What happens if the legend rule doesn't apply to only one of a pair of legendary creatures with the same name?

Question

Brothers Yamazaki has the ability

If there are exactly two permanents named Brothers Yamazaki on the battlefield, the "legend rule" doesn't apply to them.

So, say I control two Brothers Yamazaki (and there are no others on the battlefield), a Grizzly Bears, and a Leyline of Singularity, and I have a Spy Kit attached to one of the Brothers.

Spy Kit has the ruling

The set of names the equipped creature has includes the names of all nonlegendary creature cards in the Oracle card reference, including the back faces of double-faced cards. Notably, the equipped creature won’t gain the names of tokens, such as Zombie, Goblin, and similar. It also won’t gain the names of noncreature cards that have become creatures, such as a Wandering Fumarole that has become a creature.

So, the overall result here is that I have 3 legendary creatures:

1. One named "Brothers Yamazaki"
2. One named "Grizzly Bears"
3. One with many names, including both "Brothers Yamazaki" and "Grizzly Bears"

Then because of the ability on Brothers Yamazaki, the "legend rule" applies to creature number 2, but not to creature number 3. What exactly does that mean? What happens to creature number 2?

Answer 1

Independent of how you arrived at this position, you now get to choose between the Brothers Yamazaki that has the Spy Kit attached and the Grizzly Bears. The premise of the question is wrong; the legendary rule still applies to each Brothers Yamazaki in play. However, it does not apply to a grouping of exactly two Brothers Yamazaki.

The specific exception created by the rules texts of the Brothers Yamazaki allows a pair of legendary creatures named Brothers Yamazaki to exist on the battlefield, directly contradicting rule 704.5K. Refer to the Magic the Gathering Golden Rules:

101.1. Whenever a card’s text directly contradicts these rules, the card takes precedence. The card overrides only the rule that applies to that specific situation. The only exception is that a player can concede the game at any time (see rule 104.3a).

704.5k If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners’ graveyards. This is called the “legend rule.”

The card text of Brothers Yamazaki only prevents the legend rule from triggering when the game sees two of them existing. Look back at the rules text:

If there are exactly two permanents named Brothers Yamazaki on the battlefield, the "legend rule" doesn't apply to them.

The special condition created by the rules text applies specifically to the pair of them. It does not stop the Legendary rule from seeing the two Legendary "Grizzly Bears." Since two creatures named "Grizzly Bears" that are legendary exist under your control, you must choose one of them and sacrifice the other. Further, the interaction of two Brothers Yamazaki, Leyline of Singularity, and Spy Kit will affect every other creature you control.

Twitter?

The persistence of this rules hole drove me to Twitter for answers, with a direct Tweet to Wizards_Magic, Gavin Verhey, and Matt Tabak.

Rule Hole challenge: @GavinVerhey @tabakrules @wizards_magic - Brothers Yamazaki+Spy Kit+Leyline of Singularity - drunkcynic

This prompted a response from Matt Tabuk:

@drunkcynic @GavinVerhey @wizards_magic Nothing happens. You continue to control all three permanents. - tabakrules

Which confused me, so I sought to get some clarity:

@TabakRules @GavinVerhey @wizards_magic Clarity: W/ LeylineOfSingularity, will Spy Kit'ed 1/2 Brothers Yamazaki 704.5k non-legend creatures? - drunkcynic

Initially, I thought my hopes were dashed:

@drunkcynic @GavinVerhey @wizards_magic Two Yam Bros. means ignore those perms and look at everything else to see if legend rule applies. - tabakrules

Yet, all was not lost:

@drunkcynic @GavinVerhey @wizards_magic Spy Kit has u lose creatures until the legend rule doesn't apply, likely by offing the eq. creature. - tabakrules

That, and I think Gavin Verhey was hungry:

Mmmmm, Yam Bros. Delicious! #wotcstaff - gavinverhey

Disclaimer: Resorted to pinging these two only because there was a shortage of other avenues. Ask Wizards has been defunct for a while, and there wasn't a clear answer from the existing rules or sources.

Deeper Analysis

Doesn't Apply - There are two instances in Gatherer for the rules text, "doesn't apply:" Mirror Gallery, released in Betrayers of Kamigawa, and Brothers Yamazaki, released in Champions of Kamigawa. Each affect the application of the Legend Rule. Mirror Gallery sweeps broadly in its contradiction of the rule, removing it from the game entirely. The Borthers Yamizaki narrow that restriction down considerably, only stopping it from applying to two of them.

Them/They/Those - Their are 793 occurrences in Gatherer of cards that include "They," "Those," or "Them" in their rule text. Each apply to a grouping of objects, be it creatures targets, cards being considered, or other effects, where something is affecting them jointly or you are choosing a portion of them. The rules texts of cards are, for the most part, rather exact; the "They," "Those," or "Them" is intentional, just as the times where further rules text is used to narrow the application of effects to a portion of the group. As an example, consider Tamyo, Field Researcher. Her first ability states:

+1: Choose up to two target creatures. Until your next turn, whenever either of those creatures deals combat damage, you draw a card.
Here, the ability establishes a grouping of two creatures, with a result if either member of the group satisfies the condition.

Narrowing the scope of the search further, consider just cards with the rule text "each of them." Here, the cards create a group, and then apply an effect to each member of that group. In contrast, Brothers Yamazaki ability establishes a group, consisting of exactly 2 Brothers Yamazaki, applies an effect to the group. The legendary rule applies to each Brothers Yamazaki individually, and to a group of three or more Brothers Yamazaki. Refer back to the earlier citation of Rule 101.1; the ability of Brothers Yamazaki only contradicts the legendary rule 704.5k for the group consisting of exactly two Brothers Yamazaki. it does not conradict the rule for each of them, just them.

Yes, Magic the Gathering uses Them, Those, and They to address a group objects affected by an event. The event will then either work with the entire group, or affect portions of the group, using modifiers like: Each, the Rest, from Among, etc. There is a certain refined legalese in how the rules texts of Magic the Gathering cards is constructed, based on the grammar and structure of the English language. "to them" occurs three times in the entire card pool; Brothers Yamazaki, Silence the Believers, and Gauntlets of Chaos. In each, the effect creates a group, and then the group is affected. In every card where an effect creates a group, and affects a member of the group, the rules text explicitly does so. Since the rules text for Brothers Yamazaki doesn't say "each of them" or "either of them," it doesn't affect the two individually, just the group.

A notable factoid.

Champions of Kamigawa brought the first change to the legendary rule. Prior to Champions of Kamigawa, the first player to get a legendary object in play "won", turning each other copy of that card in the game into a dead draw. With Champions of Kamigawa, follow on copies of the card would reset the condition instead, causing all copies in play to be sacrificed. This mattered in part because of the numerous "Legendary" cards in Kamigawa.

It was with Magic 2014 that we got the rule as it stands today, where 705.4K looks at each players battlefield independently. While each player can control copies of the same legendary object, one player can't control two copies without effects that specifically allow him to do so. However, there is also a unique interaction between Brothers Yamazaki and the Legendary Rule as it stands, looking at the Oracle ruling (specifically noting the date, coinciding with Magic 2014 release):

7/1/2013 If a third Brothers Yamazaki enters the battlefield, the legend rule will apply. If one player controls more than one Brothers Yamazaki at that time, that player will have choose one and put the rest into his or her graveyard.

While the current Legendary rule only cares about your battlefield, Brothers Yamazaki still looks at the entire battlefield. Baring any additional effects, there can only be two Brothers Yamazaki in play at once. When a third comes into play, the player with more than one follows the actions of 704.5K.

Answer 2

The Magic rules do not uniquely determine what happens here.

The text of Brothers Yamazaki is vague and none of it, its rulings, nor the rules explain the wording "does not apply". Both of the other answers are consistent with the Magic rules, but they do not follow from them. Using common sense, I think either interpretation is reasonable.

Answer 3

All of the creatures survive.

This question has finally been definitively answered by the Dominaria United Commander card Cadric, Soul Kindler, which directly creates the situation in question on its own. It has the following abilities:

The “legend rule” doesn’t apply to tokens you control.

Whenever another nontoken legendary permanent enters the battlefield under your control, you may pay {1}. If you do, create a token that’s a copy of it. That token gains haste. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.

Resolving the second ability creates a legendary token with the same name as a legendary permanent you control. The legend rule doesn't apply to the token, but it does apply to the non-token permanent. The set's release notes document contains the following ruling for Cadric

If, while you control Cadric, Soul Kindler, you also control a token legendary permanent and a single nontoken legendary permanent with the same name, the legend rule will not cause you to put either one into your graveyard.

Answer 4

My reading would be that nothing happens. The legend rule is:

704.5k If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners’ graveyards. This is called the “legend rule.”

It seems like there's no way to apply this without having two or more creatures to apply it to.

That is, this whole rule is the legend rule, not just the consequences. If the legend rule doesn't apply to a creature, then the "if...two or more" doesn't involve that creature.

So to apply the legend rule in this case, we look at all the creatures it's allowed to apply to, and discover just one. So there aren't two or more legendary creatures with the same name (as far as the legend rule is concerned) and nothing happens.

Answer 5

You get to keep all 3 creatures.

The legend rule reads:

704.5j If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners’ graveyards. This is called the “legend rule.”

The Brothers' ability makes the legend rule not apply to them as long as there are exactly 2 of them on the battlefield. What "not applying" means can be derived from the rulings for Mirror Gallery or Sakashima of a Thousand Faces:

Mirror Gallery removes the “Legend rule” while it’s on the battlefield.[..]

While the “legend rule” doesn’t apply to permanents you control, you can control any number of legendary permanents with the same name and none of them will be put into the graveyard.

While Mirror Gallery is on the battlefield, the game is played as though the legend rule did not exist, or, put differently, the legend rule check is disabled for all permanents.

Accordingly, while exactly two Brothers Yamazaki are on the battlefield, the legend rule is not checked for either of them. Any legend rule check that would compare either of the Brothers Yamazaki to any other permanent for name identity is not performed at all. That means the Grizzly Bears is also safe from the legend rule, because the one check that could get them killed (with the Spy Kit'ed Brothers) is not performed.

Therefore, it does not matter whether or not either of the Brothers shares a name with Grizzly Bears or yet other permanents. As far as the legend rule is concerned, the two Brothers do not exist on the battlefield at all.

Answer 6

The Grizzly Bear dies.

The Legend Rule states:

704.5k If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners’ graveyards. This is called the “legend rule.”

The Grizzly Bear is Legendary thanks to Leyline of Singularity. But why do I believe it gets snuffed? Let's look at the Spykit:

Equipped creature gets +1/+1 and has all names of nonlegendary creature cards in addition to its name.

I've placed emphasis on the part that I feel is relevant. The name of the Brother isn't changed to "Abattoir Ghoul Abbey Gargoyles ... Brothers .. Grizzly Bear ... Zebra Zombie", it gets ALL the names individually. Compare this with Angelic Armaments; The equipped creature, if it's a Grizzly Bear, now has the colors Green and White. Not Green-white, but Green and White separately. Anything affecting Green affects this equipped Grizzly, as would anything affecting White.

Now, applying the Legend Rule:

• There is only one "Abattoir Ghoul" on the battlefield, so no problem
• "Abbey Gargoyles" is also alone
• ...
• There are two Brothers Yamazaki, but there is an effect in play that supersedes the Legends Rule in this case. No effect.
• There are two Grizzly Bears in the field. The Legend Rule applies to the Vanilla Grizzly because it does not have an ability that lifts it and it is placed in the graveyard.

Answer 7

tl;dr– It's ambiguous, with up to 6 possible interpretations of the rules. However, regardless of the interpretation, the controlling-player can keep all of their permanents.

---

Background: What's the problem?

I think most folks imagine the Legend-Rule as:

If multiple Legendary permanents that are controlled by the same player have the same name, then all but 1 must be put into their respective owners' graveyards. The player that controls them may select which remains.

Then the Legend-Rule applies to a plurality of permanents, making it tricky to assess what it'd mean if an overriding rule specifies that the Legend-Rule can't apply to a partial-subset of them.

However, that's not what the official rules actually say. Instead:

704.5j If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners’ graveyards. This is called the “legend rule.”

—"Comprehensive Rules" for Magic: The Gathering [PDF]

So the Legend-Rule actually applies to players, not permeants.

However, that's clearly not how the text on Brothers Yamazaki,

If there are exactly two permanents named Brothers Yamazaki on the battlefield, the "legend rule" doesn't apply to them.

, is meant to be understood. Instead, it seems pretty clear that the text means that the Legend-Rule somehow fails to interact with the two Brothers Yamazaki. I'd agree with @KSFT's answer that the exact mode by which there's a failure-to-interact is ambiguous.

---

Three interaction-points.

The Legend-Rule's text somehow references Legendary-permanents in three places:

1. Counting them.

   If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners’ graveyards.

2. Allowing them to be chosen.

   If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners’ graveyards.

3. Having them put into their owners' graveyards.

   If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners’ graveyards.

So if the Legend-Rule doesn't apply, then we know that at least 1 of these doesn't apply.

Additionally, we can note that in the simple case of just 2 Brothers Yamazaki, neither is put into the graveyard. This means either Interaction (1) or/and (3) must not-apply.

---

Consequences of the possible interpretations.

So we know that:

1. Interaction (1) or/and (3) don't apply.

2. Interaction (2) may or may not not-apply.

Possible scenarios:

Interactions that don't apply	Interactions that apply	Consequences
1, 2, 3		Brothers Yamazaki isn't counted, so Legend-Rule never triggers.
1, 3	2	Brothers Yamazaki isn't counted, so Legend-Rule never triggers.
1, 2	3	Brothers Yamazaki isn't counted, so Legend-Rule never triggers.
1	2, 3	Brothers Yamazaki isn't counted, so Legend-Rule never triggers.
2, 3	1	Legend-Rule triggers; player must choose to save Grizzly Bears as it's their only option. Brothers Yamazaki not put into graveyard due to non-interaction.
3	1, 2	Legend-Rule triggers; player presumably would choose to save Grizzly Bears since Brothers Yamazaki is immune. Brothers Yamazaki not put into graveyard due to non-interaction.

When Interaction (1) doesn't apply, then the Legend-Rule doesn't count one of the Brothers Yamazaki, so there's only 1 Legendary-Grizzly Bears. Nothing happens.

Whenever Interaction (1) does apply, Interaction (3) must not-apply. And if Interaction (3) doesn't apply, then the player can choose to save the Grizzly Bears, as the Brothers Yamazaki are immune to going into the graveyard anyway.

In short, the controlling-player doesn't have to put anything into the graveyard regardless of interpretation.

---

Summary: The controlling-player doesn't have to remove anything.

The Legend-Rule interacts with Legendary permanents in three ways:

1. counts them;

2. allows them to be selected;

3. puts them into the graveyard;

and we know that at least 1 of these doesn't apply, and that (2) can't not-apply by itself.

Regardless of interpretation, the controlling-player can keep all of their permanents, because:

• Interaction (1) doesn't apply, so the Legend-Rule never triggers.

• Interaction (3) doesn't apply, so the controlling-player can choose the Grizzly Bears to be saved, then the Brothers Yamazaki is protected anyway.

The one niche interpretation would be arguing that Interactions (1) and (2) do apply, but (3) doesn't. Then, the controlling-player would have the option (but not requirement) to put the Grizzly Bears into their owner's graveyard.

Answer 8

Upkeep step - Set up and situation:

You have these creatures:

1. One named "Brothers Yamazaki"
2. One named "Grizzly Bears"
3. One with many names, including both "Brothers Yamazaki" and "Grizzly Bears"

The legendary rule says:

704.5j If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners’ graveyards. This is called the “legend rule.”

—"Comprehensive Rules" for Magic: The Gathering [PDF]

And the text on 'Brothers Yamazaki' says:

If there are exactly two permanents named Brothers Yamazaki on the battlefield, the "legend rule" doesn't apply to them.

---

Main Phase - How the rules apply:

So, as soon as state-based effects are checked and the rules applied simultaneously. The rule '704.5j' has a condition 'If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name', so we still check that as it applies to the player, so we can list all of those duplicately named permanents:

1. Two legendary permanents with the name(s) "Brothers Yamazaki" (but one also named "Grizzly Bear")
2. Two legendary permanents with the name(s) "Grizzly Bear" (but one also named "Brothers Yamazaki")

Now we have checked the condition, we see if we can try to apply the rule (that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners’ graveyards) to either pair of permanents:

1. Grizzly Bear ✔ (can be chosen, can be put in graveyard)
2. Grizzly Bear (née Brothers Yamazaki) ❌ (can't be chosen, can't be put in graveyard)

and

1. Brothers Yamazaki ❌ (can't be chosen, can't be put in graveyard)
2. Brothers Yamazaki ❌ (can't be chosen, can't be put in graveyard)

This is because of the exceptions for when:

• There's exactly two permanents named "Brothers Yamazaki".

Which means we make sure that 'the "legend rule" doesn't apply to them.' (i.e. those permanents found by looking at their names). And this means not only are the two "Brothers Yamazaki" exempt, the second of the two Grizzly Bears is also exempt from the legendary rule (i.e. the parts that say you chose 'one of them').

That because that Grizzly bear (née Brothers Yamazaki) is one of *exactly two permanents named "Brothers Yamazaki" that cannot have the legendary rule applied to it.

Now we follow the remaining parts of the rule, having picked the Grizzly Bear with no other names:

and the rest [of the named permanents] are put into their owners’ graveyards.

I've added in square brackets, my interpretations of which permanents the 'rest' part means.

Ultimately, it looks like when told to pick one of the two Grizzly Bears, we have to pick the one without the rules text 'the "legend rule" doesn't apply', and then when told to put the rest into their owner's graveyard (which is still part of the legend rule' we don't put that card (i.e. the one with the rules text 'the "legend rule" doesn't apply') into the graveyard.

Now, there is an issue:

704.3. [...] If any state-based actions are performed as a result of a check, the check is repeated; [...]

So we still have our two pairs of legendary creatures with identical names, and a state-based action was performed (although it had no result, the checking was still performed.) we have to repeat the check, seemingly ad infinitum. However...

704.7. If multiple state-based actions would have the same result at the same time, a single replacement effect will replace all of them.

We can replace these infinite checks with a single replacement effect ( that does nothing ), and continue until next time priority would change.

End Step - Too Long; Didn't Read:

You get to keep all three permanents, and dodge an infinite loop in the process. Congrats!

---

Clean up Step - Addendum:

Q: But when checking the pair of Grizzlies, you can't count the one that is also named 'Brothers Yamazaki' because the rules text on that card only applies to 'permanents named Brothers Yamazaki'.

A: Well yes, but that card doesn't lose its name:

201.2a Two or more objects have the same name if they have at least one name in common, even if one or more of those objects have additional names. An object with no name doesn’t have the same name as any other object, including another object with no name.

One of the two Grizzly Bears has additional names, and still gets the benefits from the rules text stating "the "legend rule" doesn't apply to them."

Answer 9

Perhaps there's another interpretation: Since the Leyline of Singularity has made all permanents legendary, the Spy Kit does nothing (except add +1/+1). There are no non-legendary creatures to gain names from.