Rona, Tolarian Obliterator
Hey MTG Team! This one was hilarious, but it did lead to a ranked game loss.
Perhaps it's a "rules" interpretation that I don't fully understand, but I am fairly positive this did not work as intended.
I had flipped Rona, Tolarian Obliterator and it had taken damage, exiling a card at random from the opponents hand. That card was praetor Elesh Norn. The card states "If it’s a land card, you may put it onto the battlefield under your control. Otherwise, you may cast it without paying its mana cost."
As it wasn't a land, I didn't put it onto the battlefield under my control. I did cast it without paying its mana cost - which was great! I couldn't believe I hit such a massive board swing and immediately turned around a lost game.
At one point I had enough creatures to utilize Elesh Norn's ability, sacrificed the necessary creatures, and expected to see massive incubation tokens on my side of the board.
Lo and behold - Elesh Norn appeared on the opponent's battlefiled and so did all of the incubation tokens that were now creature artifacts!
This resulted in an immediate loss.
The card states "Exile Elesh Norn, then return it to the battlefield transformed under its owner's control. Activate only as a sorcery."
As I was the one to cast the card at no mana cost, would I not be considered the owner? Or is it because it came from the opponents deck, that they are the owner?
Please advise - this is important to me, because it makes shenanigans possible through Rona, Tolarian Obliterator not as interesting as they could be.
Thank you very much - the game is great!
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[Deleted User] commented
The updated Comprehensive Rules are available for download as are the release notes. I usually download the newest version of the CR when a set comes out, and look up whatever I need to in that file.
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MajorDanger#74518 commented
Hey @Rezzahan#77802 - thank you for those excerpts! I won't try to transform anymore praetors like that if they state "owner" and I'm not the one who brought the card to the game.
While reading those rulings, I also noticed the rules page hasn't been updated to include battles as permanents. Any idea when or where that might be available?
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[Deleted User] commented
The OWNER of an object is the player who brought the card into the game. The CONTROLLER of an object is the player who gets to use it. The two are not nessessarily the same.
108.3. The owner of a card in the game is the player who started the game with it in their deck. If a card
is brought into the game from outside the game rather than starting in a player’s deck, its owner is
the player who brought it into the game. If a card starts the game in the command zone, its owner is
the player who put it into the command zone to start the game.[...]110.2. A permanent’s owner is the same as the owner of the card that represents it (unless it’s a token;
see rule 111.2). A permanent’s controller is, by default, the player under whose control it entered
the battlefield. Every permanent has a controller.