Does {Doubling Season} double loyalty counters for planeswalkers? Looked too good to be true!
Yes
10/1/2005 Doubling Season affects cards that "enter the battlefield with" a certain number of counters. Triskelion, for example, would enter the battlefield with six +1/+1 counters on it rather than three.
Planeswalkers follow a similar template.
Awesome!
This one is complicated. Doubling season doubles counters when an EFFECT places them. The +/- abilities of a planeswalker add/remove loyalty counters as a cost, not an effect.
Let's look at {Gideon, Champion of Justice} as an example.
Gideon enters, and as the card tells us, he is to enter at 4 loyalty. This entrance adds 4 loyalty counters, as an effect. This gets doubled by doubling season, putting him at 8 loyalty.
Say you use his +1 ability.
The +1 is a cost. It is not an effect, and is not doubled. However, the ability (adding counters per creature) IS an effect, and these counters would be doubled by doubling season.
Might want to check your rulings on that one. An "effect" i anything in the game that changes. An "ability" would function as you say.
No, that's right. Confirmed by a judge at a sanctioned tourney. "Seems legit" lol
So what's the conclusion?
Gorzo's explanation above is right on the money.
Anyone plugging in the rules? Might be helpful for one who wanna pull this in on a modern.
Quote from: Paraluke on May 30, 2013, 12:49:32 PM
Anyone plugging in the rules? Might be helpful for one who wanna pull this in on a modern.
Here you go:
112.3b (http://imtgapp.com/forum/index.php?action=imtg;area=rule;number=112.3b): Activated abilities have a cost and an effect. They are written as "[Cost]: [Effect.] [Activation instructions (if any).]" A player may activate such an ability whenever he or she has priority. Doing so puts it on the stack, where it remains until it's countered, it resolves, or it otherwise leaves the stack. See rule 602, "Activating Activated Abilities."
Planeswalker abilities are activated abilities. Adding loyalty counters is the cost, not the effect. As Gorzo stated, it will enter with double its loyalty, but will not gain any extra from using loyalty abilities.
And yet still fun to have {Doubling Season} in play, then cast and ultimate {Tamiyo, the Moon Sage}
Doubling season is so damn good lol