jacque wrote:drleg3nd wrote:thx jacque..like i said i had an idea just wanted to make sure my assumptions are right
What's confusing to me is when tags like <TRIGGERED_ABILITY> has a replacement_effect="1" to it... Or even linked_ability to it
Someone else may be able to explain it better or more accurately but, to put it simply, replacement_effect="1" means whenever a certain effect occurs, there is an effect or action that replaces the first effect. It is probably easier to explain with examples.
Clone is a 0/0 creature but has a replacement effect as it enters the battlefield so it actually enters the battlefield with the power and toughness of whichever creature you decided to clone. It's the same thing with a card like
Protean Hulk except it enters with counters. Damage redirection spells like
Pariah have a trigger that fires when a player takes damage but the replacement effect redirects that damage to whatever creature
Pariah is attached to.
Geralf's Messenger has a replacement effect as it enters the battlefield so it enters tapped instead of untapped. I don't know if this helps. Like I said, someone may be able to explain it better.
As for linked_ability, thefiremind gives a pretty good explanation of it
here. Basically, if you need to have information available between abilities (e.g., triggered ability, static ability, spell ability, etc..) you need to save that information in a linked ability data chest. For instance, take a card like
Fiend Hunter. It has two triggered abilities: an enter the battlefield and a leaves the battlefield triggered ability. Since the two triggered abilities depend on each other (they both need to know the exiled card) the pointer to the exiled card needs to be saved in a linked ability data chest.
And to reiterate what was said above, MTG Salvation gives good explanations and examples of abilities:
- Triggered Ability - Usually denoted by the wording "when", "whenever" or "as" and in the form of [Whenever/When/As] [Trigger Condition], [Effect]
- Activated Abilities - Usually written as [Cost]: [Effect] with a colon separating the activation cost and the effect
- Static Ability - An ability that isn't a triggered or activated ability (
) but can be identified as something that is always on and cannot be turned off unless it's affected by another spell or ability (like Trample or the P/T of Primalcrux)