Opalescence and Parallax Enchantments

[Nantuko88]

Okay, a big debate was brought about in my play testing group with no solid conclusion. If you target a bunch of critters with your parallax wave, and remove it with another parallax wave in response (having Opalescence)....do the critters stay permanently removed? Same with Parallaxe Tide, can you permanently remove lands in this way?

A question and answer on Wizards says it does work....but the oracle text of the Parallaxes disagrees.

Can anyone help? Thanks.

[Bovinious]

Parallax Wave and Tide have an errata that says "remove a land/creature from the game if Parallax w/e is in play, so when those triggers resolve and the enchantment isnt in play, the triggers will not remove the land/creature from the game at all (before this errata they used to remove things forever in the situation you described). I think thats what you were trying to ask.

[Cabal-kun]

Wouldn't Stifle allow you to permanently remove what ever you currently have removed with a Parallax Enchantment?

[Bovinious]

Yes Stifling the leaves play trigger would cause them to be gone forever, thats a different scenario though.

[Nantuko88]

Thank you, I guess I accidentlly cheated at a Type 1.5.....ehhhh.

Oh Well.

Without that trick Replenish is somewhat dead. I think thats a power level errata, and may be undone.

Thanks again.

[tivadar]

Without that trick Replenish is somewhat dead. I think thats a power level errata, and may be undone.

I think the term "power level errata" is being overused. The errata on the Parallax enchantments was not a power level errata, it was an errata to make the card work as it was initially intended. While I can't necessarily back this up, I'm sure most would agree that the intention was never to have Parallax leave play and keep the creatures/lands removed.

[Bovinious]

The reason for the errata, if I remember correctly from an article, is that "cards should work the way the majority of players think they work" or something to that effect. Basically they thought it was so counter-intuitive for the Parallax Wave/Tide to remove creatures/lands forever in that way because they obviously were meant to temporarily remove.

I think that to a degree this is power level errata though, just because that wasnt how WOTC wanted the cards to work doesnt mean thats not how they do work (as printed). Players should be free to "break" cards, and its not like Opalescence and Parallax Wave/Tide were printed in different blocks or separated by eras with different rules, WOTC should accept the fact that they created an "unfair" interaction and un-errata them. Not like any of this matters much anyways, sure it would make Replenish a little stronger but probably still not viable.