Transformations

Double-faced cards that transform are a rather interesting kind of card that was introduced in the Innistrad set. Due to this unique peculiarity, they can also cause a bit of confusion sometimes due to how they work.

Many such cards have a triggered ability that transforms the card (when it's on the battlefield.) One of the most typical such ability is "at the beginning of each upkeep, if no spells were cast last turn, transform (this card)." Many players actually don't realize that this is a normal triggered ability that uses the stack, and therefore can be responded to. (This is because the ability starts with the word "at".) While it's not very usual for this to have any effect on anything, there are some cases where it does. A good example is Ulvenwald Mystics/Primordials.

If this card is on the "Primordials" side and its transform ability triggers, that ability can be responded to: The card's controller can activate its regereneration ability before the transform ability resolves. Therefore the permanent becomes Ulvenwald Mystics that has a regeneration shield.

Anyway, that was not really the reason why I wanted to write this article. Rather, I want to pose a problem: Suppose that there's an Afflicted Deserter on the battlefield, and it's going to transform (because no spells were cast last turn.)

 

If it transforms, its controller can destroy an artifact. As a response to the triggered ability, someone casts Snakeform targeting Afflicted Deserter. What happens?

(As a side note, it's useful to know that this is actually the earliest possible time in a turn that any player can do anything. The beginning phase consists of the untap, the upkeep, and the draw steps. No players get priority during the untap step, and any ability that triggers "at the beginning of upkeep" will trigger before any player gets priority. Therefore it's not possible to do anything to Afflicted Deserter during that turn before its ability triggers.)

To many players it can be unclear what exactly happens in this situation. Does Snakeform stop the transformation? Does it not stop it, but only affect the Afflicted Deserter side and not the Werewolf Ransacker side? Does it affect both sides? Is it perhaps a question of timestamps?

To understand exactly what's going on, we have to understand double-faced cards and what it means when they transform. The key point to understand is that transforming a double-faced card is, effectively, just changing its printed information. When it transforms it's not a new permanent, but the same one. It's effectively just as if its text and other information had been replaced with some other text.

Note that this is not an effect that uses layers. It's literally information that's printed on the card, and thus defines the card, even if this information changes when it transforms. Other effects, such as the one caused by Snakeform, will affect it on layers regardless of what the card text might be saying at any given moment.

(To be more precise, the "becomes a green Snake" is in effect on layer 4, the "loses all abilities" is in effect on layer 6, and the 1/1 power/toughness setting ability is in effect on layer 7b.)

So Snakeform will make it a 1/1 green Snake with no abilities regardless of whether it transforms or not.

So the remaining question is: Does it transform? The answer is yes: The transformation ability is already on the stack, and therefore is unaffected by whatever else may be affecting the card. When the ability resolves, it will transform the card as usual.

Therefore when all resolves, it will become a 1/1 green Snake named Werewolf Ransacker with no abilities. Thus it will not destroy any artifact (because at this point it has no such ability.)