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0032: Corrections from the second rules review ​

Status: Accepted. Corrects decisions 0026, 0028, 0030, and 0031, and the spec text for Adventures, faces, and damage.

Context ​

A second rules review read CR 702, 708 to 733, and the Glossary in full, and checked decisions 0028 to 0031, which had not been reviewed. It found no rule the format contradicts in a common case, but several places where the spec was wrong in detail, ambiguous, or silent. Larger gaps it found are settled in decisions 0033 (hybrid and Phyrexian mana), 0034 (delve, convoke, improvise), and 0035 (fuse). This record covers the rest.

Decision ​

  1. Delayed triggers from actions cite CR 603.7g. Decision 0030 said no rule names the source and controller of a delayed trigger created by a static ability that allows an action, and reasoned by analogy. CR 603.7g does, and gives the same answer. The encoding does not change.
  2. The adventure keyframe flag names a player: adventure PLAYER, the player who may play the card from exile. That is whoever controlled the Adventure spell, not always the owner, and they may play it, not only cast it as a creature (some adventurers are enchantments).
  3. cost lines come before any mana abilities activated while casting, not only before the pay lines. Otherwise there were two valid orders.
  4. The archetype tags' "same in every game" is a convention, not a rule consequence. In Limited a player may rebuild their whole deck between games.
  5. Every result of damage takes the damage's cause: life lost, poison counters from infect and toxic, loyalty and defense counters removed, -1/-1 counters from wither and infect, and life gained from lifelink. Only life and loyalty were stated before, so the others could be written two ways. Damage marked on a creature needs no line beyond damage: it is removed in the cleanup step, before any keyframe.
  6. Reflexive triggered abilities ("when you do") get no new effect line, and their new ability line has no from. They follow the delayed-trigger rules but are created and trigger within one resolution, so they never reach a keyframe.
  7. face for a modal double-faced card cites CR 712.11b when cast and 712.12 when played as a land. The keyframe face no longer mentions split cards on the battlefield: the only split permanents are Rooms, which are not covered yet.
  8. New entries in "Not yet covered": Rooms; casting with alternative characteristics or another face up (Omens, disturb, prototype); mutate and merged permanents; speed and triggered abilities with no source; delayed triggers created by replacement effects (rebound).
  9. The day and night example writes pt when Graveyard Trespasser enters and when it transforms, as section 7.5 requires.

Rules basis ​

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

  • 603.7g: "If a static ability allows a player to take an action and creates a delayed triggered ability if that player does so, the source of that delayed triggered ability is the object with that static ability. The controller of that delayed triggered ability is the same as the controller of that object at the time the action was taken."
  • 715.3d: "Instead of putting a spell that was cast as an Adventure into its owner's graveyard as it resolves, its controller exiles it. For as long as that card remains exiled, that player may play it."
  • 601.2g: "If the total cost includes a mana payment, the player then has a chance to activate mana abilities ... Mana abilities must be activated before costs are paid."
  • 100.4b: "In limited play involving individual players, all cards in a player's card pool not included in their deck are in that player's sideboard."
  • 120.3: "Damage may have one or more of the following results". 120.3a (life loss), 120.3b (poison from infect), 120.3c (loyalty), 120.3d (-1/-1 counters), 120.3f (lifelink), 120.3g (poison from toxic), 120.3h (defense counters).
  • 514.2: "all damage marked on permanents (including phased-out permanents) is removed and all 'until end of turn' and 'this turn' effects end."
  • 603.12: "These reflexive triggered abilities follow the rules for delayed triggered abilities (see rule 603.7), except that they're checked immediately after being created and trigger based on whether the trigger event or events occurred earlier during the resolution of the spell or ability that created them."
  • 712.11b: "A player casting a modal double-faced card or a copy of a modal double-faced card as a spell chooses which face they are casting before putting it onto the stack."
  • 709.5c: "'Left half unlocked' and 'right half unlocked' are designations that a permanent on the battlefield can have."
  • 702.179d, 728.1: each describes an inherent triggered ability that "has no source", which new ability ... of OBJREF cannot express.

Alternatives rejected ​

  • Keeping adventure without a player and deriving it from the spell's controller. Rejected: a keyframe must be readable on its own, and the spell's controller is no longer recorded anywhere once it has resolved.
  • Recording marked damage in keyframes. Rejected: it is always removed before the next keyframe.

Consequences ​

  • The spec, the keyword reference, decisions 0028 and 0030, and examples/more-situations.md are updated.