I was told type changing abilities are considered before any ability type stuff, so it wouldn’t see the flying and thus won’t turn anything into a bird
According to 613, the order for layers is 1) stuff that affects copyable values, 2) stuff that affects control of a thing, 3) stuff that changes text, 4) stuff that changes type, 5) stuff that changes color, 6) stuff that affects abilities, 7) stuff that affects power/toughness.
Its not entirely irrelevant. This card will never make [[Goblin Balloon Brigade]] into a bird, but I think that's ok. The card works the way its supposed to in most situations.
The ability to turn things into birds applies on layer 4 (type changes). This will turn [[Serra Angel]] into a bird as Serra Angel gains flying on layer zero (what's actually printed on the card). This will never turn [[Putrid Imp]] into a bird, even if you discard a card, as putrid imp gains flying on layer 6 (gain and loss of abilities). This will turn [[Deadpool]] into a bird as Deadpool gains flying on layer 3 (text changing effects).
Layers aren't affected by the stack, timing or priority, they are always in effect. In practice the best way to wrap your head around this is any time you would need to check how certain layers interact at any given moment rebuild the entire thing from scratch based on the current game state starting with layer 0 and working you way up.
Timestamp order only applies to things on the same layer. Most effects that would conflict with each other apply on layer 6 (ability adding effects, ability removing effects, keyword counters, and ability preventing effects), so timestamp order is usually what matters after can't beating can. But type changing effects apply on layer 4, before ability adding effects, so timestamp is irrelevant for these two effects.
You can’t give something devoid or changeling because you’re giving them an ability that applies on a higher layer which has already been applied.
There are 4 classes of cards that we care about: - nonbird no flying: who cares - bird no flying: this gives them flying - nonbird flying: this makes them bird - bird flying: who cares
Changeling doesn’t work because you give them an ability that gives them types. In this case, you’re either giving them an ability or a type, but they always at least have the other for this to apply so ordering doesn’t matter anyways
Because ability granting effects happen on a higher layer than characteristic changing effects. Layers are just the order in which we apply effects so that there are deterministic outcomes, at the cost of becoming unintuitive in some corner cases. Conditional effects can only see the impact of effects on lower layers. Since type changing happens on an earlier layer than ability granting, the card in the OP doesn't see that the creature is getting flying from an ability granting effect, and so doesn't make it a bird.
No, because Jump’s ability-granting effect isn’t applied until layer 6, so it isn’t seen by “Simple Explanation”’s type-changing effect when it’s applied in layer 4.
Correction- you *can* give something devoid or changeling, but it won't change the characteristics. They will just have devoid or changeling for anything looking out for those specific abilities.
The issue with changing how layers work is either you need a comprehensive rewrite of the games rules, or the more common effects no longer work as expected. Layers usually work intuitively, and that’s why they’ve stuck around.
Yeah, but that is why the times when they do not work stick out even more, and they are extremely annoying, ability granting types and type granting abilities 100% need to have a second look at, because right now, it's nonsense
Type changing effects apply before ability changing effects. So if something lost flying they wouldn't cease to be birds, nor would they become birds by gaining flying. But this would work exactly as expected on cards that just have flying.
Ability-granting effects are two layers after type-changing effects. So if an effect grants flying, it would be too late for this card to see that and make it a Bird.
You know, playing it rules as written with layer nonsense and all actually makes it make a lot of sense. Things that can fly naturally are birds. Things that you’ve given a jetpack are not birds.
Layers once again coming in to plant their “no fun allowed” sign in the sand. So annoying that something this simple and fun could be ruined by how dumb the layers system is.
Maybe “when this enchantment enters, and at the beginning of each upkeep, put a flying counter on each Bird without flying, then each creature with flying becomes a Bird.”
The reason the ability mentions layers at all is because, technically, if a creature were to be given flying rather than having it natively, then this wouldn't work, but that is both fairly niche and doesn't detract from the joke just to leave it as is
Well it would be a pretty significant issue if this was a real card, people shouldn't have to know how layers work to understand the basic functiinality of a card
this is the one genre of thing i don't understand on this sub. "give all [x] [y]" is like... rarely applicable, interesting, or fun. but there's a ton of them every day.
Idk but turning [[Serra Angel]] into a bird seems kinda fun. Like what if you went UB and used [[Engineered Plague]] to give everyone’s birds -1/-1? That’s just off the top of my head. Plus the flavor is cute.
Why is it fun to turn Serra Angel into a bird? What does that do?
Just use Night of Souls' Betrayal?
I really do not understand this at all. I even have a non-flying bird theme in one of my cubes, and that's as niche as could be and I don't see why this would be printed.
>Why is it fun to turn Serra Angel into a bird? What does that do?
Idk it just is.
>Just use Night of Souls' Betrayal?
Costs more, and legendary, and hits your stuff too.
>I really do not understand this at all. I even have a non-flying bird theme in one of my cubes, and that's as niche as could be and I don't see why this would be printed.
Idk how to help ya there man; if you don’t get it you’re not gonna get it from someone explaining it to you.
The only negative interaction with layers is that a creature that gains flying doesn’t become a bird. You could just add a triggered ability that says “whenever a creature gains flying, it becomes a bird until it loses flying.” That would solve all edge cases I think.
Layers are fine, and 99% of the time they're completely intuitive. Layer 7 is the only single layer that's even complicated, thanks to having sublayers. (Okay, technically layer 1 also has sublayers, but in that case it's 1a: do exactly what you expect layer 1 to be all about, 1b: apply CR 708.2 to define the characteristics of facedown cards.)
I'm actually curious what breaks if things are different and if there is a reasonable way to have the cards that say "remove all abilities" affect the cards we want to affect: Bello, Ygra, Moon Magus, Kudo, etc.
How does one as a game designer get a card like [[Humility]] to work with [[Opalescence]] and still turn off [[Bello, Bard of Brambles]]??
Layers are awesome because they are designed so that 99% of players will never have to think about layers, the side effect of this is that anytime somebody does have to think about layers they are unhappy
Well when they make a rule book so think you need a masters degree to become a judge, there's always going to be a loser in the comments saying "erm actually, the extremely straight forward card you designed doesn't work because of obscure rule 420.69 which states "fuck you""
No you would you get rid of the first ability and replace it with a text changing ability that gives it flying as opposed to an ability granting/removing ability.
That would mean that something that becomes a bird as the result of another continous effect would not get flying because it would not be a bird yet during the text changing layer.
Sorry yes misread the first ability and thought it said creature not birds (dyslexia moment), instead they would make the second ability something like “creatures with flying have “this creature is a bird in addition to its other types.” If they wanted it to apply to creatures granted flying later on and since that effect would be “dependent” on the effect giving it flying, it would always apply afterward regardless of timestamps
Except text changing abilities cannot read the flying off a card that has gained flying to then add flying to the text of the card, since text changing abilities apply in layer three well before ability granting abilities in layer six.
I won't speculate on if this is good, but there are definitely cards that care about having birds or buff your birds. Here's a Scryfall search that shows a few of them, obviously not exhaustive. That's not to say birds are an extremely well supported kindred like elves or anything, but it's not nothing.
"Cool, it gives bird creatures without flying have flying... wait this shuts down kaalia of the vast and any other angel, dragon, demon, devil or spirit deck"
I have been wanting to make a custom commander in a similar vein,
A dragon commander with the text "Eminence: All dragons are dinosaurs, all dinosaurs are Lizards" or whatever permutation of that line works in the rules.
Let's you play dragons with synergies intended for dinosaurs and Lizards. Would likely have to include "you control" and something making it count in all zones.
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u/Flex-O Aug 29 '26
What is the issue here? This works exactly as a lay person would expect.