Alesha, Who Smiles at Death's ability: what can it do/not do?
Asked by Darthagnon 8 years ago
1) If I use Alesha, Who Smiles at Death's ability to bring back a card with a Raid effect, e.g. War-Name Aspirant, does Raid trigger?
2) If I use Alesha, Who Smiles at Death's ability to bring back Blood-Chin Rager, does Rager's ability trigger? Alesha brings him back "tapped and attacking", and Rager's ability triggers "whenever Blood-Chin Rager attacks". Alesha's extra rulings state "Although the creature you return is attacking, it was never declared as an attacking creature (for purposes of abilities that trigger whenever a creature attacks, for example)." I know Blood-Chin Rager hasn't been declared an attacker, but his ability triggers whenever he attacks, not whenever he is declared an attacker.... surely?
Darthagnon says... #2
Thanks, Epochalyptik! Guess that means Alesha works better with my Raid cards, and is kinda nerfed in my Warrior deck (Mardu Dragonborn)... was playing her wrong up until now...
Epochalyptik says... Accepted answer #1
In order for Alesha, Who Smiles at Death's ability to trigger, Alesha, Who Smiles at Death needs to attack. Therefore, raid will inherently be true before the ability even hits the stack.
Now, raid itself is not a triggered ability. It's an ability word that indicates effects that care about whether you have attacked with a creature this turn. War-Name Aspirant's raid ability is a triggered ability, and it will trigger because the raid condition is true when War-Name Aspirant enters the battlefield.
In the second case, however, you won't get the trigger. "Whenever ~ attacks" abilities trigger whenever that creature is declared as an attacker. If you put something onto the battlefield tapped and attacking, you never declared that object as an attacker, so "attacks" abilities won't trigger for it. A creature is an attacking creature if it is attacking something. However, that creature only attacked if it was declared as an attacker. That's why the ruling you found makes this distinction. Attacking creatures may not necessarily have attacked; ETB-attacking effects are the primary cause of these cases.
June 3, 2015 7:46 p.m.