0019: Corrections from the first rules review

Status: Accepted. Amends decision 0016 (item 9).

Context

A review of spec 0.3.0 against the full Comprehensive Rules found one rule that contradicts the CR, several wrong citations, and a few places where the spec allowed more than one encoding. Writing a dash example (Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer) found two more ambiguities.

Decision

1. A countered object can be anywhere on the stack. Only objects that resolve or fizzle must be on top.
2. The "lowest-numbered hidden object" rule applies only to hands. An unknown card leaving a library is a new object from the untracked pool, because tracked cards in a library have positions.
3. new lines in a library can give a position (top N, bottom N), so cards looked at from the top of a library are recorded as the top cards.
4. new card is used whenever the perspective player knows the name by the time the object leaves the zone it is introduced in (a card searched for, a card exiled face up from the top of a library). new hidden is only for cards whose name stays hidden.
5. A life change that results from damage has the damage's cause, and damage to a planeswalker removes loyalty counters with the same cause.
6. search names whose zone is searched when it is not the searcher's own.
7. Extra phases and steps are written where they occur, with the normal keywords.
8. Recordings can start late. After incomplete, turns may be missing, and new lines before the next keyframe introduce objects where that keyframe shows them.
9. Citations corrected: the pregame die roll is CR 103.1 (not 706.2); a replaced discard is still a discard by 701.9a with 614.6 (not 701.9c); lands that always enter tapped are 614.1d; copies that cease to exist are 704.5e and 707.10a.

Rules basis

Checked against the Comprehensive Rules effective 2026-09-25.

• 608.1: "Each time all players pass in succession, the spell or ability on top of the stack resolves." 701.6a: "To counter a spell or ability means to cancel it, removing it from the stack." A counterspell on top counters an object below it.
• 400.5: "The order of objects in a library ... can't be changed except when effects or rules allow it." Tracked library cards are not interchangeable.
• 120.3a: "Damage dealt to a player by a source without infect causes that player to lose that much life." 120.3c: "Damage dealt to a planeswalker causes that many loyalty counters to be removed from that planeswalker."
• 701.23a: "To search for a card in a zone, look at all cards in that zone (even if it's a hidden zone)". Any player's zone can be searched.
• 500.8: "Some effects can add phases to a turn."
• 103.1: players "may use any mutually agreeable method (flipping a coin, rolling dice, etc.)" to decide who chooses the starting player.
• 701.9a: "To discard a card, move it from its owner's hand to that player's graveyard." 614.6: "If an event is replaced, it never happens. A modified event occurs instead."
• 614.1d: "Continuous effects that read '[This permanent] enters . . .' ... are replacement effects."
• 704.5e: "If a copy of a spell is in a zone other than the stack, it ceases to exist."

Alternatives rejected

• Keeping the hand rule for libraries. Rejected: it would move tracked cards and change their recorded positions.
• new hidden followed by identify for a card that becomes public as it leaves a library. Rejected: two lines for one moment, and two ways to write the same thing.

Consequences

• examples/mycospawn-turn-5.mtgr records Impulse's cards at top 1 to top 4.
• examples/lasting-effects.mtgr shows a late recording.