Far Out

Okay, so Outlaws’ Merriment and similar cards are weird. Far Out, even. For cards with mutually exclusive modes like Outlaws’ Merriment, you get all of the benefits of the modes you chose, combined as best you can. For Outlaws’ Merriment, that means you create a single red and white creature token with all the characteristics from every mode you chose. Powers get added together and toughnesses get added together. If you choose two modes (and why would you?), they’re still random. If you much more sensibly choose all three modes, you get a 6/4 Human Warrior Cleric Rogue with trample, lifelink, haste, and “When this creature enters the battlefield, it deals 1 damage to any target.”

If a mode requires a target, you must be able to choose a legal target in order to choose that mode.

Far Out applies only to modal spells and abilities. These include two or more options in a bulleted list preceded by instructions to choose a number of those options, such as “Choose one —” or similar. Each of those options is a mode. Older cards didn’t include the bulleted lists, but they have received updates to their Oracle texts and will be affected by Far Out.

The effects of modal spells and abilities always happen in the order the modes are printed on the card. The first mode will always happen before the second, which happens before the third, and so on.

Some spells have text that allows you to choose the same mode more than once. If you cast such a spell and choose to apply Far Out’s effect to it, you won’t be able to choose any single mode more than once.