Discussion Forum

Ruling Question #1
I was in a game today with my new deck involving Echo Mages and various instants and what not.

I had a Level 3 Echo Mage on the battlefield. I then used Rise from the Grave , and used my Echo Mage to copy the spell, to pull out two more Echo Mages out of my grave yard. I pulled the Echo Mages out, placed them on the battlefield, then one of my opponents cancelled the Rise From the Grave. I kept one of the Echo Mages on the Battlefield and put the other Echo Mage back in my Grave yard.

My opponents said both of the Echo Mages I brought out had to go back to the Graveyard because the original spell was cancelled so therefor the copy ability of the Echo Mage had nothing to copy. I argued that the copy of Rise from the Grave was its own independent thing and they would need to somehow cancel the ability. They then said that the cancel would go on top of the stack, which I agreed with, but a cancel can't counter an ability, so the ability of the echo mage would be unaffected. We basically just kept arguing until they gave up.

Now I'm sure they are wrong. They think they are right. I think that I should be able to use my Echo Mages to copy and choose new targets of spells, then cancel/negate the original if necessary, with the copy(s) staying unaffected.

2) Now on this instance, I'm not sure if I'm right or not. Here is the situation.

My opponent had 6 Mana. He tapped 2 blue, and 1 black, then cast a Dimir Doppelganger. He then 2 black, and 1 blue to bring a creature from the grave yard. He had to piles of mana, one pile was for the first step from casting Dimir Doppelganger, then the other 3 (2 black, 1 blue) to use the ability. I used Regress on the first pile of mana and removed the blue mana he used to cast Dimir Doppelganger in the first place, so the creature would fizzle and he would be left tapped out. He then argued that the other blue mana that he had used for the ability would just get transfered to the original creature spell, and he wouldn't have enough to do the ability of the creature, but the creature would stay.

Essentially, He had 6 mana, in two piles of three. He used the first three to cast Dimir Doppelganger, then the other three mana to pay for the ability. I used regress to return one of the essential mana in the first pile back to his hand, so the creature would fizzle out, leaving him tapped out.

I figured since he had everything tapped out, an already tapped mana used for an ability would not be able to go back to the creature if the original mana disappears. If he had an extra blue mana, that was untapped, then he could just tap that blue mana. But he had nothing un-tapped so I don't think he should have been able to keep the creature out.

I'm not sure if any of that will be confusing to anyone, but any help would be appreciated. Thanks.