Can an opponent pay for ghostly prison with mana dorks if I also have War's Toll in a multiplayer format?
Asked by SteggsTheSaurus 4 years ago
Consider a situation where I control a Ghostly Prison (or similar effect) as well as a War's Toll, it is my opponent's turn in a 4 - player EDH game. They have tapped all of their lands prior to combat, wishing to pay for the ghostly prison's effect with their mana dorks.
Is this possible?
What I know is that attackers are declared before there is any priority given to players, so ghostly prison effects are paid for after declaring attackers, but the wording of War's Toll ("If a creature an opponent controls attacks, all creatures that opponent controls attack if able.") implies a triggered ability rather than a replacement effect, does it not? This would in turn allow them to tap dorks for mana before they are forced to attack?
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #2
Please remember to use double square brackets around a card's name to link it when asking a question. It's the easiest way to make sure everyone understands what's going on: Ghostly Prison , War's Toll .
That's a legal play for your opponent to make but they don't have to do it that way. Ghostly Prison and War's Toll don't actually interact very well, with the Prison basically making War's Toll completely blank. If an effect is trying to force a creature to attack but there's some cost that needs to be paid to allow it to attack, the creature's controller isn't required to pay that cost if they don't want to. Here's the relevant rule, focusing on the important parts:
508.1d The active player checks each creature they control to see whether it's affected by any requirements (effects that say a creature attacks if able, or that it attacks if some condition is met)... If a creature can't attack unless a player pays a cost, that player is not required to pay that cost, even if attacking with that creature would increase the number of requirements being obeyed...
In your example that means your opponent is only required to attack with the creatures they actually want to attack with and are able to pay for. It's fine to leave some creatures back because the additional cost from Ghostly Prison overrides the "must attack if able" from War's Toll. They don't have to do any weird tricks with tapping all their lands beforehand or specifically using mana generated by creatures.
Also, neither of these cards create replacement effects (there's no event being replaced with a different event). Rather, they each have a static ability that changes the rules of the game. Specifically, they change the rules about what counts as a legal attack.
May 28, 2019 11:46 p.m.
Generally I do not like to change an answer once one has been accepted, but, in this case, Rhadamanthus's answer is the correct one and should be marked as such. I have gone ahead and made the change to ensure future users looking at this thread are directed to the correct response.
SteggsTheSaurus says... #1
I've been told the second effect is indeed a replacement effect, all is good.
May 28, 2019 10:14 p.m.