Damia, Sage of Stone trigger
Asked by pedroedmarcos 4 years ago
Hey there
I just started to try to build a EDH Damia deck and I have some questions:
For this questions let's say that I have 3 cards in hand.
1- If I control Damia and a spark double that is a copy of Damia how many cards will I draw? Will they both check the ammount of cards at beginning of my upkeep or when they try to resolve?
2-If I have a Damia and my opponent have a Fatespinner . Can I choose drawstep even If I control Damia at the time?
3-If I have Damia and Words of Waste and activate it 4 times, This will replace all the Damia Draws that turn right?
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At the start of your upkeep you get 2 triggers 1 from Damia, 1 from the clone. You resolve whichever you want first and draw 4 cards, up to seven. The second trigger remains on the stack. You can now cast instants or Vedalken Orrery is present cast your hand freely. If you cast 2 spells and then resolve the second trigger, you'll draw 2 cards up to seven. If you didn't cast anything you won't draw, since your hand is already full to 7 from the first trigger.
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Yes, select draw step as it will most likely be skipped anyway (unless someone Path to Exile s your Damia after you've drawn to 7 which is unlikely) and smile.
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Damia triggers and you are meant to draw 4 cards up to 7. While this is on the stack you activate Words of Waste 4 times. Damia trigger resolves and attempts to draw 4 cards, which are replaced instead with Words of Waste discard effects which results in 0 cards drawn for you and up to 4 cards (if they have a hand biger than 4) discarded from each opponent.
P.S. Side note towards the extra question in paragraph 1 I red in the edits: Damia's trigger first checks if your hand is 7 or more at the beginning of your upkeep without using the stack to determine if the ability will trigger at all, meaning if you have 7 or more cards it won't trigger at all. However once it has triggered it goes on the stack and you can further unload your hand and the cards you will draw from it are determined on its resolution, not initiation. (meaning if you had 3 cards at the beginning of upkeep, damia triggered but you cast 1 spell, when the trigger resolves it will check your hand again, find that its 2 cards and you'll draw 5)
Cheers!
July 19, 2019 5:12 a.m.
Addendum to Madcookie's PS and clarification on both first answers:
Damia, Sage of Stone 's triggered ability contains an "intervening if" clause. This means the ability will have to check twice for each instance of the ability.
First, at the beginning of your upkeep, the ability checks if you have fewer than seven cards in your hand. If you meet that condition, it will trigger and go on the stack. This applies to both the original and the Spark Double copy.
Then, when each copy of the ability goes to resolve, it will check again. If you still have fewer than seven cards in hand, you will draw equal to the difference. This means the first copy of the trigger to resolve will fill your hand up to seven. Then, when the second copy resolves, if you haven't somehow cleared some cards out of your hand, you will draw nothing. You do get priority between the two triggers, however, so you can cast instants, activate abilities that discard, etc.
Compare to cards like Felidar Sovereign which also has an intervening-if. In this case, you need to have 40+ life both at the start of your upkeep (to trigger the ability at all) and when it resolves (in order for the victory condition to actually happen).
July 19, 2019 12:45 p.m.
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Yesterday says... Accepted answer #1
1) They check as they go to resolve. So unless your hand loses cards between the two triggers resolving, having a second copy of Damia out wouldn't be that functionally helpful.
2) Yes, you can do that. If two different things both tell you to skip a phase of a turn, you just skip it once. You can get some good value in a Damia deck by running Null Profusion and Recycle which are good cards other than making you skip your draw step. Notably, something similar is Stonehorn Dignitary which causes a player to skip their next combat step rather than all combat steps during a single turn. The Dignitary can stack up and save the effects for several turns.
3) It would replace the next 4 cards you would draw that same turn, via Damia or otherwise . Damia can draw you up to 7 cards during your upkeep.
July 19, 2019 5 a.m.