Glarb Is As Glarb Does #mtg — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Hey, so how does Glorb work? I mean, he
2. 0:02seems like a pretty straightforward
3. 0:03card. Looking at the top card of your
4. 0:05library, that's pretty obvious. And
5. 0:06playing lands and casting spells off the
6. 0:07top of your library with mana value four
7. 0:09or greater seems pretty obvious, too.
8. 0:11But, how does he work with X spells? Or
9. 0:13maybe the better question is why does he
10. 0:15work with X spells? Because in any zone
11. 0:17other than the stack, X is going to be
12. 0:19zero. So, when this is on the top of
13. 0:21your library, this should be a two mana
14. 0:22value spell, which isn't what Glorb says
15. 0:24is allowed to go on the stack. And I
16. 0:26know what some of you are thinking.
17. 0:27You're thinking that once you move this
18. 0:28onto the stack, you can start naming the
19. 0:30value for X and make it greater than
20. 0:31four, thus allowing Glorb allowed to
21. 0:33cast it. Here's where I think is the
22. 0:34problem. A player can only begin to cast
23. 0:36a spell if a rule or an effect allows
24. 0:38you to cast that spell in the first
25. 0:40place, and that there is also no rule or
26. 0:42effects that prohibit you from casting
27. 0:44the spell. I interpret that as a spell
28. 0:46has to be legally be allowed to be cast
29. 0:48in the first place in order for it to
30. 0:49even be moved onto the stack. On top of
31. 0:51that, the rules make it sound like that
32. 0:52there's a specific set of steps that you
33. 0:54have to follow in that exact order when
34. 0:56casting a spell, and that we can't just
35. 0:58throw spells on the stack whenever we
36. 1:00want. It has to legally be cast. Like I
37. 1:02can't just be on upkeep, have priority,
38. 1:04and then move Mind Spring to the stack
39. 1:06because I wouldn't be able to cast a
40. 1:07sorcery normally then. I wouldn't
41. 1:09legally be able to do that. And some of
42. 1:10y'all might say, "Well, don't we choose
43. 1:12the X value when we're moving it to the
44. 1:14stack as part of the spell casting
45. 1:15process?" And this ruling would agree
46. 1:17with you. It says they choose and
47. 1:18announce the value of X as part of the
48. 1:20spell casting process. But, as I
49. 1:21mentioned before, there's specific steps
50. 1:23that we have to follow for the spell
51. 1:25casting process. The first one, moving
52. 1:27the spell to the stack and announcing
53. 1:28it. And then we can choose modes or make
54. 1:30choices. One of those being the value of
55. 1:32X. So, if choosing the value of X
56. 1:34happens after we move the thing to the
57. 1:36stack, how is it that we're able to move
58. 1:38it to the stack in the first place?
59. 1:40Because this doesn't really say we can
60. 1:41consider the value of X in advance. So,
61. 1:43it's like how do we know? How does it
62. 1:45read into the future like that? Which
63. 1:47may seem a little nitpicky or pedantic,
64. 1:49but usually they specify these kind of
65. 1:50things in the rules and it makes sense.
66. 1:52And I bet some of you are going to
67. 1:53mention 601.3a that says you can
68. 1:55consider some of the choices made when
69. 1:56proposing a spell that might change its
70. 1:58values. But, this talk specifically for
71. 2:00an effect that prohibits. Glorb does
72. 2:03have an effect, but it doesn't prohibit,
73. 2:04it enables. And the thing that is
74. 2:06prohibiting us is a rule, not an effect,
75. 2:08which again sounds hyper specific, but
76. 2:10the rules do tend to be hyper specific.
77. 2:12And then some people might bring up
78. 2:13601.3E that talks about alternative set
79. 2:16of characteristics or subset of
80. 2:17characteristics that can be considered.
81. 2:19But, the value of X on cards aren't
82. 2:21alternative characteristics or subset of
83. 2:23characteristics, they're just a choice
84. 2:25that is made when casting a spell. So, I
85. 2:26don't believe that would apply to that
86. 2:28either. So, why does Glorb work with X
87. 2:30spells? It's just because that they said
88. 2:32so. Yeah, so the Oracle ruling does say
89. 2:33that it works with X spells, but if you
90. 2:35really wanted to know how it works with
91. 2:36the comprehensive rules, I couldn't
92. 2:38really tell you.