When is damage dealt to a player?
Asked by Ralzomic 4 years ago
Here's what happened. Player A plays an infect deck with lots of boost.
Player A attacks with a 1/1 infect artifact Player B. Player B takes the damage. Player A boost his infect creature with a +4/+4 instant. Player B asks if that is all. Player A says A.
Player B plays a boomerang to return said creature to his hand.
Player C counterspell player B's boomerang. Since all of this uses the stack, player A decide to put an additional +5/+5 boost on his creature doing the 10 infect damage even though he said he was done initially.
Can all of this happen?
Raging_Squiggle says... #2
If I were in that game, I would have interpreted the “is that all?” and the “yes” answer as “that’s all I’m casting, I pass priority,” allowing other players to then cast their Boomerang and subsequently Counterspell.
It would be interpreted as this is all happening in the declare blocker step still, so player B would be taking 10 infect.
Note that there is a declare blocker step between the 1/1 attacking and player B saying they take the damage. Can’t skip that step. However, if player A somehow acknowledges the damage being taken, by perhaps saying “ok,” then it would be too late to buff the damage as it will have already been dealt as everyone mutually sped through the declare blocker step.
February 8, 2020 3:53 p.m.
Basically, if it happened in the "declare blocker" step, player B takes the 10 damage, but if it happened in the "combat damage" assignment step, player A can't boost his creature in that step? Am I interpreting that right?
February 8, 2020 4:27 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... Accepted answer #4
Well there is no "combat damage assignment step". The step is the combat damage step and all damage is assigned and dealt as turn based actions at the beginning of that step before any player receives priority.
The "is that all" and "yes" interaction can be nothing but a priority pass. Player A can not just end the declare blockers step without anyone else getting priority.
If Player B was trying to save themselves from taking 5 infect it was happening in the declare blockers step and Player A can absolutely use another pump before the combat damage step.
If Player B took the 5 infect and then tried to Boomerang the creature (an unlikely enough scenario that it should be clearly stated) then Player A can not use another buff in order to eliminate Player B.
February 8, 2020 5:27 p.m.
Alright, that's how we played it, but I felt like it was overpowered because if there were no player C, player A wouldn't have pumped all the way to 10 and left it at 5.
It felt kind of like a flaw to me, but at least I have the answer now, thanks!
February 8, 2020 9:36 p.m.
Even if Player A were the one to counter the Boomerang, they could then pump all the way to 10. Because there was an interruption of someone adding to the stack, priority has to be passed again in order for further things to resolve. For each item on the stack, each player must pass priority without adding to the stack in order for the topmost item to resolve.
So even in a 2-player game, when Player B added the Boomerang, that reset things, and both players would have to pass priority in order for just that Boomerang to resolve. If Player A instead responded with Counterspell (because we're assuming 2-player for this hypothetical), that again resets things so both players must pass for the Counterspell to resolve. It does, removing the Boomerang, but now both players must again pass in order for the next thing to happen (either moving to Combat Damage, if the +4/+4 instant resolved, or resolving the +4/+4 instant). So Player A could instead opt to pump their creature again, rather than just passing to move on. No involvement from a third player here, but still the same result.
Even without countering, Player A could still respond to the Boomerang by pumping their creature further, if they really wanted to. The Boomerang would still bounce the creature if not countered, but it does open up an opportunity for Player A to add to the stack.
February 9, 2020 5:09 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #7
I mean they could have been trying to bait out interaction to respond with a kicked Vines of Vastwood. The main thing is that "that's it" or "I'm done" or really any number of things that indicate that you are passing priority multiple times are only binding if no one else does anything.
February 9, 2020 5:15 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #8
Ralzomic: Since it's clear you got a satisfactory answer to your question, I marked one of the responses as the "Accepted answer" so that this topic can move out of the list of unanswered questions. Please remember to take care of this yourself in the future.
February 9, 2020 10:32 p.m.
Great thanks! I liked that I had a second opinion to confirm everything :P
Thank you all!
Ralzomic says... #1
Player A says "yes"* Sorry.
February 8, 2020 3:25 p.m.