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If I cast Lignify on my opponent's Blightsteel Colossus and then deal 5 damage to it with one of my creatures, does it go to the graveyard since it has no abilities? Or is this ability regained once it is removed from the field since Lignify is destroyed at the same time?

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  • 1
    The event Blightsteel Colossus normally replaces is "moving from anywhere to the graveyard" not "being in the graveyard." Feb 9, 2012 at 14:05

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The Colossus would be put into the graveyard because it doesn't have its "shuffle into its owner's library" ability when replacement effects would be checked.

At the moment that your Lignified Colossus dies, it's still a 0/4 with no abilities.

From the comp rules for replacement effects:

614.4. Replacement effects must exist before the appropriate event occurs—they can’t “go back in time” and change something that’s already happened. Spells or abilities that generate these effects
are often cast or activated in response to whatever would produce the event and thus resolve before that event would occur.

Example: A player can activate an ability to regenerate a creature in response to a spell that would destroy it. Once the spell resolves, though, it’s too late to regenerate the creature.

It regains its shuffle ability once it hits your graveyard (since Lignify is gone). But the time for checking replacement effects has already passed. It stays in your graveyard.

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  • Absolutely correct, nothing tricky about it. By the time it would regain its indestructible and shuffle into library abilities, it's too late.
    – Hackworth
    Feb 9, 2012 at 10:27
  • But is it the creature that's indestructible? Or the card that's indestructible?
    – corsiKa
    Feb 16, 2012 at 2:14
  • @corsiKa Indestructibility only applies to permanents -- I mean, how would you "destroy" a card in hand, for instance? "Blightsteel Colossus is indestructible" is a static ability that makes Blightsteel Colossus indestructible (indestructibility itself isn't an ability).
    – Alex P
    Feb 16, 2012 at 3:05
  • Blightsteel Colossus is both a creature and a card - the creature isn't in the graveyard, the card is. Consider Animate Dead which says "Return enchanted creature card..." even on its oracle text.
    – corsiKa
    Feb 16, 2012 at 4:42

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