Proteus Staff Issue

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

I have a Birds of Paradise and a Proteus Staff on board. I activate the
Protueus Staff, targetting the Birds. I start taking cards off the top of my
library and hit a Clone. There are no other creatures in play at this time.
Clone says that it cannot be summonned if there are no creatures in play, but
it is a creature card. How do you deal with this situation? Does the Proteus
Staff end there and the Clone go into the graveyard since it can't be legally
played (what would it target?)? Or would I treat the clone as if it were not a
creature card for the sake of the Staff?

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

Mrmagic715 wrote:

> I have a Birds of Paradise and a Proteus Staff on board. I activate the
> Protueus Staff, targetting the Birds. I start taking cards off the top of
> my
> library and hit a Clone. There are no other creatures in play at this
> time. Clone says that it cannot be summonned if there are no creatures in
> play, but
> it is a creature card. How do you deal with this situation? Does the
> Proteus Staff end there and the Clone go into the graveyard since it can't
> be legally
> played (what would it target?)? Or would I treat the clone as if it were
> not a creature card for the sake of the Staff?

Birds of Paradise
Creature - Bird G
Flying
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. 0/1

Proteus Staff
Artifact 3
2U, T: Put target creature on the bottom of its owner's library. That
creature's controller reveals cards from the top of his or her library
until he or she reveals a creature card. The player puts that card into
play and the rest on the bottom of his or her library in any order. Play
this ability only any time you could play a sorcery.

Clone
Creature - Clone 3U
As Clone comes into play, you may choose a creature in play. If you do,
Clone comes into play as a copy of that creature. 0/0

I don't see anywhere on Clone where it requires another creature to be
in play. Nor do I see where it targets anything. What happens is
Clone is put into play as per the Staff's ability, as there is absolutely
no reason not to. Since there is nothing for Clone to copy, you can't
use the copy ability. Therefore Clone comes into play as a 0/0 creature
and dies as a state-based effect for having a toughness of zero.
--
Christopher Mattern

"Which one you figure tracked us?"
"The ugly one, sir."
"...Could you be more specific?"

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

Mrmagic715, worshipped by llamas the world over, wrote...
> I have a Birds of Paradise and a Proteus Staff on board. I activate the
> Protueus Staff, targetting the Birds. I start taking cards off the top of my
> library and hit a Clone. There are no other creatures in play at this time.
> Clone says that it cannot be summonned if there are no creatures in play, but
> it is a creature card.

No, it doesn't.

Clone
Creature - Clone 3U
As Clone comes into play, you may choose a creature in play. If you do,
Clone comes into play as a copy of that creature. 0/0

> How do you deal with this situation? Does the Proteus
> Staff end there and the Clone go into the graveyard since it can't be legally
> played (what would it target?)?

Clone has not been targeted for a long time. (There are no targeted
permanents at all anymore, in fact.) If you read the most recent
version of the card - Onslaught, I believe - you'll find the above text.
Older versions will have very different wordings, but are always played
according to the current Oracle wording.

(Also, even if you couldn't legally play the Clone without another
creature in play, which has not been the case for about five years,
"play" and "put into play" are quite different.)

So, the Clone comes into play. If there are no other creatures in play,
you can't choose one, so Clone comes into play as a 0/0 creature, and
promptly dies from zero toughness unless something like Sunken City is
in play.

> Or would I treat the clone as if it were not a
> creature card for the sake of the Staff?

Why would you do that, even if its old wording were still correct?

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

I was going off of the Revised Clone's wording and didn't look up the newer
oracle text on it. The revised wording makes this situation seem confusing but
its very simple and logical now that I see the newer text sets the pwr/tgh to
0/0 as opposed to */*. Thanks for the responses.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

On 12 Jul 2004 04:10:11 GMT, Mrmagic715 <mrmagic715@aol.com> wrote:
>I have a Birds of Paradise and a Proteus Staff on board. I activate the
>Protueus Staff, targetting the Birds. I start taking cards off the top of my
>library and hit a Clone. There are no other creatures in play at this time.

Then you get a "bare" Clone.

>Clone says that it cannot be summonned if there are no creatures in play,

Er, no, no it doesn't:

Clone 3U Creature -- Clone
0/0 As ~ comes into play, you may choose a creature in play. If you do, ~
comes into play as a copy of that creature.

If you have an old-old Clone, it plays by the current wording. Nothing here
says "Clone can't come into play if there are no creatures in play".

>but it is a creature card. How do you deal with this situation?

Clone comes into play; you can't choose a creature in play already, so it
doesn't come into play as a copy of anything else. It appears as itself: a
0/0 blue creature whose name and creature type are Clone. (It usually dies
right afterwards, since it's got 0 toughness.)

>Does the Proteus
>Staff end there and the Clone go into the graveyard since it can't be legally
>played (what would it target?)?

1) No creature SPELL is being PLAYED here in any fashion at all. You're not
casting a spell in any way. The _activated ability_ of the Staff was played
(announced); it later resolved. Its _effect_ PUT the Clone card INTO PLAY.

2) Clone doesn't target anything. No creature, artifact, or global enchantment
spell targets anything at all; only Instant spells, Sorcery spells, local
enchantment _spells_ (not local enchantment _permanents_ in play), and
activated or triggered nonmana abilities can target anything.

Clone ends up in the graveyard, usually, but it does so because it's a 0/0
creature on its own, not because of any difficulty with getting it into play.

> Or would I treat the clone as if it were not a
>creature card for the sake of the Staff?

Why in the world would you do that? It _is_ a creature card:
"Creature -- Clone", its text reads. Nothing on it says "Treat this card as
though it were not a creature card while it is not in play".

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from dbd@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

On Mon, 12 Jul 2004, Jeff Heikkinen wrote:

> (There are no targeted permanents at all anymore, in fact.)

How about local enchantments?
--

David

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

David de Kloet <dskloet@cs.vu.nl> wrote:
>On Mon, 12 Jul 2004, Jeff Heikkinen wrote:
>> (There are no targeted permanents at all anymore, in fact.)
>
>How about local enchantments?

Local enchantment spells are targetted. What Jeff _meant_ to say is that there
are no targetted _spells_ which become permanents any more, other than local
enchantment spells, I bet.

There are in fact no targetted _permanents_ any more, and have not been for
quite some time now, ever since local enchantments started "enchanting" what
they sat on rather than "targetting" them for, I think, 5th Edition.

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from dbd@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

Mrmagic715 wrote:

> I was going off of the Revised Clone's wording and didn't look up the
> newer
> oracle text on it. The revised wording makes this situation seem
> confusing but its very simple and logical now that I see the newer text
> sets the pwr/tgh to
> 0/0 as opposed to */*. Thanks for the responses.

As a general rule, almost everything in Revised has been, well, revised.
I wouldn't rely on the Revised wording on any card; I'd look it up in
Oracle. That would be particularly true if the card was at all
complicated (and there's damn little more complicated than copying),
and an absolute given if I had a question about the card.
--
Christopher Mattern

"Which one you figure tracked us?"
"The ugly one, sir."
"...Could you be more specific?"

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

David de Kloet, worshipped by llamas the world over, wrote...
> On Mon, 12 Jul 2004, Jeff Heikkinen wrote:
>
> > (There are no targeted permanents at all anymore, in fact.)
>
> How about local enchantments?


Duh....

Got me there. That was a really silly missing qualification on my part.
What I meant was that cards like Black Vise, Clone and Copy Artifact no
longer involve targetting, but obviously local enchantments still do.