priority with brave the elements
Asked by Mairon_Bauglir 7 years ago
Hello all, I have a question about how priority works with Brave the Elements and Doom Blade. So the play was when I swung with Knight of the Holy Nimbus, my opponent paid the nonregen cost, so I played Brave the Elements in response so my creature wouldn't die, then they played Doom Blade and claimed that it would go through and kill my creature. I let it go through and I am wondering if this was correct, due to my understanding that even if they played the doom blade, the protection from black would keep it from resolving. So what's the right call?
In that situation your Knight of the Holy Nimbus would be removed from combat and tapped. The spell resolves in last out order, so the Doom Blade would resolve, regenerating the knight, then Brave the Elements would resolve, granting the knight protection from a color of your choice (probably black, but you haven't committed to a color until after it resolves), then it's ability to prevent regeneration resolves, doing very little. Your opponent could activate the anti regeneration ability in response to Brave the Elements and wait for that ability to resolve, then cast Doom Blade with Brave the Elements on the stack to successfully kill the knight if they have enough mana though.
February 8, 2017 3:50 p.m.
Mairon_Bauglir says... #3
It happened exactly as I said but I'll make the play more specific if I can, they had a Vampire Nighthawk and a Typhoid Rats, I had my Knight of the Holy Nimbus I swung with my knight and they decided to block with their nighthawk and paid the nonregen cost of the knight so that they would kill each other, I then cast Brave the Elements so that my knight wouldn't die, then they cast Doom Blade on my knight in response. They said that it would go through due to stacking, that if they had cast Doom Blade first and I had played Brave the Elements in response, then my knight wouldn't have died. I argued that since I had cast Brave the Elements first, it went on the stack first and then Doom Blade would have tried to resolve on an illegal target since the knight had protection from the removal and not gotten killed since the especially important part is that the protection lasted until the end of my turn, but I didn't argue because it's a game but I was insatiably curious to find out if I played this scenario correctly.
February 8, 2017 4:03 p.m.
Remember that even though priority is passed in APNAP order, the stack resolves "first in, last out", so the newest items on the stack resolve first while the items that have been on the stack longer resolve later.
Gidgetimer says... #1
This is very dependent on the exact ordering of how things happened. Spells, activated abilities, and triggered abilities do not have their effect as soon as they are cast/activated/triggered. Instead they go to the stack and wait to resolve until all players pass priority in succession. At that point the most recent spell or ability resolves and there is another round of priority.
This means that the way you described it (opponent activates ability, in response you Brave the Elements, in response they Doom Blade) Doom Blade resolves and Knight of the Holy Nimbus is regenerated; Brave the Elements resolves and your white creatures gain protection from black; activated ability resolves and Knight of the Holy Nimbus no longer can be regenerated for the turn.
If either of the first two were allowed to resolve before continuing with your scenario then the answer would be totally different.
February 8, 2017 3:42 p.m.