Can i Use Instant Spells to Pop Defense of the Heart?
Asked by Phobophile 13 years ago
In my deck, Kill The Land-people - Defender Edition (please have a look :D) i am using a card called Defense of the Heart .
My question is: at the beginning of my upkeep, after my lands untap, can i use the instant speed Natural Affinity to allow Defense of the Heart to check for the 3 creatures that an opponent would need in order for me to activate it?
i hope that my question is clear enough; The "if" clause in the card's text is really throwing me off.
603.4. A triggered ability may read "When/Whenever/At [trigger event], if [condition], [effect]." When the trigger event occurs, the ability checks whether the stated condition is true. The ability triggers only if it is; otherwise it does nothing. If the ability triggers, it checks the stated condition again as it resolves. If the condition isn't true at that time, the ability is removed from the stack and does nothing. Note that this mirrors the check for legal targets. This rule is referred to as the "intervening 'if' clause" rule. (The word "if" has only its normal English meaning anywhere else in the text of a card; this rule only applies to an "if" that immediately follows a trigger condition.)
I was going to give you a totally different answer, as I thought the conditions for the "if" part only had to be true as the ability resolved, but apparently I would have been wrong and the conditions need to be met upon the ability triggering AND resolving.
What you can do, however, is cast Natural Affinity in the end phase prior to the upkeep when you plan to pop Defense of the Heart, as the animating effect will remain until your end phase.
July 18, 2011 11:11 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #3
It looks like there's some confusion from Defense of the Heart using the word "during". Defense was printed at a time when triggered abilities worked differently, and its text has since been updated to make it clear that it triggers at the beginning of the upkeep. The first time a player gets priority in a turn is right after "beginning of upkeep" triggers are put on the stack, and like Siegfried said in his answer, a triggered ability with a condition won't trigger at all if the condition isn't met at the time it would normally trigger, so it's too late to get a benefit from Natural Affinity .
However, Natural Affinity can't be used in the way Siegfried describes. Effects that last "until end of turn" wear off during the cleanup step, which is after the last time a player would normally get priority in the end step. Players don't normally get priority in cleanup, but if that does happen, the game starts another cleanup step right after that one. There's no way to get Natural Affinity to carry over between turns, much like there's no way to get a Giant Growth to carry over between turns.
July 18, 2011 11:25 a.m.
...huh. For some reason I thought "until end of turn" effects ended at the beginning of the end step. Guess I confused them with "end of turn" triggers? =P Anyway, thanks for clearing that up Rhadamanthus.
July 18, 2011 11:28 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #5
Yeah, it's a tricky thing until you finally get a good handle on it, and it's one of the subtleties of the game that's causing Sundial of the Infinite to break peoples' brains.
The End Phase has 2 steps, end and cleanup. The end step is where "at the beginning of the end step" abilities trigger, and it's the last step in the turn (usually; keep reading) where players get priority to play spells and abilities. In the cleanup step, first you discard down to 7, then damage, "until end of turn", and "this turn" effects wear off. No one is given priority during cleanup unless something that happened during cleanup caused something to be put onto the stack. If someone did get priority for some reason, then the game inserts another cleanup step after that one, and so on until the game doesn't have to do anymore cleanups and we all move on to the next turn.
July 18, 2011 11:37 a.m.
Phobophile says... #6
Okay, so if they don't have 3 creatures already, then by the time i get priority, it will have been past the stage where Defense of the Heart would have triggered.
thanks!
SandyDufresne says... #1
yes, if you use Natural Affinity at the beginning of your upkeep, you can pop Defense of the Heart during your upkeep, so at any time during your upkeep.
July 18, 2011 11:08 a.m.