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Suppose I control Umbra Mystic and a land that's also an Aura.

(Note that I could find no combination of cards that could actually create an Aura land, so this question may just be pie in the sky. I did find a convoluted way to create an Equipment land but that's probably not relevant.)

An opponent casts a spell to destroy the creature the Aura land is attached to. With totem armor, the Aura land is to be destroyed instead. Can I tap another land enchanted with Equinox to counter that spell?

My instinct is to say no, because the replacement effect adds a layer of indirection to the spell, such that the spell is not what destroys the land.

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  • If your question already has answers, please do not modify it so that the existing answers no longer fully address it. I have rolled your edit back because it does that (according to your comment on the answer). You should instead ask a new question.
    – murgatroid99
    May 19 at 20:03
  • @murgatroid99 I have posted a new and more expansive question and voted to mark this one as a duplicate of it. May 19 at 20:23

1 Answer 1

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No, your instinct is correct.

There are 2 relevant gatherer ruling on Equinox:

Equinox will not counter a spell which would indirectly cause destruction of one of your lands.

Equinox will not counter a spell that deals damage to an animated land, even if it would deal more damage than the land's toughness. This is because the spell itself does not destroy the land directly. The land is destroyed by a game rule.

In your example, the spell your opponent cast to destroy the creature is not what would destroy the aura; the totem armor ability's replacement effect is.

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    I fail to see how the second ruling is relevant if my opponent casts a direct destruction spell like Murder. May 12 at 22:00
  • @CainGoldhardt It's because of the last 2 sentences; which really is just a re-hash of the first rulings. Perhaps it's not helpful in the answer because it's just a more specific example of a case when the first ruling applies, and it's not the same case as your question.
    – GendoIkari
    May 12 at 22:20

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