We've had Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty in our hands for a bit now, and nothing gets weird questions flowing quite like a new set. This week I'm going to go over some of the more common questions I've seen popping up over the last few weeks.

Reconfigure

The new mechanic introduced in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, reconfigure appears exclusively on Artifact Creature — Equipment permanents and plays a bit like equip. You can pay a permanent's reconfigure cost to attach it to another permanent and pay the cost later to unattach it. It's a bit weird for reconfigure to let us attach a creature to something. Luckily, we've tweaked a few rules to allow this to happen. Below are the relevant rules; I trimmed 301.5c to the relevant bit and added emphasis.

301.5c An Equipment that’s also a creature can’t equip a creature unless that Equipment has reconfigure (see rule 702.151, “Reconfigure”). [...]

Magic Comprehensive Rules

702.151b Attaching an Equipment with reconfigure to another creature causes the Equipment to stop being a creature until it becomes unattached from that creature.

Magic Comprehensive Rules

So... What's All This Mean?

Importantly, reconfigure is not equip. This means equip cost reduction effects like Auriok Steelshaper's or equip alternate costs like the one provided by Bruenor Battlehammer won't apply. You also can't reconfigure any time you could cast an instant if you control Leonin Shikari.

However, all cards that have reconfigure are equipment. This means that you can pay {0} to equip them if you have Puresteel Paladin and enough artifacts for Metalcraft to be online. Note the subtle difference between Bruenor and Puresteel. Bruenor gives your equip abilities an alternate cost. Puresteel, on the other hand, gives all equipment you control a completely different equip ability.

Sigarda's Aid's second ability allows you to attach an equipment with reconfigure when it enters the battlefield.

No Redress

Of course, Dress Down interacts a bit strangely with reconfigure.

Aiden controls an unattached Ogre-Head Helm. They try to attach it to their Grizzly Bears. In response, Naomi flashes in Dress Down. What happens?

The Ogre-Head Helm won't move at all. Because it's a creature while it's unattached, Dress Down removes its abilities. Then, when the reconfigure ability tries to resolve, Ogre-Head Helm no longer has reconfigure. Thanks to 301.5c quoted above, it can't equip a creature. It's an equipment that's also a creature and it doesn't have reconfigure anymore.

Of course, if the Ogre-Head Helm is already attached to something, Dress Down won't affect it at all.

Its Reach Isn't That Long

The Long Reach of Night is good in limited, but a bug on Arena made it a bit better than it should have been. The first and second chapter abilities never force opponents to discard. When an ability is written "[Do X] unless [Y]," this really means "A player may [Y]. If they don't, [X]." If we apply this to The Long Reach of Night, the ability looks something like "Each opponent may discard a card. If they don't, they sacrifice a creature."

An opponent with no creatures can choose to not discard. If they do, the rest of the ability won't have any effect on them.

Harmonius Annoyance

Harmonious Emergence has emerged as quite the question generator in limited formats. I've seen several questions that boil down to "I tried to gain control of the enchanted land and it didn't work. Why?"

Well, there are a few things happening here. First, gaining control of an object doesn't also grant you control of things attached to it. So I cast Invoke the Winds targeting my opponent's Forest enchanted with Harmonious Emergence. As soon as I gain control of the Forest, Harmonious Emergence is no longer enchanting a legal permanent. It can only "enchant land you control." So, since the Forest and Emergence have different controllers now, the aura goes to the graveyard as a state-based action.

Isshin, Many Questions As One

I'm pretty sure Isshin, Two Heavens as One is the single most asked-about card in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. It turns out people like combat-focused Mardu commanders!

Isshin cares about things that trigger when a player declares a creature as an attacker. It doesn't matter who controls those creatures. If an opponent attacks another opponent with Breena, the Demagogue, Isshin would double that trigger.

As I talked about in my triggered abilities article, a triggered ability always used "when," "whenever," or "at." This means Isshin doesn't care about effects like Ghostly Prison or Sphere of Safety. Those are static abilities, not triggered abilities.

Isshin also doesn't care about things that might happen as a side effect of declaring attackers. For instance, if I attack with Immersturm Predator, Isshin won't double its "becomes tapped" trigger. Similarly, Isshin won't double anything that triggers from exerting a permanent as it attacks, like Ahn-Crop Crasher.

Finally, Isshin can't double triggers like Guiltfeeder's. Something that triggers when a creature "attacks and isn't blocked" triggers in the declare blockers step if no creatures were assigned to block it.

Is Shrine A Creature Type?

Of course, while Isshin might be the single most asked-about card, this is the one interaction everybody wanted to know about. Apparently, people have been chomping at the bit for Shrine tribal.

Unfortunately, Shrine is not a creature type. Sorry, changeling fans! While it's rather uncommon for creatures to not have a creature type, it's happened before with Nameless Race. In this case, our Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Shrines have Shrine as an enchantment type and no creature types at all.

The Magic Comprehensive Rules lists all current creature types in rule 205.3m. Other card types' subtypes can be found in 205.3g-n.

Cleanup

I've been loving the excitement around Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. It seems like one of the best-received sets in quite some time. Hopefully, this article has assuaged any doubts and answered any burning questions.

Question of the week: What's your favorite Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty limited play?

Until next week! Feel free to find me on Twitter or our Insider Discord for any other questions about Kamigaway: Neon Dynasty cards (or anything at all, really!).