Hivemind + Radiate

Asked by I_H8_U_M8 8 years ago

someone cast Mages' Contest....Hive Mind trigger, and then someone casts Radiate... Hive Mind trigger. All Radiate copies the next Radiate because I also have Psychic Battle on the field... and at that point we all scooped because we wernt sure how to resolve this.... we assummed all Radiate would just target the other radiates with the copies and things would just get out of control really, really fast. Can anyone help explain how that would have resolved?

Before anything resolved the stack looked like ->

Bottom Warp World <-Warp World <-Warp World <-Warp World <-Walk the Aeons <-Walk the Aeons <-Walk the Aeons <-Walk the Aeons <- Mages' Contest <-Mages' Contest <-Mages' Contest <-Mages' Contest <-Radiate <-Radiate <-Radiate <-Radiate Top

Boza says... Accepted answer #1

This is the reason I sometimes hate commander.

How did warp world and walk the aeons (a sorcery that was cast in response... somehow) part of the question? The question is as convoluted at this point as the situation itself.

You cannot target a radiate on the stack with radiate, as it requires a spell that targets only 1 permanent or player. I am not 100% sure if mage's contest has one or two targets, so lets assume for now no.

The only legal targets left will be the Walk the Aeons, resulting in multiple extra turns. Note that the copies made with radiate will resolve before anything else.

Then all the mages contests will resolve. Every winner will target a different copy of warp world to stop everyone from going insane.

Afterwards, the original and Hivemind copies will resolve, giving everyone another extra turn.

Note that all the extra turns will be essentially using the stack - the first extra turn to be created will be the one that is first taken, and then they will be taken in order of resolution. Be sure to write those down, since there will be 5 extra turns per person.

However, I commend your decision to give up on the game, it was the better choice.

April 3, 2015 2:03 a.m.

I_H8_U_M8 says... #2

@Boza I guess I gave up too quickly to realize that Radiate was restricted to player or permanent. If any of us would have closly read this we could have resolved the stack. thanks for pointing that out.

Warp World and Walk the Aeons were under a Knowledge Pool.

Mages' Contest Only has a single target. however it targets a spell.

April 3, 2015 2:12 a.m.

sonnet666 says... #3

Ok, you're phrasing is a little confusing, but I'm going to try to take a stab at this.

First, Radiate can only target a spell that has only a single player or permanent for a target, so it can't target another Radiate, and it can't target Mages' Contest. It' could target Walk the Aeons, in which case it would create a copy for each player, the controller of Radiate would choose the order that each copy was put on the stack, and when Hive Mind triggers each player who makes a copy of radiate would do the same, provided that they let Walk the Aeons be the target of Radiate (At that point there would be no other targetable spell on the stack. Note also that the copies of Radiate would resolve before the original.)

Second, Psychic Battle only triggers when players choose a target, not when things become targeted. Radiate defines the targets of the copies it makes, so Psychic Battle has no effect on it. Psychic Battle would trigger off of any copies made by Hive Mind, but only if the controller of the copy decides to reselect the target. That part of the ability is a may, so if the controller of the Hive Mind's copy chooses to keep the target of the original spell Psychic Battle never sees it's trigger condition.

Third, Walk the Aeons is a sorcery and cannot be on the stack on top of Warp World under normal conditions. Not normal conditions include Leyline of Anticipation, Quicken, Vedalken Orrery, and some wierd corner cases of spells or abilities that let you cast other spells as part of their effect, none of which you mentioned.

Did any of that clear anything up?

April 3, 2015 2:17 a.m.

I_H8_U_M8 says... #4

@sonnet666 Thanks for your time, Warp World and Walk the Aeons were under a Knowledge PoolI appreciate the explanation of Psychic Battle I never realized the interation with Hivemind.

April 3, 2015 2:24 a.m.

sonnet666 says... #5

@Boza, nice ninja. You got a little bit of that wrong though, the last extra turn to be created will be the first to be taken. Same concept of writing them all down though.

April 3, 2015 2:31 a.m.

Boza says... #6

Yeah, my bad, I mistyped that one. It functions essentially like the stack though (last in first out), so it is not that complicated.

I want to advise to never get in a game with the same decks again to avoid such things.

April 3, 2015 2:39 a.m.

I_H8_U_M8 says... #7

@Boza Why would we want to avoid such things? We all loved that game. The only real issue we had was not looking at the wording of radiate. Other than that we were fine. One of us were hoping someone would counter the Warp World on the stack after he targeted it with Wild Ricochet so that we could all be forced into an infinite stack loop game draw. with the Hive Mind copies lol.

April 3, 2015 11:46 p.m.

sonnet666 says... #8

That wouldn't cause an infinite stack loop draw. You could loop it an arbitrary number of times by having Wild Ricochet target copies of Wild Ricochet (made by Hive Mind I assume), but since it's a loop composed of optional player choices the rules dictate that eventually the player or players making those choices will have to choose the option that results in the loop breaking (however long and complicated that option may be).

Note that this is distinctly different than a loop composed of mandatory actions that has an optional escape clause (i.e. Darkest Hour + Lethal Vapors + Teysa, Orzhov Scion ). In that case no player is forced to break the loop even those they have the capability, and if no player chooses to, the game is a draw.

Also, if your play group likes ridiculous interactions, try Tyrant of Discording the guy who made a billion creature tokens off of an infinite combo. You need a computer program and a hour's runtime to do that math...

April 4, 2015 3:34 a.m.

This discussion has been closed