MTG Regeneration when it come to a sorcery?

Question

My friend used Mass Calcify to kill all my non white creatures and my deck is a snake one so alot of my monsters had rengeneration could I have taped the mana cost and regenerated them (it has been years since I played last) and if I could what would happen would they just stay in play taped? Also a full explanation would be awsome on how regeneration works.

Answer 1

Yes they will become tapped till your next untap phase.  beware though.  if he has done this before there attack phase your creatures cannot block. here are the definitions that I found on the rule book.

Destroy

To destroy a permanent is to move it from the in-play zone to its owner's graveyard. Regeneration or other destruction-replacement effects can replace this action. See rule 419, "Replacement and Prevention Effects."

Regenerate

Regeneration is a destruction-replacement effect. "Regenerate [permanent]" means "The next time [permanent] would be destroyed this turn, instead remove all damage from it, tap it, and (if it's in combat) remove it from combat." Because it's a replacement effect, it must be active before the attempted destruction event. Abilities that trigger from damage being dealt still trigger even if the permanent regenerates. See rule 419.6b.

Answer 2

Regeneration works by placing 'shields' on the creatures. When the creature is destroyed, this regeneration 'shield' will be used and the creature will survive.

Every time you pay a regeneration cost, you are placing a 'shield' on your creature. You can pay the regeneration cost as many times as you want (and can) so your creature can have many 'shields'. In order to destroy the creature all the shields have to be exhausted.

This do not work against cards like terror or wrath of god that say creatures can not be regenerated. In other words: you can pay regeneration costs but your creatures will still die to a wrath of god.

Answer 3

Some clarification on Makkottos answer.

"Every time you pay a regeneration cost, you are placing a 'shield' on your creature. You can pay the regeneration cost as many times as you want (and can) so your creature can have many 'shields'. In order to destroy the creature all the shields have to be exhausted."

The way I'm reading that, it's implying you can prestack lots of regeneration "shields" on a creature before anything happens. That isn't exactly how it works.

If you pay the regeneration cost 5 times, the next time that creature would be destroyed all 5 of those regeneration "shields" will be removed.

Regeneration is worded the next time the creature would be destroyed, you remove all damage and its not destroyed/stays in play.

Each Regeneration ability that you pay for and activate are seperate. So each of the 5 regeneration "shields" that you activated will trigger the next time the creature would be destroyed. So if you pay for regeneration 5 times at the same time, all 5 of the "shields" would be consumed the first time that creature would be destroyed, NOT the next 5 times.

The answer to your main question is, yes you could have payed the regeneration costs for each of your creatures and they would have survived.