How does Leyline of the Void interact with Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet?

Asked by TheLivingCME 8 years ago

If I have a Leyline of the Void and a Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet on the battlefield, and one of my opponent's creatures dies, I assume I won't get a zombie token by Kalitas since the creature never hits the graveyard, correct? Or the "would" clause of Kalitas applies before of the "would" clause of the Leyline?

OneWinged says... #1

This is how I see it:

"Put a card into a graveyard from the battlefield" and a creature "dying" is basically the same, which means that both triggered abilities occur at the same time whenever an opponent's creature dies. Since those are permanents you control, you get to choose the order in which those triggered abilities resolve. However, when one of them resolves, the other one has no legal targets and therefore is countered on resolution.

For more information see:

603.3b If multiple abilities have triggered since the last time a player received priority, each player, in APNAP order, puts triggered abilities he or she controls on the stack in any order he or she chooses. (See rule 101.4.) Then the game once again checks for and resolves state-based actions until none are performed, then abilities that triggered during this process go on the stack. This process repeats until no new state-based actions are performed and no abilities trigger. Then the appropriate player gets priority.

March 19, 2016 12:48 p.m.

Epochalyptik says... Accepted answer #2

This situation does not involve triggered abilities. Triggered abilities are always written in the form "[when/whenever/at] [event], [effect]."

In this case, we have two replacement effects (note the use of the word "instead"). Replacement effects replace an event (hence the name), meaning the event never happens. This is different from a triggered ability, which requires that the trigger event happens and then performs some effect afterward.

When multiple replacement effects would apply to an event, the affected player or affected object's controller chooses one to apply. Then, if other replacement effects could still apply, they do.

Here, the opponent chooses a replacement effect to apply. If he/she chooses Leyline's, then you don't get a token because Kalitas's effect can no longer apply. If he/she chooses Kalitas's, then you get a token.

March 19, 2016 1:20 p.m.

TheLivingCME says... #3

So, the Leyline actually shuts down the token ability of Kalitas, since the opponent will always choose Leyline's effect ... Oh, well, that's a shame.

Thank you very much for your answer!

March 19, 2016 2:31 p.m.

This discussion has been closed