How would this resolve: Beast Within targeting Spellskite when Spellskite is targeting my rebounded Distortion Strike?
Asked by xseiber 8 years ago
Okay, a little backstory is in order, this happened between me and a friend when we were playing and got stuck on this based on our own comprehension of how stack works.
He was playing his Affinity-Bots and I, Infect. I mention this so that players who has intimate, if not solid, knowledge of these decks can help clear the grounds of my question.
On a previous turn I played Distortion Strike and swing with my creature buffed by Distortion Strike. After my turned he played Spellskite as an answer for my Distortion Strike's Rebound effect. Luckily, I had a Beast Within in my hand. So...after my Untap Step, and my Distortion Strike rebounds, thus creating a stack, I jump on it and used Beast Within to take out his Spellskite, in which case these happens:
A) to me, Friend chains/stacks using Spellskite's target ability to have Distortion Strike target his Spellskite in which case, he takes the target of Distortion Strike but Beast Within kills it, thus making it (the Spellskite) a invalid target, therefore Distortion Strike resolves as normal and I can target my creature again (the original target).
B) to him, the friend, he gets on the stack by having Spellskite's target ability activated twice. First one is to target Beast Within and second one is to Distortion Strike, in which case, the rules of the stack (last one in, first one out) would apply and have his Spellskite take Distortion Strike first and then gets killed by Beast Within.
I guess my title is misleading, but I could not have done it without making the title convoluted.
Tl;dr: How would this resolve: Beast Within targeting Spellskite when Spellskite is targeting my rebounded Distortion Strike and/or when Spellskite targets both Beast Within and then Distortion Strike in this order?
To clarify a little bit more, for me to have optimized my options would be stacking Beast Within and targeting the Spellskite when the DTA is resolving (before I enable Distortion Strike to target my creature via Rebound).
As well as baiting for my friend to use Spellskite's ability and then Beast Within it. Correct?
If so, then as you describe in the cases that I do not follow either of the two paragraph above I wrote, then my friend would get the optimized conditions of using his Spellskite to make my own Distortion Strike ineffective. Is what I comprehend.
August 18, 2015 6:40 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #3
Your friend can simply activate Spellskite's ability a second time. The only way to actually prevent Spellskite from interfering with Distortion Strike is to destroy or remove it before the DTA resolves.
Epochalyptik says... Accepted answer #1
The first thing to clarify is that Spellskite's ability does not rearrange any of the objects on the stack. Activating it won't cause something to resolve before it normally would have.
The rebound ability creates a delayed triggered ability (DTA) that triggers at the beginning of your next upkeep. The ability must resolve before you are given the option to cast the rebounding spell (if you choose to, you cast the rebounding spell during the resolution of the DTA).
The DTA doesn't target anything. Your friend can target it with Spellskite's ability, but doing so will have no effect. If you respond to the DTA by casting Beast Within, you can destroy Spellskite before the DTA resolves (and therefore before Distortion Strike is even on the stack).
If you allow the DTA to resolve without killing Spellskite, the situation becomes more complex. Because you are the active player, you get priority after the rebound ability resolves. As such, you may cast Beast Within before your friend activates Spellskite's ability. However, your friend still has the opportunity to activate Spellskite's ability before anything resolves.
Now, if your friend activates Spellskite's ability in response to Beast Within and targets Distortion Strike, then he can change the target of Distortion Strike to Spellskite. Then, Beast Within will destroy Spellskite. Then, Distortion Strike will fizzle because its only target is illegal. (You don't get to magically reassign the target without an effect explicitly allowing you to do so.)
If your friend does not activate Spellskite's ability, then nothing changes targets.
If you hold your Beast Within and your opponent activates Spellskite's ability in response to Distortion Strike, you may cast Beast Within in response to Spellskite's ability. If your opponent does not respond, then Spellskite will be destroyed and your friend will not be able to change the target of Distortion Strike because the new choice would be illegal (you can't change a target to an illegal target). If your friend does respond, then the situation plays out as described two paragraphs above.
August 17, 2015 5:59 p.m.