Mirage Mirror and the stack question

[CardAgain Sweater]

I have a question for the forum regarding Mirage Mirror and timing the stack; I think I have worked it out, but am far from expert on rules (not asking if the following sequence is advisable, just if it is possible    )

Board State: Mirage Mirror, Anointed Procession, and Pride Sovreign, along with a few unimportant cat tokens.

Tap 2, change MM to Pride Sovereign, effect resolves

Then tap for W and exert copied PS to make two 1/1 cat tokens - while this ability is on the stack pay 2 to change MM to a copy of Anointed Procession. The change to AP resolves first, then the cat tokens come in, eight of em.

The original, unused Pride Sovereign is now a 10/10, and there are 8 lifelink 1/1 chumps. Sure, the Mirror will still be exerted, and I'm not sure how that works when it stops being a creature. If I had a regal caracal out, I could pay 2 more to copy that and buff all the cats a little more.

Question 1 - is the way I laid out the sequence of effects on the stack correct? Would this work from a rules perspective?

Question 2 - the rules on mechanics for exert always refer to a creature being affected by not untapping next untap step - what happens when Mirage Mirror exerts while a creature and then stops being a creature? Is it still affected by the exert drawback?

[Mishra]

You have to take into consideration that once Mirage Mirror's abilty has resolved, it will lose it's ability to change into something else.
So once the Mirror became a copy of Pride Sovereign you have no way to change it to Anointed Procession after you activated the exert abilty of your copy.

The only way you can change Mirage Mirror into something else is with activating it in response to itself,.

In your given example, there would be only one way to profit from the situation.
Activate Mirror and target the Pride Sovereign.
In response target the Anointed Procession.
Let the Procession activation resolve and while the first activation is still on the stack use the exert ability of the original (!!!) Pride Sovereign to create tokens.
Now let everything resolve and you will end up with a 10/10 Mirror copying the Sovereign.

EDIT: This however only works if YOU control the original Pride Sovereign...if not, well then it won't work out for you at all....

And for your second question. Yes, when Mirage Mirror copies a creature and gets exerted it will not untap during the next untap step even though it is no creature anymore at that point.

[Goon]

Mishra is correct.
Official rules state permanent, i,e, exert doesn't care what type of permanent it is.

701.37. Exert
701.37a To exert a permanent, you choose to have it not untap during your next untap step.
701.37b A permanent can be exerted even if it’s not tapped or has already been exerted in a turn. If you exert a permanent more than once before your next untap step, each effect causing it not to untap expires during the same untap step.
701.37c An object that isn’t on the battlefield can’t be exerted.
701.37d “You may exert [this creature] as it attacks” is an optional cost to attack (see rule 508.1g). Some objects with this static ability have a triggered ability that triggers “when you do” printed in the same paragraph. These abilities are linked. (See rule 607.2g.)

[CardAgain Sweater]

You have to take into consideration that once Mirage Mirror's abilty has resolved, it will lose it's ability to change into something else.
So once the Mirror became a copy of Pride Sovereign you have no way to change it to Anointed Procession after you activated the exert abilty of your copy.

The only way you can change Mirage Mirror into something else is with activating it in response to itself,.

In your given example, there would be only one way to profit from the situation.
Activate Mirror and target the Pride Sovereign.
In response target the Anointed Procession.
Let the Procession activation resolve and while the first activation is still on the stack use the exert ability of the original (!!!) Pride Sovereign to create tokens.
Now let everything resolve and you will end up with a 10/10 Mirror copying the Sovereign.

And for your second question. Yes, when Mirage Mirror copies a creature and gets exerted it will not untap during the next untap step even though it is no creature anymore at that point.

Thank you for the quick response, and for explaining both the what and the why.

So, it would work, as long as I use the sequence you laid out! I likes me stupid combos. The mirror/cat could actually attack at 11/11, now that I think about it (2/2, with +1/+1 from nine other cats). Thats a hell of a deal for 5 mana.

As for the exert part, this is a lesson to read the official rules rather than just Wizards' articles on set mechanics

Thanks again!

[Mishra]

Thats a hell of a deal for 5 mana.

Thanks again!

Yeah, you can pull some nice tricks with the Mirror.
About your hell of a deal....well.....what about throwing in a sixth mana for Appeal (Appeal//Authority)....?

You're welcome...I love answering rules questions....guess I should consider taking a lvl 1 Judge test maybe...

[CardAgain Sweater]

Thats a hell of a deal for 5 mana.

Thanks again!

Yeah, you can pull some nice tricks with the Mirror.
About your hell of a deal....well.....what about throwing in a sixth mana for Appeal (Appeal//Authority)....?

You're welcome...I love answering rules questions....guess I should consider taking a lvl 1 Judge test maybe...

Appeal to Authority is in the deck i referred to in original question   I didnt link to it, its under Budget Standard Tournament Deck, http://deck.tk/2yhQ5nfi

Judges are great! I use them all the time! We need more, so it might be a consideration for you. Judges get compensated for official events (more than promos, i hope), don't they?

[CardAgain Sweater]

New Mirage Mirror question regarding stack position and instants:

Player A has 7 untapped lands (color not important), untapped mirage mirror, untapped eternalized adorned pouncer.

Player B has one untapped swamp, Retribution of the Ancients and an untapped Vebuild with five +1/+1 counters on it.

Player A taps 2 to activate ability of Mirage Mirror to change it to a copy of Adorned Pouncer. In response, Player B taps swamp, activates ability of Retribution of the ancients to remove four counters from Vebuild to give the ORIGINAL Adorned Pouncer -4/-4. This kills adorned pouncer by state-based action after ability of Retribution of the Ancients resolves and before the mirror adtivation resolves.

Player A stipulates that Mirror did its targeting when cost was paid, 'took a picture' of the adorned pouncer, so the fact that it is not there when mirror ability resolves does not prevent the copy from taking place.

Guys working at LGS are nice and knowledgeable and act as judges, and with a not very well explained resaoning, say yes, removing the adorned pouncer before the mirror's ability resolves would not stop the mirror from changing.

The players went to the judges and agreed to accept whatever the ruling was - for this game. Looking at the rules, it seems to me that spells or abilities are countered if a previously legal target does not exist when the spell or ability resolves. Is there anything special about the mirror's ability that makes the first bolded part not apply? Perhaps something about the mirror or ability is another section of the rules 608 (where I looked for targets of abilities). Is it because nothing in the mirror's ability is 'happening to' the target creature, but the mirror itself instead? Killing the target of a buff spell is pretty straightforward - the spell goes to resolve, remembers what its target is and then cant buff a nonexistent creature. The closest I could find is maybe the judges were assumming it was like a clone effect; however, clone effects specifically avoid using the word "target", so it would have been an improper comparison if that was the judges' thought.

I want to get this right for the next time it comes up.

Also I believe Player A could have just retargeted the original Adorned Pouncer for 2 more mana in response to Player B's ability going on the stack. It would have gone on the stack ahead of the -4/-4, but Player A wasn't smart enough to think of it right then.

[Soren841]

If the creature died before the ability resolved, the target is no longer legal and the ability does nothing

[CardAgain Sweater]

I may not have been clear enough; my question was in bold. I didn't know why the judges ruled the way they did, and was trying to find out what rules they might have been using to make their call.

To reiterate, I believe the judges were wrong on their call, Mirage Mirror's ability should have been countered if player A did nothing else, the mirror would be a mirror after ability *tries* and fails to resolve. They posited that the ability did it's targeting when cast so it knew to look at Adorned Pouncer to find out what the mirror changes to, regardless of the AP no longer being on the battlefield  (as a token, it wasn't even in the gy).

The only thing I found was rule 608.2b. This is the culprit, I think. Actually not the rule, but the judges not being aware the rule had been modified in a very big way.

As late as August 2011, the rule's last sentence read:
The effect may still determine information about illegal targets, though, and other parts of the effect for which those targets are not illegal may still affect them.

Meaning the judges thought MM could read the copyable aspects of the target even though it became illegal after targeting, and the change of MM - or "other parts of the effect" would still happen as they are not happening to the now illegal target.

However, the current rules read very differently. Here is the new version of the same sentence:
If part of the effect requires information about an illegal target, it fails to determine any such information.
Any part of the effect that requires that information won’t happen.

That is a big difference. Understandable mistake by the LGS employees as long as they are 'judges' in the sense that doesn't mean serious competition level. I haven't been able to track down when the change was made (yet, I'm still looking for a log of rule changes, I'm not even positive on it being the old way up until 2011, might have changed earlier.  RULE CHANGED JULY 2015 WITH ORIGINS). The match in question was just for funsies, not during a sanctioned event.

So, my best guess is it was a case of part-time judges making honest mistake regarding a rule change to corner case interactions. I would still appreciate any other thoughts on how the judges got to their determination.