Judge's Den: The First Layer

Welcome to Wizardden.com 's new seven week series on layers. This week's Judge's Den will explain what layers are, why the matter to you, and will cover the first layer.

Layers are how continuous effects are applied. If you have ever heard the phrase "time-stamp" in a game, it was in reference to a layer. "Time-stamp" refers to what the last effect of a certain type to happen, this helps you determine which one is still in effect if they contradict each other. For example you make a creature blue then you turn it green. It was made green last so that time stamp says that is is just green. Understanding how layers work will greatly expand your ability to identify exactly what is happening when multiple contradicting effects are happening all a once.

There are seven layers in total, each with it's own article link here:

Copy Layer

Control Layer

Text Layer

Type Layer

Color Layer

Ability Layer

Power/ Toughness Layer

Today we are going to cover the copy, aka clone layer. The copy layer is extremely important to understand, because it is easily the most misunderstood layer among FNM goers and all other layers build on top of this one. Every aspect of a card or token has a starting value depicted by the printed text of the card or the text that created the token. This is your default for the copy layer. If you Clone an object this default is what you will clone. You will not copy other effects such as the +3/+3 of a Giant Growth or type changing effect of an active Mutavualt. You will copy exactly what the printed text of the original object is. In the case of an activated Mutavualt your Clone will be a nonactive Mutavualt.

There is an exception to that rule however. If some other copy effect is active on that layer then subsequent copies will take on those qualities. For example our cloned Mutavualt would give you a Mutavualt when cloned instead of a 0/0 blue shapeshifter creature named Clone. Where things get sticky is when you have multiple cloning effects, some of which may add additional abilities such as Phantasmal Image or Progenitor Mimic. These get super tricky because they not only copy, but they add qualities to that copy. Since these additions are part of the copying effect they will also be copied if another Clone effect chooses the Image or Mimic. In some cases, such as Progenitor Mimic, you can end up with multiple additional abilities for example making multiple tokens every turn.
Thank you for joining us here at Wizardden.com and look forward to the up coming Judge's Den articles on the other six layers.