Stolen Identity

Stolen Identity is a sorcery. Rules allow a player to cast sorcery spells only during his or her main phase and only if the stack is empty. A player may also cast a sorcery spell whenever an effect allows or prescribes to do so. Today, we’ll meet another such effect with the Cipher.

Stolen Identity is a targeted spell. The target is chosen during casting and must be legal at that time. You may not target a permanent with Shroud or Protection from Blue. A Hexproof permanent is only a legal target if you or your teammate (in a 2HG game for instance) controls it. Don’t forget that the legality of the target is again checked at the beginning of the spell resolution.

If the initial target of the spell is still legal and the spell isn’t countered or removed from the stack, upon resolution the most curious part starts: we start following the instructions in the spell’s rules text in the order they are printed. First of all, we put a token on the battlefield under our control that is a copy of the targeted artifact or creature. Then, if the spell is represented by a physical card, we may use the effect that is generated by the Cipher first ability. If we resolve a copy, we won’t get Cipher at all. Fair play.

Phyrexian Metamoph will tell you more about copying artifacts and creatures. He does know it all. For the adult readers there is a more serious article called The Attack of Clones or Copying.

Cipher

So, the Cipher’s first ability is a spell ability. Not every player knows such abilities exist. These abilities are followed as instructions during resolution of an instant or sorcery spell. This means that encoding is done only during the resolution of the spell with Cipher and only after we apply the spell’s main effect (the one that precedes Cipher in the card’s text).

Cipher only functions if the spell with Cipher is on the stack and only if it is represented by a card. This means that a card with Cipher cannot be exiled from the hand and become encoded on a creature, because the ability doesn’t function when the card is in the hand.

Copies of the spell with Cipher do not follow the rules of this ability as they are not represented by cards.

The effect of the Cipher first ability allows exiling the card from the stack and encoding it on a creature under the control of the caster.

• The effect doesn’t prescribe the caster to do that but allows doing so. The word “may” is the clue here. If, for any reason, the caster doesn’t want to encode, he or she may choose not to do so. In such case the spell goes to the graveyard as the last part of the resolution and nothing else happens.
• If the caster chooses to use Cipher, the spell is exiled from the stack; it doesn’t make even a short appearance in the owner’s graveyard.
• Mind that the Cipher ability itself is not targeted. Creature under the control of the caster may be chosen even if they have Shroud or Protection.
• No player has priority during resolution of the spell, so nobody can prevent us from encoding a creature.
• A player may only encode on a creature he or she controls.
• Although the players put the Cipher card (like Oblivion Ring) under a creature it is encoded on, the card itself is face-up in exile zone and can be affected by whatever effect that care about cards in exile.

As the encoding is applied after the main effect of Stolen Identity, at this point the player already has a token it makes. So, if that token is a creature, the player may choose to encode on this spell on that creature.

The Cipher second ability is static. It only functions while the Cipher card is encoded on a creature.

The card stays encoded on a creature in two cases:

1. the Cipher card remains exiled;
2. the object (that was a creature during the resolution of the Cipher card) it is encoded on remains on the battlefield.

The encoded card provides the creature a triggered ability:

“Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, you may copy the encoded card and you may cast the copy without paying its mana cost.”

The triggering event of this ability is combat damage dealt by the creature to a player. Combat damage is only the damage dealt by an attacking or blocking creature during the turn-based action of dealing damage during the combat damage step.

The Cipher ability triggers from combat damage even if the damage didn’t cause any visual change.

Combat damage may be redirected from both attacking and defending creatures to any player or players.  In case with Cipher the ability will trigger once for each player that received the combat damage from an encoded creature.

Note that in a 2HG game the combat damage cannot be split between the heads to get 2 triggers.

After performing the SBA all triggered abilities that triggered by this moment, including the trigger from the encoded creature that dealt combat damage, are put on the stack in APNAP order. On resolution of each trigger, the player controlling the trigger will be able to copy an exiled card with Cipher and will be able to cast the copy.

The casting of the copy follows the ordinary rules with the only exceptions: the copy of the Cipher card is created and cast from exile, the casting takes place during the resolution of the trigger i.e. no player has priority.

“Without paying its mana cost” is an alternative cost. It doesn’t allow you to skip paying the mandatory additional costs and it doesn’t forbid you to pay for any optional ones (such as Kicker).

Time for Fun!

If you still have doubts that you can cast a sorcery this way, think about the reason why a sorcery card has Cipher at all. If it doesn’t help, try remember about Cascade, Suspend and Miracle.

The cast copy on the stack is no different from any other spell. It may be countered, exiled from the stack and bounced. The spell effect only takes place on successful resolution.

I draw your attention to the fact that you may copy the card, you may also choose not to. You may then cast the copy or may choose not to cast it. The trigger effect doesn’t force you to do either. If you decide not to cast a copy or you can’t cast it (e.g. no legal targets) the copy will cease to exist the next time SBA are performed. You won’t be able to cast it later.

Finally, I’d like to remind you of the layers system. Don’t be scared, it’s easy! The thing is that a card with Cipher grants the creature it is encoded on a triggered ability. The word “has” indicates it. So, if you encounter an effect that says that the creature loses all abilities, all you need is to find out which effect is more recent. That one will “win”. If the creature loses this triggered ability and then deals combat damage to a player, ability won’t trigger (err.. what ability? there’s none). However, the exiled card stays encoded on a creature.

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Translated by Lev Kotlyar