Sacrificing
Asked by Wyrbak 7 years ago
Is there a difference between sacrificing as part of the casting cost like Tormenting Voice or as the result of a card like Culling the Weak? In either case, if my opponent only has one creature to sacrifice, can I kill the creature before it's sacrificed?
nobu_the_bard says... #2
Despite the card text on Culling the Weak, the official text (visible on the Gatherer) reads thus in part: "As an additional cost to cast Culling the Weak, sacrifice a creature." which is similar to Tormenting Voice's "As an additional cost to cast Tormenting Voice, discard a card." Both are part of the cost. Clarifications on what constitutes part of the additional cost is one of the things that has changed a lot over the years on card texts.
Transmute Artifact on the other hand has a sacrifice as part of the effect (note: Tappedout currently shows a printing from MTGO that does claim it is a cost, but the official text disagrees). The Gatherer text begins with "Sacrifice an artifact. If you do, [...]" Because it's not part of the cost, if an opponent had only one artifact, you could Smash it in response to them casting it and limit the effectiveness of the spell. Transmute Artifact doesn't target though, so if they have more than one artifact, you'll have to make a best guess which would do the most damage if you want to try to interfere with Smash; they'll still get to sacrifice something from their available artifacts and you won't know what it might be.
These kinds of spells that don't use the sacrifice as part of the cost are generally older though - nowadays most spells with this kind of concept will usually phrase things as a cost.
acbooster says... Accepted answer #1
There is a difference, but it doesn't matter here. In both cases the sacrifice is paying a cost, so you cannot kill it before they can sacrifice to the card. You would have to kill it before they went to go cast the spell or activate the ability, since after they start the process, you won't have priority until the spell or ability is already on the stack, long after the sacrifice happened.
January 21, 2017 8:09 a.m.