My wife emailed WoTC, complaining about it on my behalf (I didn't ask her too, and suggested it wasn't a worthwhile expediture of time, but grown women tend to do what they feel like doing)

Their response was that as Ted's was a cost for an activation, he wasn't concerned about where the Shouter ended up. As Mongrel Man's is a trigger for an effect, he is only concerned about where a card finishes.

Which is inconsistent. OK, it's the ruling, and they can (of course) choose to make that ruling inconsistent ... but why?

There's half of an idea that Mongrel Man's "destroyed" implies a past tense ... a thing only becomes "has been destroyed" once it's actually placed into the graveyard.

But it's text doesn't read "has been destroyed". It reads "is destroyed".

You have Ted. You choose Mighty Shouter to pay for Ted's bonus. Mighty Shouter "is destroyed" (ask Ted, he knows). It never actually acquired the "destroyed" property (in the sense that it never becomes a "has been destroyed" card) ... but it _is_ destroyed.

And yet, the inexplicably myopic Mongrel Mans' "is destroyed" text doesn't trigger. I'm seriously considering drawing glasses on all my Mongrel Men, see if I can't get him to notice a card fulfilling an "is destroyed" condition on the other side of the field.

Perhaps the problem I'm running into here is that I thought it was a game in English, when in fact it's a game in American.

(That's a slightly bitter dig, feel free to ignore it or flame me in PM)

Next week, we're going to discuss why the Jack Viper/Mongrel Man combo would be considered unbalanced (it's a 4 card combo, and one that's fairly easy to disrupt: kill the bait, kill the Jack, Kill the Mongrel Man) if you got both a draw and the card back

(quick math lesson: in this situation, I'd receive a single card advantage ... the card going back to my hand isn't +1, only the draw is)

And yet, the Illusionary Merfolk / Emeral combo is considered entirely ok (that's a 2 card combo, netting a 3 card advantage ... that can't be disrupted short of killing off the Emeral. Let's ignore the fact that Emeral also has a come into play condition, because that would just make the ridiculously unbalanced nature of this even more obvious)

The week after that, we might move on into "You broke your first game right at the start. Why hang on to suspect semantics in a new game?"