Judge's Den: The Fourth Layer

 

It's back! Judge's Den has returned after a week off for Grand Prix Vegas and an unfortunate day spent sick. Picking up where we left off on our layers discussion, today we are covering the Type Changing layer. This layer is the one players get confused by most often. Cards like Blood Moon, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, and Dryad Arbor come up a lot in modern. Links to the previous articles can be found here at Wizardden.com. With that, lets break down how these cards interact.

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

The first thing to understand about the type layer is what exactly can be affected. The type line has three parts that can be present. Type which can include; artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, phenomenon, plane, planeswalker, scheme, sorcery, tribal, and vanguard. Super Type which can include; basic, legendary, ongoing, snow, and world. Lastly Subtype includes any other text printed on the type line of a card. Subtypes are tied to their types, for example, if an elf stops being a creature then it also is no longer an elf.

Type changing effects will apply in one of two ways, setting or adding. Blood Moon for example sets nonbasic lands to be mountains overriding any preexisting subtypes. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth however only adds an additional type of Swamp. Unlike other subtypes basic land subtypes have an added effect giving the permanent a mana ability corresponding to that subtype. This mana ability will override any other abilities if the type change effect is a setting effect.

Where things often get most confusing is when types are changing on something with multiple types. Lets take Dryad Arbor for example. Dryad Arbor has both a land type and a creature type, each with a corresponding subtype of forest and dryad respectively. If Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth enters the equation then the Dryad Arbor is now a Creature Land - Forest Swamp Dryad. This means that it taps for either a green or black mana. Now if we add a Blood Moon a few things happen. First Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth loses its swamp making ability when it becomes a Legendary Land - Mountain. Dryad Arbor becomes a Creature Land - Mountain Dryad. Notice that it is still a creature. Blood Moon's effect only applies to land subtypes though it will remove any other abilities the lands may have, it will not remove it's other attributes such as power and toughness.

I hope this clears up a lot of the confusion surrounding type change effects. To keep it simple, ask yourself what exactly it is changing and realize it is not changing anything other than that. Spreading Seas does not change names, types, or supertypes, it only changes land subtypes. Next week we will talk about color change effects. Thank you for reading here at Wizardden.com.