Can you pay life to get to 0?

Asked by UmbrotheUmbreon 8 years ago

Is it possible to activate an ability with the cost requiring to pay life if it brings you to zero?

Example is my opponent is at two life, can they activate Phyrexian Reclamation to bring them to zero? Rules citation would be helpful please.

FancyTuesday says... Accepted answer #1

You may pay life that reduces your life to exactly 0, you may not pay costs that would reduce your life to less than zero because you do not have the life to pay. For example, if you have used Mindslaver on an opponent that controls Pestilent Souleater and they have 1 life you may not activate Pestilent Souleater to reduce their life to -1, but if they have 2 life you may activate it to reduce their life to 0.

Payments are accounted for and taken as part of the process of putting something on the stack. That means that you pay and 2 life to activate Phyrexian Reclamation. If you have 0 life as the result of that payment you will lose the game due to state-based actions prior to the ability going on the stack, so the ability never has a chance to resolve.

117.3 A player cant pay a cost unless he or she has the necessary resources to pay it fully. For example, a player with only 1 life cant pay a cost of 2 life, and a permanent thats already tapped cant be tapped to pay a cost. See rule 202, Mana Cost and Color, and rule 602, Activating Activated Abilities.

704.1 State-based actions are game actions that happen automatically whenever certain conditions (listed below) are met. State-based actions dont use the stack.

704.3 Whenever a player would get priority (see rule 116, Timing and Priority), the game checks for any of the listed conditions for state-based actions, then performs all applicable state-based actions simultaneously as a single event. ...

704.5a If a player has 0 or less life, he or she loses the game.

November 13, 2015 8:16 p.m. Edited.