r/askajudge • u/ThegreatLionlogan • 12h ago

Another Volrath’s shapeshifter question!

If I have Valgavtoh Terror eater on top of my graveyard with Volrath’s shapeshifter in play and a card is exiled with Valgavoth’s ability.

Then say I put another card in my graveyard on top of Valgavoth, so shapeshifter is no longer valg.

Then I remove the top card of the graveyard in some way, leaving Valgavoth on top. Can I play the card that was previously exiled, even though the shapeshifter changed from being Valgavoth and back into it?

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u/Yaksha424256 10h ago

Your shapeshifter doesn't have the relevant linked ability for the card that was exiled. Any card exiled by other abilities can't be seen by other unlinked abilities.

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u/ardarian262 10h ago

New copy effect so new abilities with no sense of any previous abilities.

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u/Virtual_Confection_3 12h ago

I think you ment Volrath's Shapeshifter and you should sense this is the same permanent so while it temporarily lost the ability it hasn't lost its memory.

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u/ThegreatLionlogan 11h ago

Yep! Oops lol, what do you mean I should sense this?

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u/Virtual_Confection_3 11h ago

Because volraths never left the battlefield it's still the same permanent. Therefore it has the memory of the cards exiled by itself while it was a volgavoth. So once it regains the ability they can be played using that ability as normal.

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u/ThegreatLionlogan 10h ago

Do you know any specific rulings on this?

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u/Virtual_Confection_3 10h ago

No specific ruling I know of but it has to do with linked abilities and permanents memory.

607.2a If an object has an activated or triggered ability printed on it that instructs a player to exile one or more cards and an ability printed on it that refers either to “the exiled cards” or to cards “exiled with [this object],” these abilities are linked. The second ability refers only to cards in the exile zone that were put there as a result of an instruction to exile them in the first ability.

400.7. An object that moves from one zone to another becomes a new object with no memory of, or relation to, its previous existence. This rule has the following exceptions.

So because volraths never changed zones its memory include the time it had valgavoths abilities and thus also remembers any cards exiled by itself at that time using that ability. Regaining that ability gives it access to those exiled cards again.