Welcome to Personal Tutor, where we discuss how to maximize our opportunities for player education. Our goal is to transcend the basic answer to create an informative answer that the player will really remember without coaching them. You may even find this process helps you come to a better understanding of the rules yourself.

The Scenario:
Advent and Nonattendance are playing in a Theros Sealed PTQ. Adevent calls you over to the table. "So, I've got this Whip of Erebos. On my last turn, I used it to bring a guy back from graveyard. Then I attacked. Then, at EoT, I sacrificed it to cast Rescue from the Underworld targeting this other guy in my yard. So, the guy I sacrificed got exiled. I know the guy in the graveyard in the graveyard will come back, but I'm not sure about the exiled guy. Nonattendance said this is like when you exile an Undying guy, so it stays exiled forever. But I thought I saw something in the FAQ about it coming back anyway. Does it actually come back, or no?"

The Basic Answer:
It comes back.

This month we have very little danger of coaching, so focus on giving a memorable and comprehensible explanation that will stick with the players and teach them the fundamental rules.

L1s and Judge Candidates, feel free to give your answers immediately. L2s, please wait a day to add your input. L3+, please wait two days.

Edited Joshua Feingold (Nov. 7, 2013 07:40:34 AM)

Im new here (finished my judgetest last sunday), but i will try my best….

I will explain the situation as followed:
“Yes. Your creature will come back from exile. That is because the Whip of Erebos ‘creates’ a replacement effect, which effect the zone changing of your creature. The Game, espescially the Rescue from the Underworld in this scenario, knows this replacement effect and can ‘find’ the creature in every public zone, if it was put there by this replacement effect. This ability backtracking the exiled creature will end, when the object/card changes zones again. So this is why Rescue from the Underworld can find the creature in exile.”

This is my ‘teaching’ in this situation.

(Sorry if my english isnt the best. I will explain any thoughts if needed)

Greetings,
Patrick

“Yep, the creature you sacrificed comes back from Exile. Even though it was exiled and not sent to the graveyard, Rescue From the Underworld can ”track“ your dude into the Exile zone because that was the first place it went; Whip of Erebos replaced the normal instruction to send the sacrificed creature to your graveyard with its own instruction to send it directly to the Exile zone instead. So Rescue From the Underworld saw it go to the exile zone and will look there for it when the delayed trigger on Rescue attempts to resolve.

This is different from the Undying problem because Undying only works when you send the creature to the graveyard in the first place. If some other effect like Whip of Erebos sends the card anywhere else instead, Undying doesn't even trigger.”

When an effect makes an object change zones, it pays attention to which zone it actually moves to. It will be able to keep track of the object as long as that zone is public and the object doesn't change zones again after the first move.

The replacement effect of Whip of Erebos makes a slight change to the results of Rescue from the Underworld, but that doesn't make Rescue lose track of what it's doing. It will know that the sacrificed card moved to exile instead of the graveyard, and it will be able to return it to the battlefield.

I feel like the most important thing we need to focus on is why this interaction is different from Undying. Getting a good, terse description for the general interaction between this type of effect and replacement effects is a good secondary goal, but focus should be on where the players are immediately confused.

To that end, we need to identify what the confusion is. There's a bit of ambiguity on “exiling an Undying guy” - they could mean Path to Exile on a Strangleroot Geist, or they could mean Tormod's Crypt while Undying is on the stack. These two scenarios have the same outcome - Undying guy is exiled and doesn't come back - but have different reasons for happening.

So, maybe something like this:

“The short version is yes, both creatures come back. The reason is that Rescue from the Underworld is keeping track of where the creature you sacrifice is going, and returns it from wherever it ends up - not necessarily just the graveyard. Now, if it ended up in the graveyard, then got exiled, it wouldn't come back since the effect can't track it after the first zone change, but Whip of Erebos's effect is replacing the card's going to the graveyard with getting exiled, so everything is good.”

I'd probably just stop there, but if they pressed me on the explicit difference with Undying, I'd explain:

“The difference between this and Undying is that Undying is a trigger that only occurs when the creature hits the graveyard. If the creature is exiled instead of going to the graveyard, the ability never triggers. However, it is the same in that if the creature hit the graveyard, and Undying triggered, then it was exiled from the graveyard (with Tormod's Crypt or something), then it wouldn't be able to track the creature across the zone change.”

And, of course, if the players still want further clarification, I'd offer to explain in more detail after their round is over.

We have a few pretty nice explanations of why exiling an Undying creature isn't like Whip + Rescue. But we've left Nonattendance with a follow-up question!

"I'm confused. I was talking to a judge when I was in a Commander game after FNM last night, and he told me that if I put my General in the Command Zone after it gets exiled with Oblivion Ring, it won't come back even if I blow up the O-Ring. I know that's a replacement effect because it messes with ‘dies’ triggers. So was he actually wrong?"

How do we reconcile these two rulings in the player's mind. And might we even have anticipated this question and addressed it in our initial answer?

Edited Joshua Feingold (Nov. 11, 2013 09:04:35 AM)

I'm actually in an argument disputing the O-Ring part. I'd be really interested in a concise explanation of why they are different. I think it has to do with how linked abilities work, but I'm not sure.

(apologies if this was incorrect/rude. This is my first post here)

Ian, it is exactly because this is a potentially confusing set of interactions that this topic and, more generally, Personal Tutor exist. (And it's nice to know that at least one judge out there is directly benefiting from this project.)

I expect we'll see some nice explanations here before Thursday, so I'm not going to spoil anything just yet.

The major difference between the cases in the follow-up question is that Rescue from the Underworld is doing its thing as part of one big effect, but Oblivion Ring uses two different effects. Though the second ability of Oblivion Ring is linked to the first, it's still a separate and distinct ability. The way that linked abilities work, even though the results of the first ability were altered by a replacement effect, the second ability still only “knows” to look in the exile zone. If there's nothing there for the second ability to find, it won't try looking in other places.

I hate to deviate from the main discussion too much, but at what point do we tell the players that they need to continue playing and you'd be glad to answer further questions after their match is finished? Certainly we should be a helpful as possible, but we can't just keep answering questions about the nuances of templating for ten minutes while they're supposed to be making progress on their match.

As for the Oblivion Ring question: I'm actually now thrown. I am confident that the judge's ruling was correct (O-Ring won't return a general who went to the command zone), but I'd also assume that would be the interaction with Banisher Priest, but that is not a two-effect template. Seems like something more subtle is going on.

Originally posted by Aric Parkinson:

I hate to deviate from the main discussion too much, but at what point do we tell the players that they need to continue playing and you'd be glad to answer further questions after their match is finished?

This is an excellent point, Aric. At Professional REL, the answer to the original question is very simple: “Yes, it does come back.” (Meanwhile, you're using your peripheral vision to locate the Head Judge, because one of these players will appeal - heh!)

One of the “culture shock” or “learning curve” moments for me, at my first Pro Tour, was when I started to explain the rules behind the answer before actually giving an answer … and both players were looking at me like “who is this blabbermouth, and when is he going to shut up and answer the freaking question?!?” The rest of my answers that weekend were short, to the point - and appealed on occasion, of course.

d:^D

Good question Nonattendance, and great job picking up on the difference there. You want to become a judge too?

In one case, it says “return the sacrificed card”. The sacrifice wasn't what was replaced, the result is what was. You sacrificed the thing, it just happened to go to a different place than you expected (it got exiled instead of dying). But it's still the one you sacrificed.

In the other case, the commander replacement effect replaced “exile” with “put in command zone instead”. Since the card didn't get exiled, there is no “exiled card” to return. It wasn't just the result that got replaced, it was the whole action.

Edited Chris Nowak (Nov. 11, 2013 01:09:36 PM)

Aric, you and Scott bring up something important. Personal Tutor is really
aimed at the spectrum from FNM through Day 1 of a GP. At FNM you can be
more verbose. At a GP, you may want to be a little bit more terse. On Day 2
or at a PT, you want to just get in and out of the game ASAP.

For most Comp REL events though, think in terms of potential for tournament
disruption. If you get really into an explanation, what is the most time
you could realistically use? Maybe as much as 2 minutes for a very involved
ruling. If you have to give the players 2 minutes of time extension, the
tournament is probably not going to be affected at all.

So go ahead and spend those extra 20 seconds to help the players learn.
That will be far more valuable to the event and those players than not
needing to write a “+1” on their slip.

Hello

I asked something similar a few weeks back.

603.7c A delayed triggered ability that refers to a particular object still affects it even if the object changes characteristics. However, if that object is no longer in the zone it's expected to be in at the time the delayed triggered ability resolves, the ability won't affect it. (Note that if that object left that zone and then returned, it's a new object and thus won't be affected. See rule 400.7.)
Example: An ability that reads “Exile this creature at the beginning of the next end step” will exile the permanent even if it's no longer a creature during the next end step. However, it won't do anything if the permanent left the battlefield before then.


http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/6435/

the answer I received then leads me to beleive that the creature will not return.

Originally posted by Kenneth Woo:

the answer I received then leads me to beleive that the creature will not return.

Which creature are you referring to?

Looking at your earlier post, the main difference I see is whether a creature is hitting the graveyard then moving to another zone, or whether it goes straight into exile because the yard was replaced by exile.

But I may be missing your concern.