Planeswalker ability rules
General forum
Posted on March 5, 2013, 6:34 a.m. by EvenDryke
So I am building a superfriends deck right now, and as such I have spent a good deal of time looking at rulings for planeswalkers to make sure I can play the deck properly. (deck:esperfriends-of-justice for anybody interested)
But now I am starting to go down the rabbit hole where I develop strange theories about loopholes in the rules that are probably wrong.
So as I understand it, adding or removing loyalty counters is considered a cost, and once the cost is paid, the ability is activated.
This got me to thinking, is it possible to pay the cost without activating the ability if another card is directly preventing the ability from being activated?
For example, I have a Sorin, Lord of Innistrad on the battlefield, and my opponent plays a Lyev Skyknight targeting my Sorin. Common sense tells me that I cannot add or remove loyalty counters from him until he is no longer detained.
But when I start to think of the interaction with counters as the cost of the ability and not the ability itself, then I start to wonder if I could add a counter, but not put out a vampire token.
Once again, I am assuming that it does not work that way, and when something stops their abilities from activating, I cannot interact with that planeswalker directly. But... I just have to know for sure...
Taken from Epoch in a Q&A post.
306.5d Each planeswalker has a number of loyalty abilities, which are activated abilities with loyalty symbols in their costs. Loyalty abilities follow special rules: A player may activate a loyalty ability of a permanent he or she controls any time he or she has priority and the stack is empty during a main phase of his or her turn, but only if none of that permanents loyalty abilities have been activated that turn. See rule 606, "Loyalty Abilities."
Since loyalty abilities are activated abilities, detaining a planeswalker prevents its loyalty abilities from being activated until the detain effect wears off.
March 5, 2013 6:49 a.m.
I could be wrong but since detain prevents you from activating the abilities and not just resolving them I'd say you can't pay the cost of adding loyalty counters in this case. I haven't checked but I'd assume that this works this way for all abilities and so you can't for example get rid of threatening Stab Wound by sacking the creature as a payment for some other detained creatures ability even though you don't get the result.
Epochalyptik says... #2
You only pay an activation cost for an ability you're activating. You can't pay the cost if you can't activate the ability. If you did pay a cost, then you took an illegal action, and the game will be rewound to just before you took that action.
Also, the Q&A usually handles rules-related questions like this.
March 5, 2013 6:48 a.m.