Announcing Cavern of Souls (or lack thereof) on its mana abilities

[Secretly.A.Bee]

My opponent is playing MUD, I'm playing blue. He plays cavern naming Construct. Several turns later, he taps several lands and announces the casting of Kuldotha Forgemaster. I Force of Will. He points to a tapped Cavern and says it's uncounterable.

This isn't in a sanctioned event, but we would like to know what is required from the MUD player and what the ruling would be on whether or not it would be countered. Is he required to announce which mana source is being used from cavern, or is it up to me to ask?

Please list rulings to answer if you can, I need to be able to cite this, thank you for your help.

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[iamajellydonut]

So long as your opponent has been clear what Cavern of Souls is naming and so long as the activation is clearly displayed, the default assumption when casting a creature spell of the named type is that the second ability is being activated. Your opponent does not need to verbally say anything.


http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/Mag...y/feature/196a
"If you control Cavern of Souls, and you cast a creature spell of the chosen type, the presumption is that you activated the second ability. The spell can't be countered. As the controller of Cavern of Souls, it is your responsibility to make sure the card is clearly visible (no stacking under other lands, your elbows, etc.). You don't have to expressly say anything when casting the creature spell, but your opponent has the right to ask you to clarify your actions at any time. If you control more than one Cavern of Souls, it is your responsibility to make sure it is clear what creature types you have named for each of them. If, for whatever reason, you want to activate Cavern of Soul's first ability and leave your creature spell vulnerable to counter Magic, you must explicitly say this as you cast the spell. If you're going to an event in the near future and you have further questions, please make sure to ask the judge staff at that event."

http://blogs.magicjudges.org/rulesti...-be-countered/
"With that in mind, the higher-ups in the Judging world discussed it, and ORIGINALLY declared that the default was the colorless; you had to declare otherwise. That is no longer the case, thanks to a recent reversal. Right now, the [O]fficial ruling on it is that if you tap a Cavern to pay for a creature spell that matches the type named for that Cavern, that you’re producing colored (uncounterable) mana unless you say otherwise. So, if you tap a Cavern set to “Giant”, 3 Forests, and 2 Islands to cast a Primeval Titan, that Titan is uncounterable unless you say that you’re using colorless mana with your Cavern. Because of this, it’s very important that both players know exactly what creature type Cavern is naming at all times."

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I'm going to get down to the nitty-gritty and suggest that cards with the subtype of construct such as Metalworker and Silent Arbiter where the subtype is unlisted would warrant a vocal cue. Any reason why I shouldn't expect this?

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[iamajellydonut]

Any reason why I shouldn't expect this?

For the same reason that you shouldn't expect handholding when your opponent casts a Revised Goblin King or a Korean Heritage Druid. You have the opportunity to look at the Oracle text of any card at any time. It is not your opponent's fault if you fail to "RTFC" as they say.

[MGB]

Wow. How about that. I didn't know that I could just tap the Cavern and play things without explicitly declaring that I was tapping it for the colored mana.

All this time in tournaments I was going out of my way to clearly communicate to the opponent that I was, say, "Tapping Cavern for WHITE to pay for THALIA."

I guess I could probably catch more opponents off-guard and get them to waste Force of Wills if I instead just went ahead and tapped it without saying anything.

[iamajellydonut]

All this time in tournaments I was going out of my way to clearly communicate to the opponent that I was, say, "Tapping Cavern for WHITE to pay for THALIA."

I mean, being vocal and being clear is absolutely still the politically correct thing to do, but, yes, hoping your opponent makes a mistake is a valid option.

That being said, and this is something that I was editing into my previous post before MGB responded, requiring your opponent to be more vocal when activating Cavern of Souls to cast creatures without a printed type doesn't actually make sense. Because the first thing that should pop into your mind when you spin Metalworker around and see that it doesn't have a creature type is that there hasn't been a creature without a creature type for the past eight years. So, in such a scenario where this would be relevant, either you are ignorant about general game principles, too lazy or proud to look up the Oracle text, or didn't actually look at the creature type in the first place. None of those are your opponent's fault.

[Julian23]

Your opponent pointing at the Cavern and telling you it's uncounterable is already nice of him. I wouldn't have given away the information that you made a mistake by pointing it out before the FoW resolved.

I remember that at the very beginning (first couple of weeks?) there were some incidents in SCG Open matches where people were expected to announce it but WotC quickly issued a statement that people are actually not supposed to announce.

[Quasim0ff]

Your opponent pointing at the Cavern and telling you it's uncounterable is already nice of him. I wouldn't have given away the information that you made a mistake by pointing it out before the FoW resolved.

I remember that at the very beginning (first couple of weeks?) there were some incidents in SCG Open matches where people were expected to announce it but WotC quickly issued a statement that people are actually not supposed to announce.

Some1 (Rapheal Levy, I think?) actually tried to do this at a pro tour. I think this made for the "change" (ie. assumption of how to use cavern) afterwards.