Amass question
Asked by BuriedOnSunday 3 years ago
Eternal Skylord Eternal Skylord for example, if I don't control any armies and I create a 0/0 black Zombie Army creature, wouldn't that creature die when entering the battlefield or does he immediately enter with two +1/+1 counters on it?
sergiodelrio says... Accepted answer #1
Short answer: No it wouldn't die, because the 0/0 creature entering and the counters being put on it are part of the same effect.
Long answer: There's a concept in MTG of 'state-based actions' that would check for this kind of incident, aka a creature going to the grave bc it has 0 toughness. However, those are not checked when a spell or ability is still resolving, only if a player would get priority and before they do so.
Compare rules 704. onward, but especially:
704.4. Unlike triggered abilities, state-based actions pay no attention to what happens during the resolution of a spell or ability. Example: A player controls a creature with the ability “This creature’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of cards in your hand” and casts a spell whose effect is “Discard your hand, then draw seven cards.” The creature will temporarily have toughness 0 in the middle of the spell’s resolution but will be back up to toughness 7 when the spell finishes resolving. Thus the creature will survive when state-based actions are checked. In contrast, an ability that triggers when the player has no cards in hand goes on the stack after the spell resolves, because its trigger event happened during resolution.
April 22, 2021 9:17 a.m. Edited.