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To clarify, I knew they were in territory (i.e. they could be hit by Abom or Priests of Zeus), but I was unaware that face down cards were no longer considered "out of play." Apparently that changed in 2013 during a period that I was not very active. Until Outsiders, there weren't any cards where it really mattered so that minor change went unnoticed by myself.  Unfortunately, I have not yet memorized the REG.

I am completely fine with admitting I was unaware of something, no worries. 

Although it was frustrating in the moment to learn something changed over 4 years ago, I'd rather it be in a pick up game than a major tournament game. 

this is also news to me, so with priest of zeus does he get to look at the face down arts before he discards or he just pick one at random?

...does this mean that Split Altar works as intended? 

Sure enough seems to.

I'll be offline for a bit, but this is under further review. 

Any official word?

After an extensive review, I am happy to announce that based on changes on how face down cards are now treated (changes which happened back in 2013), Split Altar now shuffles all artifacts, not just those that are active.

The REG states:

The only known attribute of a face down card is the card type. Face down cards are only targetable by abilities that specify they can target face down cards or inactive artifacts, or cards that can target any or all cards in a location.

Because the card type of a face down card is a known attribute (so face down artifacts are known to be artifacts) and because Split Altar targets all artifacts in locations that are in play (Artifact pile and territory), Split Altar does indeed now work as originally intended.

Furthermore, in the 5.0 REG update we will be adding a "Locations" entry to the glossary--something we realized was not codified during this review process. Locations include: deck, discard, hand, territory, Artifact pile, Field of Battle, battle (referring to the current battle), Land of Bondage, Land of Redemption, set aside area, Banish pile and Reserve pile.

Many thanks to the PSA of Minister Polarius and the keen eye of Thomas Hunter for bringing this to light. 




P.S. Someone run and tell STAMP...maybe he'll decide to dust off his collection.