Kothophed triggering when everything dies
Asked by zandl 8 years ago
I'm playing Duels Origins and something interesting just happened. I have a Kothophed, Soul Hoarder out and my opponent wiped the board, destroying one of his own creatures in the process. Lo and behold, as everything went to the battlefield at the same time, Kothophed didn't trigger for the creature my opponent had that died. (Yes, he owned the creature.) The game is wrong, isn't it?
hyperlocke says... Accepted answer #2
The game is wrong. Permanents that enter or leave the battlefield at the same time "see each other". Kothoped will see that your opponent's creature died, you will draw a card.
603.6d Normally, objects that exist immediately after an event are checked to see if the event matched any trigger conditions. Continuous effects that exist at that time are used to determine what the trigger conditions are and what the objects involved in the event look like. However, some triggered abilities must be treated specially. Leaves-the-battlefield abilities [...] will trigger based on their existence, and the appearance of objects, prior to the event rather than afterward. The game has to look back in time to determine if these abilities trigger.
Example: Two creatures are on the battlefield along with an artifact that has the ability Whenever a creature dies, you gain 1 life. Someone plays a spell that destroys all artifacts, creatures, and enchantments. The artifacts ability triggers twice, even though the artifact goes to its owners graveyard at the same time as the creatures.
August 2, 2015 2:27 p.m.
INot sure what you mean by "The game is wrong", but Kothophed should have triggered and you should've drawn a card and lost 1 life. This is because of a rule that is much easier to link than to describe:
Rule 603.6d: (...) Example: Two creatures are on the battlefield along with an artifact that has the ability Whenever a creature dies, you gain 1 life. Someone plays a spell that destroys all artifacts, creatures, and enchantments. The artifacts ability triggers twice, even though the artifact goes to its owners graveyard at the same time as the creatures.
August 2, 2015 2:30 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #4
@BlueScope: "The game is wrong" refers to Duels of the Planeswalkers, which is the context of zandl's question. DOTP is known to fail to handle certain rules correctly.
August 2, 2015 2:41 p.m.
Epochalyptik: Ah... my best guess was that they wanted to ask whether a match was invalidly decided. :) Thanks for clearing that up!
TheNextRedDude says... #1
I'm honestly not sure, but this is how I think it would go: All creatures are destroyed, then they are put into the graveyard. Kothoped was not on the battlefield, he was put into the graveyard just as the other creature was. He was not on the battlefield, therefore the ability did not trigger.
August 2, 2015 12:54 p.m.