Targeting zone changes — Spells and abilities that target a card continue to target that card even if it changes zones…

[matthewevans]

Reported in Discord: https://discord.com/channels/1485498006781427802/1525690631416975440/1525690631416975440

Thread: Targeting zone changes
Discord thread id: 1525690631416975440
Discord message id: 1525690631416975440
Cards: goldmeadow harrier, phantasmal image
Parser status: has_gaps
Extraction confidence: 0.90

Summary

Spells and abilities that target a card continue to target that card even if it changes zones (repro attached).

Reported text

Spells and abilities that target a card continue to target that card even if it changes zones (repro attached).

For example I had a phantasmal image copy of a reveillark and my opponent used Goldmeadow Harrier to target it. I sacrificed it to the trigger and returned it with the revillark leaves trigger, but the harrier activated ability tapped the new reveillark copy instead of fizzling.

Attachments

• game-state-turn-15-2026-07-12T02-25-40-728Z.zip

_{Restored from the Discord source message on 2026-07-26: the original ingestion truncated this report. See splitIntoItems in scripts/lib/extract.ts.}

Oracle text (verified from client/public/card-data.json)

goldmeadow harrier

{W}, {T}: Tap target creature.

phantasmal image

You may have this creature enter as a copy of any creature on the battlefield, except it's an Illusion in addition to its other types and it has "When this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it."

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_{report_id: discord:1525690631416975440:1525690631416975440:0 · discord: 1525690631416975440/1525690631416975440}

[mike-theDude]

Classifier analysis

Verdict: not_card_data_attributable

Matched clause: (none)

Reasoning: This is a general rules/engine object-identity bug: a target should not continue to target the same physical card after it changes zones unless the effect explicitly tracks it. The report is not about a single Oracle clause; it belongs in zone-change target invalidation.

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Posted by bug-coverage-classifier skill.

[matthewevans]

Fixed by #7235 (merged 2026-08-12). The engine now captures each selected object target’s incarnation at announcement/selection and rejects it at resolution after a zone change, per CR 400.7 and target-legality rechecking. target_incarnation_revalidation covers a target leaving and re-entering before resolution.