A friend of mine asked me to post this here to hear your opinions on the interaction between
Sylvan Library and
Chains of Mephistopheles. During GP Strasburg this happened to him and took almost 30 minutes over time and more than 6 judges including the head judge to solve:
"Hi Judge Team,
a couple of weeks ago at GP Strasbourg I had a rules question in the first round, about the interaction between
Sylvan Library and
Chains of Mephistopheles.
In my drawstep I drew three cards (keeping them separate from the rest of my hand) shortcutting for Sylvan and a judge friend who was watching my match stopped me (he wasn't judging this time) and we called for a floor-judge. After 3 lvl 2 judges, and a groupleader even the headjudge joined in.
The last ruling I got was like this:
When I enter my drawstep I draw my first card for the turn, not affected by Chains.
Then I activate Sylvan. At this time I have to discard because of the replacement effect of Chains. Then I draw a card from Chains. I then want to draw the second card from Sylvan, so I discard again and draw a second card from Chains.
So far this is pretty straightforward. Now the second part of Sylvan Library resolution says that I have to choose two cards in my hand drawn this turn and for each card I have to pay 4 life or put it back on top of my library.
The last ruling that I got from the lvl4 Headjudge (there were two in Strasbourg I can't remember who it was) is that I don't have to pay any life because I did not draw cards from Sylvan Library this turn, since there was the replacement effect of Chains of Mephistopheles. He mentioned it would be similar to the interaction between Sylvan Library and
Abundance, however Abundance does “put” cards into your hand and does not “draw” cards!
This so far is the highest ruling that I have gotten.
However since Sylvan says “drawn this turn” and Sylvan does work with Instant Carddraw in the upkeep letting you choose from more then the 2 extra cards, I don't know if this is really correct.
If I still have all three cards that I drew this turn, I could put two back or pay 4 life each. This would be possible although I did draw 2 of those cards from Chains and not from Sylvan. This would sound right to me but I have no official ruling like that!
Now where it gets really tricky is when I discard cards for Chains of Mephistopheles that I drew this turn, the first card from the drawstep for example or the first card drawn from Chains for the second discard. This would potentially leave me with only one card “drawn this turn” (The last draw from Chains) in hand. Do I have to put this one back? Do I pay 4 life for it if I want to keep it, or 8? It says 4 life for each card, so 8 is most likely wrong but hey who knows…
I know it is a very rare case, however it can happen in Jund as it happened to me, and you side in Chains only in matchups where Sylvan is a very nice threat so it definitely is both in your deck! I know I don't have to acitvate Sylvan but at that time I was very behind and I had to dig as deep as possible so just to say. This can happen!!
Thanks for reading the wall of text and taking the time to figure this out!"
EDIT:
I don't know why I can't reply to my own thread but I think you're wrong Daniel Kitachewsky. I got a message from Irina Samonova reminding me of comp rules mentioning replacement effects:
614.11b If an effect would have a player both draw a card and perform an additional action on that card, and the draw is replaced, the additional action is not performed on any cards that are drawn as a result of that replacement effect.
This should apply here since it exactly matches to the above mentioned situation. The additional draws from sylvan get replaced by Chains so the second effect of sylvan should not apply.
Edited Christian Genz (May 14, 2013 07:51:29 AM)