Tokens with "dies" trigger and "return it to the battlefield"
Asked by midnight426 5 years ago
I know that a creature token, if killed, will go from the Battlefield to the Graveyard as the act of "dying". And once in the Graveyard will vanish as a state-based action. However, what about abilities that are in the form of "When X dies, return it to the battlefield..."?
For example, I have a 1/1 Saproling creature token in play, use it as a blocker, and cast Supernatural Stamina on it. It then takes combat damage and dies.
So, dying from too much damage causes Supernatural Stamina's ability to trigger, but does the "return it" happen before the card goes to the graveyard (a replacement effect), or does the card have to touch the graveyard first before it can be "returned"?
Rhadamanthus says... #2
And to clear up one more thing in your question: Supernatural Stamina's "when this creature dies..." effect isn't a replacement effect. Rather, it's a triggered ability (they always start with one of the words "when", "whenever", or "at"). It triggers when the creature goes from the battlefield to the graveyard (the definition of "dies"), but by the time the ability is put onto the stack a token would have already been removed from the graveyard as a state-based action.
May 11, 2018 4:26 p.m.
midnight426 says... #3
Thanks; that's conclusive! So, the Supernatural Stamina ability isn't "fast enough" (in the first place), and the overall rule (110.5g) simply says tokens cannot come back, so would supersede anything else.
Caerwyn says... Accepted answer #1
The token will not return to the battlefiled.
Rule 110.5g:
A token that has left the battlefield can't move to another zone or come back onto the battlefield. If such a token would change zones, it remains in its current zone instead. It ceases to exist the next time state-based actions are checked; see rule 704.
May 11, 2018 4:17 p.m.