Duplicant
Last Modified 05.07.2020
We are welcoming a very changeable fellow today.
Oracle Text:
Artifact Creature — Shapeshifter
Imprint — When Duplicant enters the battlefield, you may exile target nontoken creature.
As long as a card exiled with Duplicant is a creature card, Duplicant has the power, toughness, and creature types of the last creature card exiled with Duplicant. It's still a Shapeshifter.
Duplicant is an artifact creature with Shapeshifter subtype. This means it has two card types: Artifact and Creature. The Shapeshifter subtype does not have anything particular about it.
Duplicant is a legal target for Acidic Slime's ability, as it has the Artifact card type.
You may choose to target Duplicant twice with Decimate: as a creature and an artifact.
Duplicant's mana cost does not contain colored mana symbols, and the type line does not feature any color indicators. Therefore, it is colorless by definition. It may get a color through an effect (Turn to Frog).
Imprint
With the release of Magic2014, Duplicant got its text updated:
Imprint—When Duplicant enters the battlefield, you may exile target nontoken creature.
As long as a card exiled with Duplicant is a creature card, Duplicant has the power, toughness, and creature types of the last creature card exiled with Duplicant. It's still a Shapeshifter.
Duplicant has two abilities. One is marked with ability keyword Imprint, it is triggering and it triggers when Duplicant enters the battlefield. It doesn’t matter how it appears there, the main thing is for it to actually hit the field.
When activating Master Transmuter's ability, you may lift your Duplicant and slam it right back. This will cause its EtB-trigger to go off and exile [another] creature.
When Phyrexian Metamorph enters the battlefield as a copy of Duplicant, its triggering ability goes off.
When you activate Dimir Doppelganger's ability and exile Duplicant from the graveyard, Dimir Doppelganger becomes a copy of it. Imprint doesn’t trigger however, because Duplicant did not enter the battlefield, it merely changed characteristics.
Duplicant's triggered ability contains the word “target” in its text, so it is targeted. It means you must choose a target creature if there is any. When there are no legal targets, the trigger is simply removed from the stack. If a previously legal target becomes illegal before resolution, the trigger is countered.
When Duplicant enters the battlefield alone, nothing interesting happens. You choose itself with its triggered ability, and as it resolves you decide to not exile the target creature.
If you spot an enemy Phantasmal Image on the battlefield that's copying some scary creature, you may get rid of it by targeting it with Duplicant's trigger. Note that as the trigger attempts to resolve it will get countered, as the target will not be there by that time. Phantasmal Image's trigger will have sent it to its owner's graveyard earlier.
You target Siege-Gang Commander with Duplicant’s first ability, your cunning opponent activates the Commander's ability in response, and sacrifices it to pay the ability cost. Duplicant's ability gets countered on resolution, and Duplicant remains itself.
Note that Duplicant's triggered ability is not related in any way to casting it. You cannot counter Duplicant by getting its triggered ability countered. Those are two independent objects. As a matter of fact, the trigger goes off only after Duplicant has actually entered the battlefield.
Alright, we got it, Duplicant has invaded the field and its trigger resolves.You exile target non-token creature. Now's the time for the second ability to be set in motion, and this one is static. It means there is no such moment when it is on the stack or resolves. It functions the entire time while Duplicant is on the battlefield.
Duplicant's abilities are linked, which means its second ability refers to the last card in the exile zone sent there as a result of resolving its first ability, not any other card exiled in any other way.
Why did the text get updated in relation to the last exiled card? How can there be more than one?
Here is the card that caused Duplicant to get the new text. When using Strionic Resonator's ability, you may copy Duplicant's ability and thus exile two (or more) different creatures at once. How are you supposed to determine the type and power/toughness? No real way. Each creature has its own set of these characteristics. What do we do? Pick one!
When Duplicant's trigger is copied, the copy is put onto the stack above the original. It attempts to resolve first. Duplicant will usually have the stats of the creature chosen as target of the original Imprint trigger, because it will be attempting to resolve last. Of course, any triggered ability may become countered, and then, in theory, some other target may be that last creature exiled with the first ability.
The second ability will only be effective if the card exiled with Duplicant's first ability continues to be exiled, and is still a creature card. If that isn’t true, Duplicant becomes itself: a 2/4 Shapeshifter.
You imprint Chimeric Mass while it is a creature. When it is exiled, it is a noncreature artifact. Duplicant cannot have its stats, it will be itself.
You imprint an enemy creature on Duplicant. The opponent targets it with Riftsweeper's ability, and as it resolves he shuffles it into his library. Duplicant does not get characteristics of a card that is no longer exiled.
Finally, let us talk about the case when everything is as it should be: we imprint a creature and it resides in exile for the rest of the game. The ability effect states that Duplicant gets the creature types and P/T of the creature, while “still being a Shapeshifter”. Note that there is no mentioning any “copies”, Duplicant is not an instance of copying effects!
As usual, let us analyze the effect in parts.
Duplicant's Type
Part of Duplicant's second ability grants it the types of the last creature exiled with its first ability. It has the addition “It's still a Shapeshifter”. Suprisingly, Duplicant preserves all creature types it currently has, and gains the creature types of the creature exiled with its ability:
When you return Duplicant to the battlefield using Rise from the Grave, it will have Shapeshifter, Zombie and all the types of the creature you exile with its first ability.
If you imprint an Amoeboid Changeling, your Duplicant has all creature types. Since the Amoeba's ability is CDA, it functions in all zones including the exile. Amoeba has all creature types, so Duplicant “inherits” them.
By exiling a Dryad Arbor we get a Duplicant with subtypes Shapeshifter and Dryad. However, our Duplicant will not be a Forest, as Forest is a land type, not a creature type.
Duplicant's Power and Toughness
Finally, the most fun part. As I have already mentioned, Duplicant's second ability functions all the time, and therefore constantly checks the exiled creature's stats. What a caring ability :)
Knight of the Reliquary's ability is usually static. It functions only while the Knight is on the battlefield. So it doesn’t really matter how many lands its owner has in his or her graveyard, Duplicant with an imprinted Knight will be 2/2.
Tarmogoyf has a CDA, and it works in any zone, so your Duplicant that exiled a Tarmo will be growing with each new card type hitting any graveyard.
- ⇑ Commander (or General) is a legendary creature that begins the game in the Command zone and defines the deck colors and land types in Commander (or EDH) format.
- ⇑ All cards in exile zone have no controller. For effects requesting a card's controller, we use its owner. Refer to Everything under control for more details.
Translated by Witas Spasovski
If Duplicant becomes a copy of Myr Welder through Mirrorweave's effect, and an artifact creature had been exiled with Myr Welder's activated ability previously, Duplicant will be linked to the exiled creature, but only as long as Mirrorweave's effect lasts, just as any other creature. When it expires, Duplicant will not be able to refer to the creature card exiled with Myr Welder's ability.