5 Resolving Effects

501 Triggered Effects

Effects that are automatically produced according to some condition are triggered effects.
Cards that say “when” or “whenever”, “on battle”, or “at the beginning of round 3” are timing keywords that produce triggered effects. There’s no distinction between the terms “when” or “whenever.” They are interchangeable. See the game terms section for more details.
When a triggered effect is created, the controller of that effect resolves it immediately. If it triggers in the middle of another effect resolving, finish the first effect before resolving the second.
- For example, you play a spell that says “Destroy target Wonder and draw a card.” This triggers another card’s ability that reads “Whenever a Wonder dies, you may deny 1.” In this case, you draw the card before you deny 1.
If you control a card, you are the controller of all its effects. You make all decisions required for those effects, such as targeting, and you gain resources from those effects.

501.1 Targeting

When a targeted effect is triggered, its controller chooses the target or targets.
Then check to see if the target is still valid when the triggered effect resolves. If the target is missing or otherwise invalid, the effect fails and does nothing.
For example, Cairnvox Soulforger says “ON ARRIVAL: Put target Wonder you own with cost 4 or less from The Abyss into this realm.” When this ability is triggered, its controller chooses a valid Wonder in The Abyss. When the ability resolves, that Wonder must still be in The Abyss, otherwise the ability fails.
Targeted effects use the word “target.”

502 Resolving Multiple Effects

Each effect or group of multiple effects triggered or otherwise generated at the same time is generated as a batch. Resolve the effects in that batch, one at a time, in any order chosen by the active player.
If a new effect or batch of effects is triggered, finish resolving the current batch before resolving any of the new triggered effects. If there are multiple batches, resolve each new batch in the order it was created relative to the other batches.
- As a handy mental model, finish eating everything on the plate in front of you before eating from the new plates brought to the table. Finish plates in the order they were delivered.
For example, Autumn, Essence Animated puts two Dream Reaver cards and two EthosRelic FR-38 cards from The Abyss into The World as one effect. Dream Reaver says, in part, “ON ARRIVAL: Nullify target Wonder this round.” EthosRelic says “Whenever a card becomes nullified, draw a card and target player loses 1 energy.” The two on arrival effects from the Dream Reavers are a batch. Their controller resolves them one at a time, before resolving the new batch of four triggered two-stage effects generated by the EthosRelics.

503 Endless Loops of Effects

When a series of triggered effects or static effects results in an endless loop or sequence, it may be voluntary or involuntary.
If voluntary, the player controlling the effects has to end it to avoid stalling out the game. The player making the choice to keep the sequence going states the number of times they will repeat the sequence. Then they end the sequence by making a different choice. If two players have a choice that keeps the loop going, the active player is required to make another choice.
If involuntary, the game will automatically prevent one of the effects in the loop so as not to crash the game with endless recursion. The active player chooses how many times the loop will continue, and then which effect will be prevented. The player can only choose to prevent an effect that’s necessary to perpetuate the endless sequence.

504 Replacement Effects

Replacement effects use the term “instead.” When a replacement effect happens, the effect being replaced doesn’t happen.
For example, Pastel Bloom Drake’s ability says “If this would be banished, put it into target realm instead.” When this effect happens it won’t trigger anything that triggers when a card enters banishment.
Effects that replace movement from one game area to another work from any area. So if Pastel Bloom Drake is banished from a deck its ability still works.
If competing replacement effects create an endless loop, one of the effects in the loop will be prevented, per rule 503, Endless Loops of Effects.

505 Control of Cards, Objects, and Effects

505.1 Controlling Objects

Cards on your side of the board are cards you control. When you take control of a card controlled by another player, move it to your side in the same realm. If a card doesn’t specify “this round” or other time constraints, you keep control of it indefinitely.
Control refers specifically to objects in The World. You can’t control cards in The Abyss, hands, decks, banishment, or archive. If a card references the controller of an object in The Abyss, or other disallowed areas, use that card’s owner instead.
In general when a card leaves The World and re-enters, it’s effectively a new copy of the card. This means that if a card says “Banish a card you control and return it to target realm.” It will enter under its owner’s control.
- Portal is an exception to this. Portaled cards remember their origin and keep their “end of round,” controller, and other effects despite being banished and re-entering.
In some cases a card or other object may move to the center of a realm. In this case, no one controls that card.
If a card refers to your cards, it means cards you control.
In general, when a player gains control of an opponent’s card, that card stays in the same realm unless otherwise specified.
When a player gains control of another player’s card, any items equipped to it become unequipped.
If a card says something can’t be controlled by a player, this overrides any effects that would otherwise give control to that player.
For example, The Windreaver says “ON PLAY: Gain control of target enemy Wonder this round. Untap it.” You use this ability to gain control of an enemy Wonder, then equip Whisperleaf Cloak to that Wonder. Whisperleaf Cloak reads, in part, “Opponents can’t tap, control, or put counters on equipped Wonder.” This means the Wonder controlled by The Windreaver’s on play effect does not return to the opponent’s control at the end of the round. If Whisperleaf Cloak is removed later, the Wonder returns to its original controller at that time.

505.2 Controlling Effects

An effect’s controller is the player who played or controlled the card that created the effect.

505.3 Controlling Realms

If you control the most stones in a realm, you control that realm.

505.4 Controlling Turns

When you control another player’s turn you can see their hand and any other information they can see.
You can’t show their cards to other players or do anything outside normal game play. You can’t make them concede and they can still concede.

505.5 Ownership of Cards

For purposes of game rules, a player owns a card if it started the game in their deck or archive. This rule doesn’t reference how they physically acquired the card.

506 Even Distribution in Realms

If an effect instructs you to distribute cards as evenly as possible between realms, you choose where to place them without knowing what cards they are as long as you keep the same number in each realm as much as possible.
For example, Autumn, Essence Animated says “Tap Free: Banish this. Shuffle all Wonders you own in The Abyss. Distribute them as evenly as possible in all realms, face down.” In this case, if you own only one card in The Abyss you choose where to place it.
You can’t choose to distribute cards in inactive realms.

507 Copy Effects

Wonders, items, lands, spells, tokens, abilities, and effects can be copied.
Copy effects use the word “copy.”
For example, Skraal, Ruler of the Three Lakes has the ability “…Choose an on arrival ability of another Wonder you control. Trigger it 3 times.” This doesn’t count as a copy ability.
Copies of Wonders, items, and lands create a token with all the stats and abilities of the copied card, except they are tokens in addition.
Copies of cards have the stats and abilities as defined by the printed version of the card. However, tokens always have 0 cost, and this takes precedence over any copied cost.
Token copies aren’t played, so they don’t trigger on play abilities. But they do trigger on arrival and symbiosis abilities.
If an existing card becomes a copy of something, that card loses its old characteristics and is overwritten by the new ones.
Copied stats and abilities are set when the copy is created. Changing the stats of the original card won’t affect the copy.
If a card’s rules text refers to its own name, copies of that rules text use “this card” instead of the copied card name. (This means the copies will also refer to themselves and work the same way as the original.)
A copy of a spell, ability, or effect has virtual card text, and therefore can be nullified.
A copy of a nullified card copies the blank rules text, but the copy is not itself nullified.
Copy effects can only copy the printed abilities of a card. They can’t copy copied abilities or other non-printed abilities.
For example, Nexus Phasebringer creates a token copy of the banished item Extracted Fungal Goo. Then Carbon-X7 Synthforge creates a token copy of the Nexus-created Goo. The copy created by Carbon-X7 Synthforge will be an item with no abilities since it targeted a card with no printed abilities.

508 Resolving Complex Effects

In general, do as much of an effect as possible, and complete each effect before resolving another.
In some cases, cards require multiple players to make choices. If the choice order is not specified, the active player chooses first and the choice order follows turn order.

508.1 Contradictions

In general, “can’t” overwrites “can” and “may” effects.
For example, if an ability says “You may untap all Wonders,” and another ability says “Wonders can’t untap,” no Wonders will untap.
For example, if an ability says “Nullify all Wonders,” and another ability says “Wonders you control can’t be nullified,” then your Wonders won’t be nullified.
If two abilities contradict each other, do as much as possible without contradiction and then use the most recent ability to overwrite the other in order to resolve the contradiction. Overwrite only the parts needed to resolve the contradiction.
For example, one item has a static ability “All Wonders here are Soldiers with base power 0.” Another item is played in that realm with the static ability “All Wonders here are Vampires with base power 2.” In this case, all Wonders are Vampire Soldiers with base power 2.

508.2 Partial Effects

When only part of an effect is possible, do as much of the effect as possible.
For example, you can play a card that says “Tap target Wonder and draw a card,” even if there are no Wonders in The World. In this case you would only draw a card.

508.3 Multi-Stage Abilities

If a card’s ability contains a sequence of effects, complete each effect as its own stage in the order it’s printed on the card before resolving the next one.
Each effect in the sequence can be nullified, replaced, or modified individually. Nullifying or replacing one of these effects won’t necessarily affect the others.
For example, Utterly Complex Compound Bow says “Equipped Wonder gets “On Battle draw 2 cards, gain 1 energy, and put two -1 counters on target enemy.” Feline Entity of Dreams says “Whenever an opponent’s spell or effect would target a Wonder you control, nullify it unless they spend 2 energy.” In this situation, the Bow’s controller would first draw 2 cards. Then gain 1 energy. Then they would attempt to target an enemy. If the opponent doesn’t spend the 2 energy, the entire effect is nullified. But since the first two stages of the effect have already happened, only the -1 counters are prevented by the nullification.

508.4 Completion of Effects

Some cards use a single term to describe both a player action and its effect. Both of these parts must be completed for the effect to count as complete.
For example, Eternitum the Space Lich reads “Whenever a card arrives from anywhere other than from a hand, you may banish it. If you do, put two +1 counters on this.” The “if you do” part refers to completing the banishment, not choosing whether to banish. Thus, if Eternitum’s controller chooses to banish something, but the banishment is prevented or replaced, that player doesn’t put the +1 counters on Eternitum.

509 Tapping and Untapping

To tap a card, turn it sideways.
You can only tap a card if it’s untapped.
You can only untap a card if it’s already tapped.
Some abilities, such as harvest, are tap abilities even though they don’t say tap ability.
Tapping is generally done once per game per card, although some card abilities let you untap cards to use them again.

510 Face Down Cards In The World

Abilities will sometimes put face down cards in The World as a means of randomization. Until they are turned face up they don’t count as any card type and have no effect on the game. When they are turned face up, treat them as if they entered from The Abyss.

511 Counting Game Events

When a card refers to the first time, second time, third time, or similar, use the actual number of times that event has happened in that round, game, and so forth.

For example, Glacium Keep says “When you play a third Thalwind land, you may untap this.” This only triggers once per game, when you have played exactly two Thalwind lands and you play the third. This ability won’t trigger again that game.