Can Eternal Witness return Liliana, Heretical Healer to hand after Liliana returns Eternal Witness with her -X?

Asked by Lowly_Hollow 2 years ago

Can Eternal Witness return Liliana, Heretical Healer  Flip to hand after Liliana returns Eternal Witness with her -X? Being that her -3 would put her in the graveyard, I'm assuming she would be a legal target for Witness.

Paying loyalty is part of the cost to activate the ability, so as the ability goes on the stack Lily  Flip has 0 loyalty counters, and thus as state-based actions are checked whenever a player would gain priority (like when an ability goes on the stack), Lily's lack of counters sends her to the GY, where--once her ability resolves--she can be found by the Witness .

June 1, 2021 4:25 p.m.

Omniscience_is_life says... Accepted answer #2

It goes like this:

  1. You pay 3 loyalty counters and put Lily's ability on the stack.

  2. State-based actions are checked and Lily goes to the GY.

  3. Her ability resolves (provided no one does anything tricky like Stifle it), returning E Witness to play.

  4. E Witness triggers, returning (ostensibly) Lily to your hand.

June 1, 2021 4:26 p.m.

Lowly_Hollow says... #3

Thanks, I thought that was the order. My janky Protean lines work then. Haha.

June 1, 2021 5:41 p.m.

Guerric says... #4

Hi Lowly_Hollow! Since Omniscience_is_life has answered the question to your satisfaction, you might want to mark it as answered. It helps us all to focus on questions people are still working through!

June 1, 2021 11:07 p.m.

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