Can a flickered Fiend Hunter hit the same target?
Asked by Demarge 13 years ago
Lets say I have a Fiend Hunter holding down a Griselbrand , my opponent casts Doom Blade at Fiend Hunter , to save it I cast Restoration Angel and flicker Fiend Hunter , now can the Fiend Hunter hold down the same Griselbrand ? or is the demon still exiled when the etb trigger hits?
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #2
The LTB ability hasn't resolved yet when it's time to put the ETB ability on the stack and choose a target (it's put onto the stack at the same time). Since the creature currently being held down by Fiend Hunter isn't on the battlefield, it can't be chosen as the target.
June 21, 2012 9:28 a.m.
But Fiend Hunter says that when it "leaves the battlefield, return the exiled card to the battlefield under it's owner's control," and there's no denying that in order to flicker something with Restoration Angel , it necessarily leaves the battlefield. To me, the stack looks like this:
1) Griselbrand is played.
2) Fiend Hunter is played, and Griselbrand is exiled.
3) a) Doom Blade is played to target Fiend Hunter .
3) b) Restoration Angel is played at instant speed to disrupt Doom Blade by flickering Fiend Hunter .
3) b) i) Fiend Hunter leaves the battlefield.
3) b) ii) Because Fiend Hunter left the battlefield, Griselbrand is no longer exiled...
3) b) ii) 1) ...and therefore, necessarily is on the battlefield.
3) b) iii) Fiend Hunter reenters the battlefield, which triggers its passive ability.
3) c) Griselbrand , being on the field at the exact moment that Fiend Hunter comes back in, is a valid target, so it can be chosen for exile.
3) d) Restoration Angel 's flicker effect clears.
3) e) Doom Blade clears.
4) Player 1 controls Restoration Angel and Fiend Hunter , while Player 2 is stuck with an exiled Griselbrand and a Doom Blade in the graveyard.
June 21, 2012 9:40 a.m.
You may can.
My logic is: when Restoration Angel flickering Fiend Hunter , he is exiled (Griselbrand come to the battlefield), and then Fiend Hunter come to the battlefield, why you can't target Griselbrand ?
June 21, 2012 9:41 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #6
Fiend Hunter's LTB trigger doesn't resolve in the middle of Restoration Angel's ability resolving. It isn't even put onto the stack until the next time a player receives priority, which is after Restoration Angel's ability is completely finished resolving. The LTB trigger and ETB trigger end up being put onto the stack at the same time, so you can order them how you want, but you have to choose the target for the ETB ability right when it's put onto the stack, and Griselbrand isn't yet on the battlefield to choose. Here's some backup from the Comprehensive Rules:
603.3. Once an ability has triggered, its controller puts it on the stack as an object that's not a card the next time a player would receive priority. See rule 116, "Timing and Priority." The ability becomes the topmost object on the stack. It has the text of the ability that created it, and no other characteristics. It remains on the stack until it's countered, it resolves, a rule causes it to be removed from the stack, or an effect moves it elsewhere.
603.3b If multiple abilities have triggered since the last time a player received priority, each player, in APNAP order, puts triggered abilities he or she controls on the stack in any order he or she chooses. (See rule 101.4.) Then the game once again checks for and resolves state-based actions until none are performed, then abilities that triggered during this process go on the stack. This process repeats until no new state-based actions are performed and no abilities trigger. Then the appropriate player gets priority.
603.3d The remainder of the process for putting a triggered ability on the stack is identical to the process for casting a spell listed in rules 601.2c-d. If a choice is required when the triggered ability goes on the stack but no legal choices can be made for it, or if a rule or a continuous effect otherwise makes the ability illegal, the ability is simply removed from the stack.
601.2c The player announces his or her choice of an appropriate player, object, or zone for each target the spell requires...
June 21, 2012 9:51 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #8
No, you can't. Like I described earlier, he isn't yet back on the battlefield at the time you're supposed to choose a target.
June 21, 2012 9:59 a.m.
Just so I can adequately respond to the above, can you please define ETB and LTB? I am unfamiliar with those acronyms, and so I don't fully understand what you're saying.
June 21, 2012 10 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #10
Sorry about that: "Enters the battlefield" and "leaves the battlefield". They're very common phrases when talking about game interactions, but can get to be a pain to type out over and over again during a discussion, so they're often abbreviated this way. Some people still say CIP, from the old game terminology of "comes into play".
June 21, 2012 10:03 a.m.
Ah. So, what you're saying is, when something leaves the battlefield, an ability that triggers upon its leaving the battlefield doesn't take effect, and because of a quirk of the rules of the game, in this instance, I can choose to have an enter-the-battlefield effect take place before the card in question leaves the battlefield? I don't doubt that that's what the rules seem to say, but you must admit, that seems to defy all common sense.
Reasoning by analogy, if life were a game, and there were rules that permitted me to do so, I could dive in a lake without getting wet, and if I wanted, I could choose to become wet from the lake water before I even got in.
Now, if what you say is true, and if I haven't misunderstood you, then two things have been shown: 1) the rules of Magic are sufficiently intricate that they prevent players from being able to reason through situations due to their nature being contrary to reason, and 2) Demarge can now go break the game by flickering Fiend Hunter and other such cards at really, really inconvenient times for his/her opponent, eventually locking out all of their creatures.
This is when I wish I could step back through the looking-glass; these chessmen are messing me up, and that Red Queen makes no sense at all...
June 21, 2012 10:12 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #12
The rules are a tight logical and mathematical framework, and produce consistent and predictable results for any given game situation. Applying reason within that framework is exactly how to determine the answer to a confusing situation. On the whole, the rules of the game are actually quite elegant (at least, in my opinion).
The trick from the original question can't be used to lock out all the opponent's creatures with a single Fiend Hunter , because the LTB ability you put onto the stack during the process will eventually resolve, and whatever the Hunter was holding down before will come back to the battlefield.
And yes, there are other ways to cause his LTB ability to resolve before his ETB ability, effectively exiling one thing forever. The rules note in Fiend Hunter's Gatherer entry says exactly that (this particular interaction is also a well-known trick for Oblivion Ring ).
June 21, 2012 10:34 a.m.
So if a Restoration Angel were to be played as Fiend Hunter ETB (targeting Griselbrand ), after everything is said and done, Griselbrand is indefinitely exiled and another creature can be exiled with Fiend Hunter when it ETB again?
June 21, 2012 10:49 a.m.
rckclimber777 says... #14
Rhadamanthus is correct. Restoration angel's ability must resolve completely before anything is put onto the stack. Fiend hunter's Leave the battlefield (LTB) effect will go on the stack, but will not resolve until after restoration angel is finished, thus Griselbrand is still exiled when Fiend Hunter appears on the field. Fiend Hunter 's enter the battlefield (ETB) effect goes on the stack on top of his LTB. It resolves before the LTB effect and thus Griselbrand is still exiled at the top of the resolving of the ETB. You cannot choose him with fiend hunter.
June 21, 2012 10:54 a.m.
I intend no disrespect, but as someone who has studied both logic and mathematics at a collegiate level, it seems to me that some of what Rhadamanthus suggests would indicate an overemphasis on mathematics and an underemphasis on pure logic in the core of the rules--which can still be elegant, and yes, can still be operated within in a reasonable fashion--but it can produce results which, such as in this case, defy common sense.
Evidently, the rules allow for something to leave existence before entering it, which from a quantum standpoint makes sense, I suppose, but standard interpretations of human existence suggest that something can cease to exist iff it has previously existed. Suggesting otherwise, while mathematically sound, is akin to me saying I have a negative pair of jeans in my bureau--also mathematically sound, but patentently ridiculous from an experiential perspective.
Nothing on you, of course. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and that's not a problem. What strikes me as a problem, though, is that two players sat down and thought about what it means, broadly speaking, for something to enter and leave existence, applied it to the game, and came to a unified conclusion, but chapter and verse contradict that. And that's a problem on Wizard's end; most people won't sit down and bust out the 300-odd page rulebook for esoterica in most games, so common practice would conform to common sense and wind up, oddly enough, breaking the rules.
But that's a problem for a different thread, methinks.
It seems to me that this has been solved; kudos to those of you who are more versed in the rulebook than I, and thank you for your insight.
June 21, 2012 11:08 a.m.
rckclimber777 says... #16
You have to look at them as triggered abilities and the use of the stack. Once that happens things begin to seem much more logical. Everything in magic works in a tight framework. It is not the same framework as the real world of course, that would be far too complicated. Once you've mastered the framework of the game it is actually very logical and always conforms to that pattern. Thus Rhadamanthus's reliance on logic and math is actually perfectly reasonable.
June 21, 2012 11:17 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #17
I think you're overcomplicating it by being too literal in your interpretation of the wordings of cards. If you look at the problem from the standpoint of triggered abilities (which must use the stack) instead of literal instructions that must happen instantaneously it becomes clear what is actually going on in this scenario.
Since Fiend Hunter 's abilities are triggered, they trigger at the time their conditions are met and are then placed on the stack. They wait to resolve until every player passes priority so everyone has a chance to respond.
June 21, 2012 11:21 a.m.
I will work on that in the future--though you'll forgive me if, in the here and now, it strikes me as far more complicated to have things ceasing to exist before they begin to exist than to operate according to the way the real world does. :P And of course, his/her reliance on logic and math seems excellent; I merely point out that the game, by nature, seems to overemphasize math in comparison to pure logic.
It's just a new universe of discourse, I suppose. Again, thank you for your pointers.
June 21, 2012 11:21 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #19
Applying the logical framework of physics and real-world existence/nonexistence to a game that doesn't operate by the rules of physics and real-world existence/nonexistence doesn't make sense. The logical framework for the game of Magic is the Comprehensive Rules. It's logic in the Whitehead-Russell tradition, not the Aristotelian one.
June 21, 2012 12:28 p.m.
Ah. Forgive me. I stand fully corrected. Allow me to say, then, that for reasons I can't fully explain, I find it easier to suspend my disbelief regarding a player's ability to summon fireballs, fell beasts, and demons than to suspend my disbelief regarding a player's ability to reverse causation. Your points were all good, and quite sound; I merely am wrestling with discontent regarding the nuances of rules I have yet to fully grasp that require me to think in incredibly foreign ways. This is likely an indicator that I need to think five impossible things before breakfast on a more regular basis.
Once again, thank you for offering such cogent advice regarding the finer points of the game.
June 21, 2012 1:04 p.m.
Yes thanks for the explanation of how things would go, I'm glad I ran into that question while playtesting and not my next tournament. And as for not getting wet I'm sure that'd be a state based action (like Honor of the Pure 's effect) and it's pretty difficult to make those wait.
June 21, 2012 5:49 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #22
Honor of the Pure 's effect is not a state-based action. It's a static effect that applies all the time.
xantm70 says... #1
I don't pretend to be an expert in this regard, but I will say this: if you could use Fiend Hunter to hold down down two creatures, I think more people would flicker it with instant-speed spells in similar circumstances. In fact, it sounds like you're asking the wrong question: rather than, "Can it target Griselbrand again?" the better question is, "Can it target two cards with the same ability that specifies one card?" I don't know the ins and outs of the rulebook on this particular instance, but I would venture to say, "No, because WotC would not let you exile 2 things for 3 mana on a creature drop, because that's just broken, especially at uncommon scarcity--besides which, the card says 'another creature' in the singular." My best guess as to what happens is, as Fiend Hunter leaves play, Griselbrand flicks back in. Then, when Fiend Hunter reenters play, you can target Griselbrand for a second time.
June 21, 2012 9:27 a.m.