Following Cards and Abilities

Think of three records at the table: the unit, its attached Equipment, and a triggered ability on the Chain. Each can have its own controller: the player who controls that object and makes the choices assigned to it. If an opponent takes the unit, the Equipment does not automatically change controllers. If the opponent takes the Equipment, the unit does not automatically change controllers either. Attachment links their effects and location; it does not merge their ownership or control.

For example, you control a unit and its Equipment when the unit creates an attack trigger. An opponent then takes the unit. They control the unit, you still control the Equipment, and you still control the already-created attack ability. Resolve each later instruction from the object it actually belongs to.

Once created on the Chain, an ability is independent of its source, the card or other game object that produced it. Removing the source or changing its controller does not automatically counter the ability. A delayed ability already generated also follows its stated duration rather than requiring its source to survive, unless that duration or its link specifically depends on the source.

Independence does not guarantee that every instruction still works. A draw instruction can often continue with no source on the board. An instruction requiring the source’s current location or Might may have no available information after that source leaves the board. Keep “the ability still exists” separate from “this instruction can still be performed.”

Moving a unit between Base and a battlefield keeps it as the same object. Its damage, counters and temporary effects stay unless another rule or effect removes them. A target that temporarily fails a location requirement can become legal again before resolution if it returns to a qualifying location.

Returning it to hand, killing it or banishing it moves it to a different game area outside the board. Its temporary changes disappear, and the rules treat the card there as a new object. Playing that same physical card again does not reconnect an old spell’s target. Ownership remains, so an opponent-controlled card goes to its owner’s corresponding hand, Trash or other personal zone.

Yasuo, Remorseful creates his attack ability while you control him. You choose a legal enemy unit at his battlefield. An opponent then takes control of Yasuo. His waiting ability remains yours, so “enemy” in that ability still means your enemy, because you control the ability. It does not change to mean the new controller of Yasuo’s enemy. If Yasuo stays at the relevant battlefield and the chosen unit remains legal, the control change alone does not stop the damage.

Now change the response: Yasuo moves back to Base instead. The ability still exists, but “here” is now his Base when its instruction executes. The enemy unit left at the battlefield fails that location requirement. Or return Yasuo to hand: the old board object no longer provides current board location or Might. These are failures of required information or targeting, not automatic cancellation of an ability because its source changed.

There is a specific exception to the usual loss of tracked information: a spell or ability that changes an object’s zone as its own cost or effect can use that object’s characteristics from before the change. This is often described as looking back; it is an explanatory phrase, not a keyword to add to a card.

Suppose an abstract ability kills your 4-Might unit, then uses that killed unit’s Might to determine a later result. If its own instruction actually killed that unit, it can use the pre-departure value of 4. If an opponent returned the unit to hand before the ability resolved, the ability did not make that change itself and cannot substitute the new card in hand or treat unavailable Might as zero. Check linked wording as well: a later result that requires the kill to happen still requires that action.

A later instruction checking whether "you" performed an action during finalization checks whether it was performed, not who performed it. If a spell changes controller after an optional additional cost was paid, the new controller still gets the effect that checks that payment. This does not transfer other objects’ control or let anyone pay that cost again.