0 or 12 life?
Asked by BlackWitch 8 years ago
I have Soulmender and Sanguine Bond and an angel token (4/4 flying) on the battlefield. My opponent has Tree of Redemption and one point of life.I attack with my angel and my opponent uses the Tree of Redemption's ability and exchanges her life to have 13 life total. While this is on stack, I use Soulmender and gain one life. Do I kill her first or does she have 12 life after the stack resolves? The order in doubt here is whether Sanguine Bond trigger before or after Tree of Redemption resolves.
Raging_Squiggle says... #2
Tree of Redemption is on the stack. You respond by gaining 1 life. This resolves and immediately triggers Sanguine Bond, the ability going on the stack on top of Tree of Redemption. The Bond resolves and the opponent loses 1 life and loses as a state based action, exiling his Tree's ability off the stack.
January 2, 2016 8:50 p.m.
BlackWitch says... #3
Ok, thank You Epochalyptik and Raging_Squiggle for Your fast response.
Epochalyptik says... Accepted answer #1
You win.
Abilities don't actually do anything until they resolve.
Your opponent activates Tree of Redemption's ability either at the end of the declare attackers step or at the end of the declare blockers step so that she will have enough life to survive the attack.
In response, you activate Soulmender's ability.
Remember that objects on the stack resolve in the reverse of the order in which they were added and that there is a round of priority between each resolution.
Soulmender's ability is now on top of the stack and will resolve first. You gain 1 life, triggering Sanguine Bond's ability. Sanguine Bond's ability is now on top of the stack; Tree of Redemption's ability is still on the bottom and hasn't resolved.
Because Sanguine Bond's ability is now on top of the stack, it will resolve and cause your opponent to lose 1 life. Because your opponent only has 1 life at this time (Tree of Redemption's ability hasn't resolved yet), she goes to 0 life and loses the game as a state-based action when Sanguine Bond's ability finishes resolving.
January 2, 2016 8:47 p.m.