Can You Respond to Zur's Effect?
Asked by Sousaphonist 8 years ago
If I were to use Zur the Enchanter's effect to put Arrest on my opponent's Ant Queen, could they respond by activating her ability and producing tokens before she becomes unable to?
There's also the corner case where a player will say what they want to do before the resolution of the ability, in which case they're bound to that choice at least by tournament rules. In that case, the opponent would have information about what's going to happen before they choose to respond.
September 10, 2015 3:58 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #3
The time while you are searching should be sufficient for them to say if they have any responses to the trigger if you forget to ensure the trigger resolves before searching. However for things like this I always like to ask if it resolves so that there is no doubt that they passed priority.
September 10, 2015 8:28 a.m.
@Gidgetimer: I didn't mean that a player falsely assumes that their spell resolves, but that they play the card, saying "Attack with Zur and fetch Arrest onto your Ant Queen, so you can't block", or something like that, in other words just telling the opponent what they have in mind, which could be before they even put a hand on their library.
As I said, though, that would be a corner case and probably not relevant in Kitchen Table REL either.
September 10, 2015 8:39 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #5
Yeah I know what you meant, its kinda like casting Oblivion Ring or Fiend Hunter "targeting" something. Asking if it resolves before giving any information outside of the ability triggering prevents any confusion about whether responses are possible as long as you keep in mind that once a spell or ability starts resolving it must fully resolve before anything can be added to the stack.
September 10, 2015 9:01 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #7
@BlueScope: You're only bound to a shortcut if no one has any responses that would interrupt it. If you propose a shortcut but another player interrupts it, you can change your mind about decisions that would be made after the interruption.
Drilnoth says... Accepted answer #1
Nope. By the time that the Arrest has been revealed as the card being searched for, Zur the Enchanter's ability is already in the process of resolving. That ability must finish resolving before anybody can do anything else, and by that time the Arrest will already be on the Ant Queen.
You could respond to Zur's trigger, but then you couldn't know that Arrest would be the tutored up enchantment or what creature it would be attached to.
September 10, 2015 1:05 a.m.