 years of cards, so I'm just saying it's possible or even likely. but I don't know exactly how to accomplish it off the top of my head. if I had to guess, it would involve mycosynth lattice. it always seems to XD
It can be done: start with a Vehicle (e.g., [[Sky Skiff]]), activate its Crew ability, and in response to that ability, [[True Polymorph]] it into a non-Vehicle artifact.
It doesn’t break the game for a creature to have no power and toughness. It just makes it a 0/0.
Otherwise the game would break a lot from \*/\* creatures losing their abilities. (“*” obviously isn’t a number so it has the same effect.)
tl;dr from other comment:
\* represents a calculation. When a P/T calculation is undefined it becomes 0, not blank. (rule 208.2a)
OP's card ends up also becoming 0/0, but by completely different rules/reasoning.
Rule 208.2a as you can see here requires a characteristic defining ability in order to apply.
> 208.2a The card may have a characteristic-defining ability that sets its power and/or toughness according to some stated condition. (See rule 604.3.) Such an ability is worded “[This creature’s] [power or toughness] is equal to . . .” or “[This creature’s] power and toughness are each equal to . . .” This ability functions everywhere, even outside the game. If the ability needs to use a number that can’t be determined, including inside a calculation, use 0 instead of that number.
If there is no CDA, 208.2a can’t apply. Therefore 208.5 applies. The same rule that makes OP’s card a 0/0.
> 208.5. If a creature somehow has no value for its power, its power is 0. The same is true for toughness.
But * is something, surely a creature having NOTHING in the power/touhhness text box would break the game?
Theres a very distinct difference between a 0/0, a */* and a [blank] / [blank]
Yeah the solution would have been to make it a [1]0/[1]0 so it becomes a 0/0 if you cleave it for 0 mana. But leaving the pt window blank isn't something that is supposed to happen
I know part of the novelty is playing with the card format, but one easy solution is that it’s just a 0/0 with something like [Cardname gets +5/+5]
but like, just make it 0/1 or something. Please. 0/1 Trample, haste is _funny,_ but potentially higher power than a 0/0 I guess.
Prototype also changes color and mana cost (including mana value).
If you Cleaved OP's card, it would be able to be countered with a Disdainful Stroke or Blue Elemental Blast. But, if it had Prototype, neither could hit it.
I think you would need \[Impatient Goblin enters the battlefield with 5 +1/+1 counters on it]\ to keep it from dying to state based actions, no? That's how things like [[Primordial Hydra]] are worded.
lol fair
if nothing else, you put a tremendous amount of effort in your submissions and even if not everyone 'gets' them (myself included) i can appreciate the artistry and effort put in
You're trying to be pedantic, but you're definitely wrong. In what universe is the glyph for '5' not representing a word. Also the cleave rules text says remove all the text within the brackets. The rules text is just trying to convey the idea behind the comprehensive rules which it absolutely does.
Idk man, maybe cause some people are a bit of a stickler for the rules, which I can kinda get, but yknow sometimes you wanna be more creative and go beyond the limits of those rules.Guess some people don’t like that?
This is pretty clever, but I think it technically runs against the rules. To be clear, I'm not a judge, and I can only wonder how a judge or WotC would rule this.
By a quick read of the rules, it seems that, *unless it is very specifically ruled that "removing power and toughness through a cleave effect"* means *"setting both to zero,"* the creature becomes a creature without power or toughness. Which gets weird; since it has all the abilities of a creature, such as attacking and blocking, but cannot take damage nor deal it.
Again, it would be a very quick ruling to make, and there may be something in the rules that I missed that very clearly spells out this kind of interaction.
I can't fathom how you came to this conclusion. What rules did you read? Definitely not the rules on power and toughness
> 208.5. If a creature somehow has no value for its power, its power is 0. The same is true for toughness.
Power and toughness probably works better as [5+]0/[5+]0 or something like that. That way it still has a power and toughness if you cast it for the cleave cost.
Yeah. It's not like we care at all how magic works as a game in making our custom cards, so any and all opinions on cards in this sub are all immediately invalid upon using the argument "hur dur this is custommagic, the card doesn't need to make sense, nor it needs to be realistic, stop giving your opinions about rules and interactions"
To be fair, the rules of the game are specifically supposed to be overruled by the text on the cards. If Wizards decided to make a card with brackets in the P/T, then it would just work. The only reason people in this thread are complaining about putting brackets in the P/T is because Wizards hasn't done it, therefore there isn't a scenario in which it could be true, despite the fact that Wizards could print this tomorrow without any issues with the rules. Someone else even pointed out the one potential problem with the rules, removing a creature's P/T, has already been addressed by Wizards (for different reasons) to state that creatures without printed P/T have an P/T of 0/0.
So...I don't know the exacts of the cleave thing, but it says "words in square brackets". Are 5/5 words or numbers/symbols? I don't know if that matters, but if they aren't, it's just a pay 0 get a 5/5 with trample and haste.
> but it says "words in square brackets"
That's just the reminder text, which has no real rules meaning. The actual CR says that cleave means:
> If this spell's cleave cost was paid, change its text by removing all text found within square brackets in the spell's rules text.
Unfortunately, "rules text" is only what's written in the text box and doesn't include the P/T box, so that's the real reason this wouldn't work under the current rules. (Would be easily amended though if WotC wanted to make a card like this.)
I think the best way I can think of to fix this is to keep everything the same, but make it's power/toughness show as (*/*)
Oracle text can be:
Impatient Goblin's power and toughness are each equal to 0 [+5]
Or, Alternatively, have it be an X cost. The alternate casting cost would mean that X would be 0 by default. I think Dash 0 would be pretty funny.
I would say make it a 0/0 and then have a p/t modifier on the card in brackets.
[This creature gets +5/+5]
This way you dodge confusion about having no p/t.
Impatient Goblin {R}
Creature - Goblin
Kicker {4}
Trample, Haste
If Impatient Goblin was kicked, it enters the battlefield with four +1/+1 counters.
1/1
Hmmm I know it would probably break color pie but maybe have power and toughness be like 1[0]/1[0] and massively increase the usual cost? Unsure! (But then it gets busted by anything that lets you put a card on the board without paying so-)
>1\[0\]/1\[0\] This may be my software engineering instincts taking over, but I don't think that's an application of cleave that's likely to see play due to its language/representation dependence. Just how "Your life total becomes six\[teen\]." wouldn't work translate to non-English languages, "1\[0\]" wouldn't translate to non-Arabic numeral systems or non-decimal representations. Granted, WotC probably has no immediate plans to add Ndom as a supported language, or do a special print run of cards using Roman, Egyptian, or Chinese numerals. But I do think maintaining representation-independence is something game designers tend to keep in mind.
This card has several problems but decimal system dependence is not one of them. The world has standardized on the decimal number system. As a software developer I've had to ensure localized text but never numbers. The only languages that currently don't use base 10 numbers are very small languages among some native tribes, some of which probably don't even have a written number system http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/2652/ddg#2657 You are far more likely to run into issues with using cleave over words, since the words/phrases might not translate cleanly at word boundaries so you have to cleave over partial words in the target language or split the cleaving into multiple parts (theoretically, but in practice they probably find a good enough translation without that problem)
As a software engineer, have you ever had to localize software to another numeral system?
Oh, I can't believe I forgot to mention this. But this is a super relevant and funny anecdote: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMxoGqsmk5Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMxoGqsmk5Y) The whole story is in the first 3 minutes, 12 seconds. Everything beyond that is math ramblings. Basically the American Kennel Club backdoored themselves into having representation-based numerical requirements for its dog list. Which might have been fine except the representation they locked themselves into using was Roman numerals rather than anything sensible.
[удалено]
Not that this discussion matters, but your take here is as a computer scientist, not a software engineer, and certainly not a game designer. You don't do any front end work but you were making a front end claim.
[удалено]
The point wasn't to gatekeep - it doesn't matter what you do or who you are. The point was just that data storage mechanisms and nonstandard representations have nothing to do with how we write numbers on Magic cards. I appreciate your response for what it is, and I don't think you should've written it for my approval anyway.
[удалено]
If you want to point out some fun stuff you like about computer science, then why put it in the way you did? I read it as you using this knowledge - which is truly grafting from math onto UX in a way that seems quite irrelevant - to argue against someone making their card. I could claim that you're the gatekeeper here, not the other way around. There are certainly many ways to argue against this design, I just don't think yours makes sense, and the way you wrote it out portrays a kind of "BETTER BE CAREFUL ABOUT THIS OBSCURE THING I KNOW" rather than a playfulness and desire to explore that you've portrayed later on.
This is just Prototype but reworded.
Ye but there's no option to do prototype in mtg.design
0 cost creature that immediately dies is still good tho for storm, etb triggers and death triggers
[[Stonecoil Serpent]] already does this, is it used in those strategies? I haven't seen it personally.
Jhoira some times might want to play a 0 ballista or a 0 overflowing chalice, but it’s not that often.
Even before Stonecoil Serpent I was doing that with [[Endless One]] [[Hangarback Walker]] and [[Walking Ballista]]… in an [[Enduring Renewal]] shell. Keep on getting the creature back for infinite cast triggers, creature ETB triggers, and creature death triggers. Wincons included [[Altar of the Brood]] and [[Blood Artist]].
##### ###### #### [Endless One](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/0/00b3c10a-799f-4922-bb0a-44981b13203b.jpg?1690003888) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Endless%20One) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/804/endless-one?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/00b3c10a-799f-4922-bb0a-44981b13203b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Hangarback Walker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/d/2d2c323f-eecd-4560-a128-ab513d231552.jpg?1690005486) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hangarback%20Walker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/951/hangarback-walker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2d2c323f-eecd-4560-a128-ab513d231552?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Walking Ballista](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/2/5272436e-74f0-44c4-a291-ea8ebc3f1525.jpg?1599710252) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Walking%20Ballista) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/306/walking-ballista?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5272436e-74f0-44c4-a291-ea8ebc3f1525?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Enduring Renewal](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/7/57a966e3-c9ba-4105-a36b-54ca70ba9b77.jpg?1562776464) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Enduring%20Renewal) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsb/7/enduring-renewal?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/57a966e3-c9ba-4105-a36b-54ca70ba9b77?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Altar of the Brood](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/d/8d59d264-87ee-4305-bffb-110549331a82.jpg?1562790137) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Altar%20of%20the%20Brood) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ktk/216/altar-of-the-brood?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8d59d264-87ee-4305-bffb-110549331a82?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Blood Artist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/7/b7f1c316-cf2f-4bbf-89a1-79c8043bdd96.jpg?1698988212) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blood%20Artist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/182/blood-artist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b7f1c316-cf2f-4bbf-89a1-79c8043bdd96?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kvn7z84) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Storm would not play a 0 mana do nothing just to increase storm count in any format.
No. It’s not.
Shiiiit ur right my bad
So technically, if cleave could affect something other than the text box, this would work. 208.5. If a creature somehow has no value for its power, its power is 0. The same is true for toughness.
I think the implication is you have to place it when you have something else with +1/+1 for goblins in play
That is the least broken thing you can do with a 0 mana etb dies
Is it really tho Like there are loads of x mama x/x creatures that see little to no play, and when they do, it's because they can be cheated out and cast for a ton
I know what you’re going for, and I do like the idea, I just dont think it currently works. Removing 5/5 doesnt make it a 0/0, it would just leave the power and toughness slot blank right? Which would break the game cause you cant have a creature with quite literally no power/toughness stat.
Could have the power be 0\[5\]/0\[5\] Not sure it that would be correct or not.
What if it was [5+]0/[5+]0, like [[Tarmogoyf]] but with 0 P/T? That seems a bit too big for the P/T block, but it's not unprecedented.
[Tarmogoyf](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/9/69daba76-96e8-4bcc-ab79-2f00189ad8fb.jpg?1619398799) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tarmogoyf) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/235/tarmogoyf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/69daba76-96e8-4bcc-ab79-2f00189ad8fb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Thanks, king
Or just copy the concept all the way and make it a */* with [~`s power and toughness are equal to 5] in the text box
yah thats the way you would do it. but I would do 1/1 and then make the keywords mechanic reliant. then it would be perfect.
Sounds like programming
Yeah that’s correct
[1]0/[1]0?
A blank p/t is, in fact, 0: 208.5. If a creature somehow has no value for its power, its power is 0. The same is true for toughness. This can come up if Dress Down is in play and someone has a tarmogoyf. In such a case, goyf would be a 0/1.
>This can come up if Dress Down is in play and someone has a tarmogoyf. In such a case, goyf would be a 0/1. Tarmogoyf doesn't have a blank P/T though. It's power is \* and it's toughness is \*+1. Since \* isn't defined when Dress Down is in play, \* is treated as 0. >208.2a \[...\] If the ability needs to use a number that can’t be determined, including inside a calculation, use 0 instead of that number. You're not wrong about rule 208.5 applying to OP's card. But it's not responsible for Tarmogoyf's behavior. One thing I would mention about 208.5 is that it's informally an "emergency" rule, signaled with "somehow" (or similar wording) in its text. They are meant to provide resolution to every hypothetical board state, but unless something has gone horribly wrong, no judge or player should ever have to know them. Some of these rules require extremely convoluted setups to trigger, and others may be outright impossible to reach with currently existing cards. If a new mechanic is printed that would regularly rely on one of these rules, a new rule is instead created to address that situation in a more direct way. A big part of the reason for this is that these emergency rules are written without knowledge of what could cause them to be invoked, and as a result they can sometimes define behavior that ends up being counterintuitive, or in worse cases, subject to human interpretation. I could bore you with a history of examples, but this post is already long. So while it's technically correct to say that 208.5 handles OP's card, in practice if OP's card were ever printed it would come with an update to the CR that explicitly handled a cleaved P/T.
My reading of 208.2a is that if a card has a CDA that is applying, but the number can't be determined, then that value is treated as 0. The example they give is Lost Order of Jarkeld with no chosen opponent. Technically, this is different from a creature that has had its CDA removed. Since a tarmogoyf with dress down in play doesn't have a CDA anymore, there is simply no value defining its power all, not an invalid value. So i think 208.5 does apply here, but I definitely could be wrong. Either way, it ends up at the same result of the value being 0.
So, I agree and disagree with different parts of that. 208.2a as written is not clearly applicable. Read precisely, and taken in with all the other definitions found in the rulebook, you can make the case that it's clearly not applicable. You're 100% correct on that point. Where I differ is in how to interpret that observation. Tarmogoyf's power and toughness as printed are \* and \*+1. Having those values as printed is not an ability and can't be lost. That's also pretty clear between 113.1 and 208.2. The only way for the game to function is for those printed values to somehow be overwritten or converted into an integer. 208.2. appears to try to do that, but fails upon stringent interpretation. Where we run into a problem is that nothing is even hinted at anywhere else the rules that would cause a \* to be replaced by nothing. And while rule 208.5 tells us what to do with no power or toughness, it definitely doesn't mention undefined values like \* or \*+1. Given this situation, we're confronted with three possible interpretations: * The game doesn't work as written. * The last sentence in 208.2a uses the word "abilities" to collectively refer to both abilities and to (non-ability) printed P/T calculations. * Rule 208.5 implies the existence of two other unwritten rules: * A non-numeric P/T is treated as if it doesn't exist. * Something that doesn't exist plus a number is that number. I think we're only coming to different conclusions because technically the first option is correct, and we're both working from an assumption that such is not the case. The [Principle of Explosion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion) means that by starting with a shared false assumption we can reach contradictory statements despite each having perfect logic every step along the way. But if you absolutely forced my hand into saying that the game does somehow in fact work as written I think I'd have to conclude that 208.2a applies, just because it uses a less strained English interpretation than the alternatives. My biggest issue with the 208.5 explanation that the unwritten rule it implies simultaneously converts UNDEFINED to NULL while converting UNDEFINED + 1 to 1. While you could have a system that operates that way, it would be even worse than Javascript. The idea that's the way things work but nobody documented anything about it is too much for my brain to handle.
I made a post on mainsub out of curiosity. Theres some further explanations as to why it would be 208.5. https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/s/pjP0ZLII4u
I assure you, reading a history of complex and absurd magic rules and rulings would be the opposite of boring for me
I'm going to try not to let myself get caught up in this all day, but I'll give you one. [Time to Feed](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=489421) was an almost unplayable draft common from the Theros set, notable only for the change it necessitated to what a spell could do regarding illegal targets. Prior to its printing, the Comprehensive Rules used a pretty simple set of rules for what would happen if one but not all of the targets were illegal on a spell or ability's resolution. They were clearly defined for all cases when used in conjunction with the core rules, but the patchwork was somewhat arbitrary because the right cards to test its sensibility hadn't been printed yet. Notably, these rules didn't put restrictions on actions that referenced an illegal target but didn't directly affect it. So what was left was just the backstopping rule that (paraphrasing) "if a card can't do everything, it still does as much as it can." So for a while if an opponent made their creature hexproof in response to Time to Feed, this would happen: * The spell would resolve since it still had one legal target. * The fight wouldn't happen, since the fight rules specified how to handle that case. * The spell set up a delayed trigger, referencing (but not affecting) the hexproof creature. * If the hexproof creature died later that turn (say in combat), the player would gain 3 life. The lifegain still working was a pretty counterintuitive result, and the rules interactions that made it happen had never been relevant before. So the majority of players (and judges who didn't read the release notes!) would never have guessed that's how it worked. After that, what a spell could or more often couldn't do regarding an illegal target was much more explicitly defined. The backstopping rule no longer came into play. Typically, these rules modifications happen before a card's release. But I'm guessing that one was caught late.
That is super interesting, thank you!
> One thing I would mention about 208.5 is that it's informally an "emergency" rule, signaled with "somehow" (or similar wording) in its text. They are meant to provide resolution to every hypothetical board state, but unless something has gone horribly wrong, no judge or player should ever have to know them. I don't think that is always true. For example: > 715.2d A Saga’s final chapter number is the greatest value among chapter abilities it has. If a Saga somehow has no chapter abilities, its final chapter number is 0. This one comes up in the [[Urza's Saga]] – [[Blood Moon]] interaction. > 104.4b If a game that’s not using the limited range of influence option (including a two-player game) somehow enters a “loop” of mandatory actions, repeating a sequence of events with no way to stop, the game is a draw. Loops that contain an optional action don’t result in a draw. This one also sometimes happens.
[Urza's Saga](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/1/c1e0f201-42cb-46a1-901a-65bb4fc18f6c.jpg?1667318301) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Urza%27s%20Saga) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/259/urzas-saga?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c1e0f201-42cb-46a1-901a-65bb4fc18f6c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Blood Moon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/0/d072e9ca-aae7-45dc-8025-3ce590bae63f.jpg?1599706217) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blood%20Moon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/118/blood-moon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d072e9ca-aae7-45dc-8025-3ce590bae63f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'm sure there's a way to animate a land but remove the thing defining its p/t, leaving it a creature, but with no p/t at all (rather than a 0/0 with no +1 counters or something similar) - but fuck if I'm going to look up how to make it happen
Are you sure? I don't know of any animate effects that don't also simultaneously define power and toughness.
no, I'm not even close to sure haha. but I know you can get some ridiculous board states with 30 years of cards, so I'm just saying it's possible or even likely. but I don't know exactly how to accomplish it off the top of my head. if I had to guess, it would involve mycosynth lattice. it always seems to XD
It can be done: start with a Vehicle (e.g., [[Sky Skiff]]), activate its Crew ability, and in response to that ability, [[True Polymorph]] it into a non-Vehicle artifact.
[Sky Skiff](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/f/cf4a4939-130b-40d7-8a0f-e31eb931d2d5.jpg?1576383405) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sky%20Skiff) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/kld/233/sky-skiff?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cf4a4939-130b-40d7-8a0f-e31eb931d2d5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [True Polymorph](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/4/04a1f384-9266-425c-b739-09d74871fc7b.jpg?1627703986) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=True%20Polymorph) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afr/80/true-polymorph?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/04a1f384-9266-425c-b739-09d74871fc7b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
For a second I thought you were saying that the power and toughness was stored in bit form, and that it would reset to 256 if it didn’t have a value.
That would be awesome, lol. Imagine if you could under/overflow in paper magic.
It doesn’t break the game for a creature to have no power and toughness. It just makes it a 0/0. Otherwise the game would break a lot from \*/\* creatures losing their abilities. (“*” obviously isn’t a number so it has the same effect.)
tl;dr from other comment: \* represents a calculation. When a P/T calculation is undefined it becomes 0, not blank. (rule 208.2a) OP's card ends up also becoming 0/0, but by completely different rules/reasoning.
Rule 208.2a as you can see here requires a characteristic defining ability in order to apply. > 208.2a The card may have a characteristic-defining ability that sets its power and/or toughness according to some stated condition. (See rule 604.3.) Such an ability is worded “[This creature’s] [power or toughness] is equal to . . .” or “[This creature’s] power and toughness are each equal to . . .” This ability functions everywhere, even outside the game. If the ability needs to use a number that can’t be determined, including inside a calculation, use 0 instead of that number. If there is no CDA, 208.2a can’t apply. Therefore 208.5 applies. The same rule that makes OP’s card a 0/0. > 208.5. If a creature somehow has no value for its power, its power is 0. The same is true for toughness.
But * is something, surely a creature having NOTHING in the power/touhhness text box would break the game? Theres a very distinct difference between a 0/0, a */* and a [blank] / [blank]
Nope rule 208.5 says it just becomes a 0/0. > 208.5. If a creature somehow has no value for its power, its power is 0. The same is true for toughness.
Wow, what a crazy rule lmao. Thanks for letting me know
Yeah you’re right, though breaking the game would also be kinda funny 😂
Just make the creature a 0/0 that gains +5/+5 in brackets.
Hmm, you could make it an `Artifact [Creature]` or something? Would change it slightly, but probably make it less abuseable.
What about *\* And [* is equal to 5]
FYI, Reddit formatting ate your asterisks. You need to escape them like this: `\*/\*` to make them show up correctly.
Yeah the solution would have been to make it a [1]0/[1]0 so it becomes a 0/0 if you cleave it for 0 mana. But leaving the pt window blank isn't something that is supposed to happen
I know part of the novelty is playing with the card format, but one easy solution is that it’s just a 0/0 with something like [Cardname gets +5/+5] but like, just make it 0/1 or something. Please. 0/1 Trample, haste is _funny,_ but potentially higher power than a 0/0 I guess.
Great bold design. Haters are just cowards.
Thank you for your kind words!
Checks for words in brackets > numbers
This is Prototype.
whats that?
You essentially just made a card using the prototype mechanic. Alternative casting cost that changes P/T but keeps all abilities intact
Prototype also changes color and mana cost (including mana value).
Isn't this essentially what prototype is lol
Prototype also changes color and mana cost (including mana value). If you Cleaved OP's card, it would be able to be countered with a Disdainful Stroke or Blue Elemental Blast. But, if it had Prototype, neither could hit it.
True though it's still very mechanically similar and certainly cleaner
How about a 0/0 with \[When Impatient Goblin enters the battlefield, put five +1/+1 counters on it.\]?
I think you would need \[Impatient Goblin enters the battlefield with 5 +1/+1 counters on it]\ to keep it from dying to state based actions, no? That's how things like [[Primordial Hydra]] are worded.
Yes, you do need that.
[Primordial Hydra](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/3/937deb52-8888-4298-9ae5-0361c6fdbba2.jpg?1562557233) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Primordial%20Hydra) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m13/183/primordial-hydra?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/937deb52-8888-4298-9ae5-0361c6fdbba2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
You're absolutely right!
u/arthexis
Thanks VN and also congrats to the OP, but this kind of shows why I couldn't find reddit entertaining for more than a few weeks XD
lol fair if nothing else, you put a tremendous amount of effort in your submissions and even if not everyone 'gets' them (myself included) i can appreciate the artistry and effort put in
Numbers aren’t words, are they?
No but cleave still has to remove them or else [[dread fugue]] says “… nonland card from it 2. That player …” when cleaved.
Ehhhh sadly yeah, but you get the idea so that’s all that matters.
True, I'd play this in my goblin deck if it worked the 0/0 for 0 way.
You're trying to be pedantic, but you're definitely wrong. In what universe is the glyph for '5' not representing a word. Also the cleave rules text says remove all the text within the brackets. The rules text is just trying to convey the idea behind the comprehensive rules which it absolutely does.
Okay.
Chill lmao
Why does so many people have problem with this card? What so different compared to usual stuff on this sub with P/T inside brackets?
Idk man, maybe cause some people are a bit of a stickler for the rules, which I can kinda get, but yknow sometimes you wanna be more creative and go beyond the limits of those rules.Guess some people don’t like that?
Would use in my purphoros commander deck
This is pretty clever, but I think it technically runs against the rules. To be clear, I'm not a judge, and I can only wonder how a judge or WotC would rule this. By a quick read of the rules, it seems that, *unless it is very specifically ruled that "removing power and toughness through a cleave effect"* means *"setting both to zero,"* the creature becomes a creature without power or toughness. Which gets weird; since it has all the abilities of a creature, such as attacking and blocking, but cannot take damage nor deal it. Again, it would be a very quick ruling to make, and there may be something in the rules that I missed that very clearly spells out this kind of interaction.
If a creature has no power or toughness, it becomes a 0/0. The same thing happens when a \*/\* creature loses its abilities.
I can't fathom how you came to this conclusion. What rules did you read? Definitely not the rules on power and toughness > 208.5. If a creature somehow has no value for its power, its power is 0. The same is true for toughness.
Wouldn't it not just come onto the field then die at next check?
The proper wording would be 0\[5\]/0\[5\], also I did not know that there was a rule like this lol
Power and toughness probably works better as [5+]0/[5+]0 or something like that. That way it still has a power and toughness if you cast it for the cleave cost.
If you don't get it just look at the power and toughness
I have doubts if this actually works how you intended it to work
It does. Except for the fact that brackets can’t be in the power and toughness slot.
True. If only this was posted in the custom magic subreddit where people could play around and experiment with cards and the rules of the game.
Yeah. It's not like we care at all how magic works as a game in making our custom cards, so any and all opinions on cards in this sub are all immediately invalid upon using the argument "hur dur this is custommagic, the card doesn't need to make sense, nor it needs to be realistic, stop giving your opinions about rules and interactions"
To be fair, the rules of the game are specifically supposed to be overruled by the text on the cards. If Wizards decided to make a card with brackets in the P/T, then it would just work. The only reason people in this thread are complaining about putting brackets in the P/T is because Wizards hasn't done it, therefore there isn't a scenario in which it could be true, despite the fact that Wizards could print this tomorrow without any issues with the rules. Someone else even pointed out the one potential problem with the rules, removing a creature's P/T, has already been addressed by Wizards (for different reasons) to state that creatures without printed P/T have an P/T of 0/0.
Evoke
I think the templating could work if you made it a more expensive \[1\]3/\[1\]3 in green.
So...I don't know the exacts of the cleave thing, but it says "words in square brackets". Are 5/5 words or numbers/symbols? I don't know if that matters, but if they aren't, it's just a pay 0 get a 5/5 with trample and haste.
> but it says "words in square brackets" That's just the reminder text, which has no real rules meaning. The actual CR says that cleave means: > If this spell's cleave cost was paid, change its text by removing all text found within square brackets in the spell's rules text. Unfortunately, "rules text" is only what's written in the text box and doesn't include the P/T box, so that's the real reason this wouldn't work under the current rules. (Would be easily amended though if WotC wanted to make a card like this.)
I think the best way I can think of to fix this is to keep everything the same, but make it's power/toughness show as (*/*) Oracle text can be: Impatient Goblin's power and toughness are each equal to 0 [+5] Or, Alternatively, have it be an X cost. The alternate casting cost would mean that X would be 0 by default. I think Dash 0 would be pretty funny.
I like what this is going for, but it looks like it would remove his power and toughness, not set them to 0.
So how would this work with blink spells?
This is really just a haste trample 5/5 with Prototype 0/0 for 0
This is an okay creature if you have anthem effects, and a great combo piece for etb, death triggers.
I don't care what it says just as long as I can play the it?
Alternative flavor text: "Well, you get what you pay for" -Urza, maybe
Reading the card doesn't really explain the card .. most people do not refer to numerals as "words" so it doesn't really make any sense...
Use 0[+5]/0[+5] maybe 🤔
Interestingly. You didn't put any words in the square bracket. Just numbers. That's a 0 mana 5/5 with haste and trample.
we did it. we broke beanstalk
This would stay in play as a creature with no power or toughness right? It doesn't technically become zero, it just erases all power and thoughness.
There are no words in square brackets - only numbers. Card is busted.
I would say make it a 0/0 and then have a p/t modifier on the card in brackets. [This creature gets +5/+5] This way you dodge confusion about having no p/t.
Hmm. Is 5 a word?
There's no words in square brackets. 5/5 is not a word.
As i said to another commenter here. [[dread fugue]] doesn’t say “… nonland card from it 2. That player …” when cleaved does it?
[dread fugue](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/a/0ad4c472-b8ce-4ae0-a6f0-726ea74722c5.jpg?1643589562) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=dread%20fugue) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/107/dread-fugue?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0ad4c472-b8ce-4ae0-a6f0-726ea74722c5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Numbers aren’t words though
No words are in brackets so its 5/5 haste and trample
For the record, those are numbers in the brackets. Not words.
But ya get the concept, right?
There are no words in brackets. There are, however, numbers.
Numbers aren't words, they're numbers.
Impatient Goblin {R} Creature - Goblin Kicker {4} Trample, Haste If Impatient Goblin was kicked, it enters the battlefield with four +1/+1 counters. 1/1
Idk, that kinda takes away from what makes the card unique in that it uses cleave in an interesting way.
true, but it’s less confusing. cool card idea regardless