The Downtime Diaries 
Judge’s Corner
Welcome to our new semi-regular series Judge’s Corner, where we will answer your rules questions.
Q: I attacked my opponent with a dragon and he cast a Summary Dismissal and said my dragon was exiled because creatures are actually creature spells. Is that true?
A: Actually, everything that isn’t a land is a spell, so all creatures, enchantments, artifacts, planeswalkers, and even cards in your hand and graveyard are exiled. Lands stay around but since their mana abilities are countered they can no longer tap.
Q: I cast Savage Punch targeting my Hooting Mandrills and my opponent’s Dripping Dead. Does the Mandrills survive the fight?
A: This is something that confuses a lot of players: if you read Savage Punch closely, you’ll see that it gives the Mandrills +2/+2 “until end of turn before it fights”, i.e. until end of last turn. Thus the Mandrill is dealt four damage and dies.
Q: What does the ◊ symbol mean?
A: ◊ is the new colorless mana symbol. 1 is the old colorless mana symbol. For example, World Breaker’s ability reads “2 ◊, Sacrifice a land: Return World Breaker from your graveyard to your hand.” This indicates that you must pay 2 old colorless mana and 1 new colorless mana to use its ability. This is similar to how there is both old and new white mana.
Q: At the pre-release yesterday, my buddy opened a mythic rare card. It was something I had never seen before, in the text line under the art, instead of creature or sorcery or enchantment it said planeswalker. Can you explain what that is and how it works?
A: Mythic rare cards show up in boosters at a rate of 1 per 8 boosters. Your buddy only got 6 boosters in his pre-release box so if he claims he got a mythic rare card there, he’s cheating. You should contact the nearest judge as quickly as possible.
Q: I cast Infinite Obliteration against an opponent, who then calls a judge claiming I must choose a number for “any.” What gives?
A: This is correct; instances of “any,” “infinite,” et al. are considered to be arbitrarily large rational integers to avoid gameplay issues like gaining infinite life, etc. To avoid confusion, we are issuing errata to change the name of the card to Arbitrarily Large Obliteration, along with cards such as Pull from Eternity (now renamed as Pull from an Arbitrarily Long Stretch of Time) and Endless Horizons (which will now be named Arbitrarily Quantifiable Horizons).
Submit your questions to @goodgamery on Twitter using #judgescorner.
