Ruinous Path — ruling 1

You can cast a spell with awaken for its mana cost and get only its first effect. If you cast a spell for its awaken cost, you’ll get both effects.

Ruinous Path — ruling 2

If the non-awaken part of the spell requires a target, you must choose a legal target. You can’t cast the spell if you can’t choose a legal target for each instance of the word “target” (though you only need a legal target for the awaken ability if you’re casting the spell for its awaken cost).

Ruinous Path — ruling 3

If a spell with awaken has multiple targets (including the land you control), and some but not all of those targets become illegal by the time the spell tries to resolve, the spell won’t affect the illegal targets in any way.

Ruinous Path — ruling 4

If the non-awaken part of the spell doesn’t require a target and you cast the spell for its awaken cost, then the spell won’t resolve if the target land you control becomes illegal before the spell resolves (such as due to being destroyed in response to the spell being cast).

Ruinous Path — ruling 5

The land will retain any other types, subtypes, or supertypes it previously had. It will also retain any mana abilities it had as a result of those subtypes. For example, a Forest that’s turned into a creature this way can still be tapped for {G}.

Ruinous Path — ruling 6

Awaken doesn’t give the land you control a color. As most lands are colorless, in most cases the resulting land creature will also be colorless.

Ruinous Path : règles, fonctionnement et interactions (MTG)

Ruinous Path is one of those cards players keep asking about. Here is, in plain words, what its official text says, the rulings published by Wizards of the Coast, and the combos players actually run.

Official card text

Destroy target creature or planeswalker. Awaken 4— (If you cast this spell for , also put four +1/+1 counters on target land you control and it becomes a 0/0 Elemental creature with haste. It's still a land.)

How it works : Ruinous Path

Original English text — Wizards of the Coast / Scryfall

#1August 25, 2015· Wizards of the Coast
You can cast a spell with awaken for its mana cost and get only its first effect. If you cast a spell for its awaken cost, you’ll get both effects.
No other card is named in this ruling.
#2August 25, 2015· Wizards of the Coast
If the non-awaken part of the spell requires a target, you must choose a legal target. You can’t cast the spell if you can’t choose a legal target for each instance of the word “target” (though you only need a legal target for the awaken ability if you’re casting the spell for its awaken cost).
No other card is named in this ruling.
#3August 25, 2015· Wizards of the Coast
If a spell with awaken has multiple targets (including the land you control), and some but not all of those targets become illegal by the time the spell tries to resolve, the spell won’t affect the illegal targets in any way.
No other card is named in this ruling.
#4August 25, 2015· Wizards of the Coast
If the non-awaken part of the spell doesn’t require a target and you cast the spell for its awaken cost, then the spell won’t resolve if the target land you control becomes illegal before the spell resolves (such as due to being destroyed in response to the spell being cast).
No other card is named in this ruling.
#5August 25, 2015· Wizards of the Coast
The land will retain any other types, subtypes, or supertypes it previously had. It will also retain any mana abilities it had as a result of those subtypes. For example, a Forest that’s turned into a creature this way can still be tapped for .
No other card is named in this ruling.
#6August 25, 2015· Wizards of the Coast
Awaken doesn’t give the land you control a color. As most lands are colorless, in most cases the resulting land creature will also be colorless.
No other card is named in this ruling.