Urza planeswalker

Theoric
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Post by Theoric » 1 year ago

If you look at the physical card Urza planeswalker, it says you 'You may activate the loyalty abilities of Urza, Planeswalker twice each turn rather than only once.'
If you look at it on scryfall, it says the same thing.
If you go on Gatherer, it says the same thing.

And yet, from what I understand, they're all wrong.

Apparently, you may activate it 'an additional time each turn' (card).
This makes a big difference to me since I want to use it in a deck that also brings out oath of teferi and I want to activate Urza three times when it enters so I can ultimate that turn. The problem is, if I try to do that, I expect an argument. One where virtually every database says I'm wrong.

Gatherer does actually show the errata'd artwork for the card, but the image is so poor you basically need photo enhancing software to read it. So what's a quick, irrefutable way to show people that Urza has a static ability that lets you use it one additional time per turn?

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TheGildedGoose
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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 year ago

Oath of Teferi doesn't interact with Urza, Planeswalker in the way you think it does. The abilities have the same wording, so it's like giving a creature two instances of vigilance. You'd need to use The Chain Veil. The physical card, Scryfall, and Gatherer all have the correct rules text.

Theoric
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Post by Theoric » 1 year ago

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
Oath of Teferi doesn't interact with Urza, Planeswalker in the way you think it does. The abilities have the same wording, so it's like giving a creature two instances of vigilance. You'd need to use The Chain Veil. The physical card, Scryfall, and Gatherer all have the correct rules text.
Thanks for the reply.

I'll play it as though Oath of Teferi has no effect, although I still wonder if their intention when creating the card was 'one additional' instead of 'twice per turn.' It's badly worded. "You may activate the loyalty abilities of Urza, Planeswalker twice each turn" means you can use it during your opponents' turns. Obviously that isn't true, which would explain why they clarified their intent with the 'one additional' version.
Also, the chain veil states ' as though none of its loyalty abilities have been activated.' If Urza wasn't activated, then the 'twice each turn' line would mean we could use him 2 more times. We know that isn't true either, but that's what the cards say.

It also seems strange that Gatherer uses the art that says 'one additional time.' Some other sites do as well, such as Magicspoiler.

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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 1 year ago

From the Oath of Teferi rulings:
If you somehow control more than one Oath of Teferi, you won't be able to activate abilities of planeswalkers you control more than twice in one turn.
By extension, if you have multiple effects that allow you to activate planewalkers twice (in this case, Urza and Oath), those cards are redundant. Kaito, Dancing Shadow has a similar ruling.

The inconsistency between different versions of Urza's art is definitely a thing, but the general rule is to use the Oracle / Gatherer text over the card art (since cards get errata'd all the time without having a new printing).

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