Quest for Pure Flame in Purphoros EDH
Asked by sonnet666 9 years ago
So. I run Quest for Pure Flame in my Purphoros, God of the Forge commander deck. Quest for Pure Flame has the following in it's rulings:
10/1/2009 -- The first ability will trigger multiple times if multiple sources you control deal damage to a single opponent at once, or if a single source you control deals damage to multiple opponents at once.
Up until now I had assumed this interacted with Purphoros so that if I were playing in a 4 person free for all, and a single trigger of Purphoros's second ability resolved, that Quest for Pure Flame would trigger 3 times (once for each of my opponents) and get 3 counters.
However I recently ran into this ruling of Blaze Commando that seems to contradict my assumption:
4/15/2013 -- Blaze Commando's ability triggers each time an instant or sorcery spell you control deals damage (or, put another way, the number of times the word deals appears in its instructions), no matter how much damage is dealt or how many players or permanents are dealt damage. For example, if you cast Punish the Enemy and it deals 3 damage to target player and 3 damage to target creature, Blaze Commando's ability will trigger once and you'll get two Soldier tokens.
And now I'm completely confused. Here I am with two separate rulings, on triggered abilities with almost the exact same trigger condition, one which is vaguely telling me what I want to hear, and another very clearly saying the opposite.
So which is it? Will Quest for Pure Flame's first ability trigger once for each opponent damaged by Purphoros, God of the Forge?
All the damage is still being dealt at the same time though. What constitutes the difference?
March 16, 2015 8:53 p.m.
filledelanuit says... Accepted answer #3
Blaze Commando cares about when the instant/sorcery deals damage. It only deals damage once. Quest for Pure Flame cares when you deal damage to an opponent. So if you cast Volcanic Fallout you only dealt damage once but dealt damage to an oppoent multiple times.
March 16, 2015 9:02 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #4
lordoftheshadows is right. The reason these two cards work differently is because they have different trigger conditions. A "deals damage" trigger will trigger once for each instance of "deal damage" in the text of the effect dealing damage, but a "deals damage to an opponent" trigger will trigger once for each opponent being dealt damage.
filledelanuit says... #1
There is a sleight difference in the wordings of the two cards. Blaze Commando says when an instant/sorcery deals damage. Instants/sorceries deal all of their damage at the same time. However Quest for Pure Flame says when you deal damage to an opponent. With 4 other players you deal damage to 4 different players so you would get 4 triggers.
March 16, 2015 8:39 p.m.