Why haven't they made it a rule that if a creature's power or toughness are set by an ability (the creature is a */*, */whatever or whatever/*), and then that creature loses all abilities, it because a 0/0, 0/whatever or whatever/0? It would clear up ambiguity with Ground Seal and Yixlid Jailer, and allow "target creature loses all abilities" language without having to specify a power or toughness.

What interaction is bothering you? For Example, are you wondering if Tarmogoyf's P/T in the GY when Yixlid Jailer is on the Battlefield is set to 0/0?

Current Rules, that I could find so far, that apply are:









CR 112 implies a characteristic defining effect can't be removed, the Errata implies similarly that while the ability itself becomes removed (as defined in 604- Characteristic-defining Abilities) the effect will have already have happened and will still be in effect.

I'm not sure what a higher ruling would be, but I expect that the P/T would be stuck at the last defined state before the ability was lost. Is there a reason it should become 0/0?

Hope that helps.

I'm not sure what you mean about Ground Seal. It doesn't add or remove any abilities.

As for Yixlid Jailer, we do know how it works with CDAs: if a card no longer has a CDA, you use its printed P/T, substituting a 0 for the *. So Tarmogoyf would be a 0/1, for example. This is admittedly weird, but it would also be weird for it to be 0/0 instead.

The same would go for a "Target creature loses all abilities" effect. There's no ambiguity about what it would do to creatures with P/T CDAs. The result would just be weird and unintuitive, and that would be true even if they made the rules change you proposed. It's also far from certain that ability-removing effects that maintain the P/T are design space they want to explore.

@Treamayne

Your understanding is incorrect on many levels.

112.12 doesn't say that characteristic-defining abilities can't be removed. It just says effects that set a characteristic or state a quality don't grant an ability. For example, Devoid is a characteristic-defining ability that makes something colorless. Moonlace also has an effect that makes something colorless, but it doesn't do so by granting an ability. A creature with devoid won't get the Muraganda Petroglyphs bonus, but a Runeclaw Bear affected by Moonlace willl.

Also, what you quoted isn't errata. "Errata" refers to a change in card's wording. What you quoted is a ruling. And the reason behind that ruling is the layer system, defined by rule 613. Type-changing effects are applied before ability-granting-or-removing effects, so even if you remove the abilities from Mistform Ultimus, the type-changing effect has already applied and given it all creature types. By contrast, P/T-changing effects are applied after ability-granting-or-removing effects, so if you remove the abilities from Tarmogoyf, that ability won't be able to set the P/T. So you instead look at what's printed in the corner of the card, substituting 0 for the *s (due to 107.2), making it a 0/1.

The idea of "stuck at the last defined state before the ability was lost" doesn't work at all. The characteristics of objects is continuously evaluated, starting with what's printed on the card and then applying continuous effects via the layer system. Objects have the characteristics they do because there's currently something giving them those characteristics, not because they had those characteristics at some point in the past.

The interaction that's bothering me is, because of the rather small set of cards that are */*, */whatever or whatever/*, you can't have a "target creature loses all abilities" effect that doesn't set power and toughness.

Thanks.

I knew 112 didn't say the abilities couldn't be removed, but thought it may have implied the effect they generate wasn't removed because "...that ability can be removed by another effect. If an effect defines a characteristic of the object (“[permanent] is [characteristic value]”), it’s not granting an ability..." The wording seemed odd, which is why I was unsure.

Sorry I wrote "errata" instead of ruling. I know better than that (and blame it on the Munchkin Errata I was perusing coupled with my own stupidity).

So, the */* defining abilities are considered Layer 7 Power- and/or toughness-changing effects (Specifically 7a), and therefore come after Jailer would have removed the ability. Makes sense. The mistaken conclusion at the end probably came from my mistake early at 112 (thinking they would still have a P/T in the graveyard before the ability was removed, so it would continue using last state).

Thanks again for shedding light on this and helping me ID the errors in my logic.

Rule 112.12 was applicable to a lot more cases prior to Magic 2014. Before that time, there were two big "qualities" effects could give to permanents: indestructible and unblockable. 112.12 made it clear how those worked.

Darksteel Gargoyle, for example, had the ability "Darksteel Gargoyle is indestructible". This was an ability, so if the Gargoyle was hit by Humble, it would no longer have that ability and thus no longer be indestructible. On the other hand, Darksteel Forge had the ability "Artifacts you control are indestructible". The Forge itself had an ability, but it didn't grant any abilities to those artifacts. So using a Humble on an artifact creature affected by Darksteel Forge would still leave it indestructible.

Ditto for "unblockable". Humble on a Metathran Soldier removes the ability and thus allows the creature to blocked. Humble on a creature affected by Deepchannel Mentor wouldn't allow the creature to be blocked, since there's no ability there to remove.

Magic 2014 changed those two things. In the case of indestructible, they made a functional change by turning it into a keyword ability. Now, Darksteel Forge does grant an ability to your artifacts, so Humble would be able to remove that ability and make them destructible again. The "unblockable" cards were given nonfunctional errata to "can't be blocked". This makes it sound less like a keyword, so even though it works the same way as before, there's less chance for confusion.

As for what the rule actually means, just read it sentence by sentence. It's differentiating between three different kinds of effects: those that grant an ability, those that set a characteristic, and those that state a quality. The first category can be identified by "gains" (e.g. Jump) or "has" (e.g. Flight), and the ability granted by those can be removed by other effects. Effects in the second category don't grant an ability, so there's no ability there to remove. And effects in the third category neither grant an ability nor set a characteristic.

From both a rule standpoint and a templating standpoint, you absolutely can write on a card "Target creature loses all abilities," and leave off the extra bit which sets power and toughness. The template would be functional, and the consequences of that effect are well-defined within the rules. Wizards R&D chooses not to do that because they don't feel it necessary for players to have to learn that rule. You are not bound by their choice.

Origins did another round of much the same thing, when Menace got keyworded and existing cards that were providing that 'quality' were errated to grant that ability. Before Origins, if you controlled Grizzly Bears, Goblin War Drums, and Muraganda Petroglyphs, you had a 4/4 Grizzly Bears with no abilities but that was subject to a blocking restriction on the part of any creatures that were to attempt to block it. After Origins, those three cards gave you a 2/2 Grizzly Bears with Menace.

As Astarael mentioned, you absolutely can have such an effect--R&D just chooses not to print it, both for the reason Astarael mentions and probably also because they don't want Humble-type effects to be usable as removal.

I'm not convinced the */* creatures are the relevant ones.

Right now, effects that remove abilities from creatures have two purposes: either they make something into an insignificant, small creature, or they make something into a 4/4 flying Dragon. In both cases, the P/T-setting is an important part of the effect. And even with the combination of ability removal and P/T-setting, it's a very cheap effect. Something with only the ability removal would be very niche.

It would. I'll be perfectly level with you: I want a charm where one of the three options is "loses all abilities". I believe that such a charm could easily be costed at , provided the rest of the triad was appropriate. Conversely, a lot of the Humble-type effects tend to be used to shrink creatures rather than for the ability loss.

As for the removal, there really aren't that many creatures with toughness *. Out of the 8212 creatures, 98 of them have toughness *, so this would only kill between 1 and 2 percent of creatures. I'm also not worried about it because blue does get backdoor removal from time to time.