Mortimer's Guild 1 - Intoductions and Howling at the Moon

Greetings Everyone!

I'll go ahead and get introductions out of the way quickly, my name is Mickey Broussard, I am a Level 1 judge from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I primarily judge at Rocket's Hideout in Baton Rouge, but I have been known to sneak out of town to judge larger events. Unfortunately, my professional Magic "career" has been stunted due to scholarly obligations (I am working on my Undergrad in History at LSU) and, frankly, skill level (or, perhaps, lack thereof). For this reason, my articles will focus primarily on judge questions I have received and found interesting. This does put me in a unique position as a Magic writer as it means that I cannot operate without feedback. Therefore, I would encourage everyone to email me with any and all questions that they have about the Comprehensive Rules or even the IPG. I will never mention a Magic player by name unless they specifically request otherwise, so please don't have any qualms about contacting me. My email is mbrou61@lsu.edu.

Alright, time to get down to Brass Tacks. I recently judged several Innistrad Prerelease events at Rocket's and I thought it would be a nice start to this column to discuss one of the stranger interactions in the new set, the copyable characteristics of the new "flip cards."

Just for reference, the copyable characteristics of a card are all characteristics which are printed on the card. These include name, mana cost, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, expansion symbol (as relevant as that always turns out to be), rules text, power, toughness, and Loyalty. It is important to note, especially since we are discussing creatures, that the copyable P/T of a creature is only what is printed on the card, effects such as counters, equipment/auras, and "Giant Growth" will not have any affect on a copy's P/T. Whew, that was exhausting, quite a lot more to being a judge than you thought, eh?

At any rate, if you have opened a pack of Innistrad you may have noticed that WOTC has given us a new bit of exciting Magic in the form of double-faced "Flip" cards. "But wait!" you shout frantically at me, "these cards have two faces, and often those two faces have different copyable characteristics. If I create a copy of such a card, which characteristics does it take on? The up-face? The down-face? BOTH?!?!" Ah, my friend you need not fear for I have your answer. It is simple, actually, the card will simply copy the "up-face's" characteristics only, generally ignoring the characteristics on the other side. This means that, should the copy be commanded to "transform" (or be flipped) it will simply fail to do so. The card cannot flip, it only has one face and therefore it cannot be turned to its other face. It is similar to the rule that no flip card can be turned face down, as the card in and of itself is composed entirely of faces and, no matter what you do with it, it will always have one of its faces showing. Well...I suppose you could turn it on its side...that would be impressive.

I'll give a quick example of this scenario, just to cut down on all of the cranial explosions I am undoubtedly causing with this information (speaking of which, anyone who has not seen the movie Scanners should do so immediately). Let's say that Albus has a Cloistered Youth (with its white face up). On his opponent's end step, Albus casts Cackling Counterpart, creating a token copy of this Cloistered Youth. On his upkeep, Albus may transform the original cloistered youth, but his token cannot transform so it is reduced to being a scared little girl huddled in the corner for the rest of its existence, forever jealously gazing as its horrifically disfigured counterpart reeks havoc on the opponents life total. Undoubtedly, Albus will realize the situation and more than likely deduct 10 points from whatever house the little girl is in (I'm going to go ahead and guess Hufflepuff, just saying).

Well, that's all for now folks, remember to email me with any questions, comments, or conundrums you may have. Thanks for reading!

Mickey Broussard

PS: A note about the column title, Mortimer Mouse was the original name for Mickey Mouse. As I share my name with this famed vermin, I thought the title would be appropriate.