Infinite Tokens, or Board Wipe?
Asked by AkrosTheClear 6 years ago
In my deck Death's Creep I run some pretty fun and interesting combos that are mostly generated by Blowfly Infestation. With one of these out on the battlefield I can go infinite very quickly, but I have no idea what would happen if I had two. Every time a 1/1 insect or snake would die I would have to put two -1/-1 counters on up to two target creatures. For example, I have two Blowfly Infestations and a Nest of Scarabs out on the battlefield. Something with a -1/-1 counter on it dies and I get an insect, would I then get infinite insects by being able to place the -1/-1 counters on the insect at the same time, thus trading one insect of two, or would I wipe the board and lose the game by getting into an infinite loop with no end? I guess my question boils down to: can I put more than one -1/-1 counters from Blowfly Infestation's on a 1/1 creature? okay thanks for taking a look, that got pretty long.
DRACULA150704 says... #2
You can't place the -1/-1 counters on the insects because the insects only enter the battlefield after the -1/-1 counters have been placed on a creature
October 19, 2017 1:46 a.m.
You can, however, target the same insect with both Blowfly Infestation triggers. Because the insect will be dead the second trigger won't resolve and you will only make 1 new insect off of Nest of Scarabs and only trigger the Blowfly Infestations 1 more time each. I believe you'll still end up constantly putting more triggers on the stack and compelling a draw though.
October 19, 2017 1:02 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #4
This is similar to another question that came up a few weeks ago and it looks like my response to that one would still be relevant here. Let me know if there's some detail I missed that changes things.
There's a way to avoid an infinite loop, and according to the rules of the game you have to take that option at some point in the process. A loop made up of only mandatory actions will draw the game, but if there are any choices you can make to end it then you have to pick a number of iterations and make the different choice that will cause the loop to end after that point.
Let's say a creature with some number of -1/-1 counters dies and triggers the Blowfly Infestations. You target another creature with the triggers. For the sake of simplicity the following explanation assumes you target the same creature with the Infestation triggers, but it'll be pretty much the same situation if you target different creatures instead.
- When the Infestation triggers resolve and place -1/-1 counters on the targeted creature, it triggers Nest of Scarabs, but it's not time to put the Nest trigger on the stack yet
- State-based-actions (SBAs) are checked right before each time a player would get priority. The game sees a creature with 0 toughness and puts it into the graveyard, triggering the Infestations again. Similarly, these triggers aren't on the stack yet
- When an ability triggers, it's put onto the stack the next time a player gets priority. If multiple triggers controlled by the same player are trying to go onto the stack at the same time, that player chooses what order to put them onto the stack. In this case you need to put the Nest trigger on bottom and the Infestation triggers on top. This is also when you choose a target for the Infestation triggers (some other creature on the battlefield)
- Let the Infestation triggers resolve, and it sets off the same series of events described above. Now you have 2 Nest triggers on the bottom of the stack and another 2 Infestation triggers on top
- Eventually you'll run out of creatures to target and kill with Blowfly Infestation, so it will stop adding triggers to the stack. All of the Nest of Scarabs triggers you've accumulated can finally start to resolve and will create the appropriate number of Insect tokens
If you need to keep the chain going for a while to kill more things then you can put the Nest triggers on the top of the stack instead in point 3 above, then they'll be available to target later.
Note that if two Infestation triggers target the same creature and the first resolving one kills it, we don't have to worry about the other one still hanging out there because it will get countered for lack of a legal target when we finally get around to processing it.
October 19, 2017 2:30 p.m.
Monomanamaniac says... #5
I didn't follow much of the answers but a thought did come to me. If you had two nests of scarabs, your could set up an infinite loop, but it would take 2 turns.
Turn 1, get a creature to die with a -1/-1 counter, creating two scarabs. End
Turn 2, get a scarab to die from a -1/-1 counter, thus creating two scarabs and then put the -1/-1 counter on the second scarab, creating two more scarabs. This should trigger infinite tokens
October 25, 2017 2:40 p.m.
Monomanamaniac says... #6
I'm definitely going to have to make a deck from this, thanks!
Tyrant-Thanatos says... #1
"would I then get infinite insects by being able to place the -1/-1 counters on the insect at the same time"
You can't place them "at the same time". Each Blowfly Infestation triggers separately, and resolves separately. Even should both target the same 1/1, after the first resolves, the 1/1 will die before the second one can resolve.
If you had two Nest of Scarabs and one Blowfly Infestation, then it would be a different story.
October 18, 2017 6:39 p.m.