Bestiadigitor

Pygyzy
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Post by Pygyzy » 3 years ago

This is my submission for the MCC

Bestiadigitator UG
Creature — Shapeshifter Beast (R)
Mutate UG (If you cast this spell for its mutate cost, put it over or under target non-Human creature you own. They mutate into the creature on top plus all abilities from under it.)
Whenever another creature you control mutates, you may put Bestiadigitor and all cards in it, into that creature, over or under it.
1/1

Does it work? I wanted to add at the end, "and then mutate it again" but I wasn't sure if that would work or how to phrase it. Also I believe it works like, other creatures mutate triggers, add this to that, I'd get the additional triggers anyways and wouldn't need to add "mutate again". Or is that wrong?

This card is basically "graft a creature" the idea is simple, execution not so much. It's giving me a headache.
TIA

user_938036
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Post by user_938036 » 3 years ago

Within the framework of the current rules it doesn't quite function the way you want.

First, it isn't "put ~ in it" its "Merge ~ with it". "Whenever another creature you control mutates, you may merge ~ with that creature." Here is our first problem. Because of "721.2a A merged permanent has only the characteristics of its topmost component, unless otherwise specified by the effect that caused them to merge. This is a copiable effect whose timestamp is the time the objects merged." So you need extra text to get the same effect as Mutate. "Whenever another creature you control mutates, you may merge ~ with that creature. It has all abilities of each card and token that represents it. Its other characteristics are derived from the topmost card or token."

Second, it doesn't trigger mutate triggers because "702.139d An ability that triggers whenever a creature mutates triggers when a spell merges with a creature as a result of a resolving mutating creature spell." Meaning you need even more words just to trigger mutate abilities. "Whenever another creature you control mutates, you may merge ~ with that creature. It has all abilities of each card and token that represents it. Its other characteristics are derived from the topmost card or token. This causes abilities that trigger when ~ mutates to trigger."

The rules could be rewritten to make what you attempted the correct answer but they seem to have been written with the assumption that there will be other ways of merging permanents and they want to keep the ability as disassembled as possible.

Pygyzy
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Post by Pygyzy » 3 years ago

Oh dang no kidding. See I haven't really played around a lot with merge so I'm not super familiar with it's intricacies. Hmm ok this could be a problem.

Would there be someway to word a replacement effect maybe? Like " if a creature would merge, this merges instead?" That still has the same problem right?

I've changed it to:

Whenever another creature you control mutates, this creature mutates.

Is this functional?

New wording different function but more likely to work

Whenever another creature you control merges for the first time each turn, trigger each of that creatures mutate abilities an additional time.

Now on Version 3

Whenever this creature mutates for the first time each turn, copy each of if it's other triggered mutate abilities.

I might just try your wording rather than play it safe. Hmmm

user_938036
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Post by user_938036 » 3 years ago

After spending a not-insignificant amount of time on this I began to question why it was being done at all. The original points seems to have been to try and get multiple mutate triggers off a single instance of mutate. So why jump through hoops when you can do exactly that?

Bestiadigitator UG
Creature - Shapeshifter Beast (R)
Mutate 1UG
Whenever a triggered ability of ~ would trigger. It triggers an additional time.
1/1

Cuts out the complicated problems and gives it wider appeal, I believe without breaking it.

Pygyzy
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Post by Pygyzy » 3 years ago

Yes that's perfect thank you.

How's this?

Bestiadigitator
Creature — Shapeshifter Beast (R)
Mutate (If you cast this spell for its mutate cost, put it over or under target non-Human creature you own. They mutate into the creature on top plus all abilities from under it.)
Whenever you activate another triggered ability of this creature, copy that triggered ability. You may choose new targets for the copy. (A triggered ability uses the words "when," "whenever," or "at.")
1/1

I borrowed some wording from Strionic Resonator

user_938036
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Post by user_938036 » 3 years ago

You don't activate triggered abilities. They trigger. My wording accomplishes everything you want without the awkward wording that copying normally has. You get another trigger which you get to choose it's own target if relevant.Panharmonicon

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spacemonaut
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Post by spacemonaut » 3 years ago

It's good you moved away from the initial template, because what that could have done is merge two non-mutate creatures together. That's a design space they deliberately left alone: right now a merged pile can only have one card without mutate, plus any number of cards with mutate.

That's kind of important because of things like characteristic-defining abilities. You'll notice mutation permanents don't have any of those, so there will be characteristic-defining abilities from at most one card. You'll also notice that cards that take abilities from other creatures only tend to take activated or keyword abilities; they don't take triggered or static abilities because then we might get problems.

And yeah, @user_938036's original wording was almost right on, except that mutate cards always say "this creature" instead of their name for reasons of clarity. Also, it needs to be an if, you don't want this to be a when, or else it will trigger itself infinitely and the game will end in a draw. That means you'll want this template:

"If a triggered ability of this creature would trigger, that ability triggers an additional time."

You don't need the "choose new targets" text in this version because you can already choose different targets for the different instances of the triggered ability as they go on the stack.

All the current trigger doublers, for comparision. Note none of them are triggered abilities. : )

Pygyzy
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Post by Pygyzy » 3 years ago

Cool ya I was over complicating it but I see how the difference in wording fixes it. The original idea was to double triggers then i started messing with double merging that's when I got lost in the details.

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