Can You add a Plainswalker Loyalty counter if ability won’t trigger an action?
Asked by GinaChis 4 years ago
A friend was playing Estrid, the Masked this weekend. Her +1 ability is to untap each enchanted permanent you control. The player didn’t have any enchanted permanents but he stated he was using it, and added a loyalty ability each turn. Is this legal? If a plainswalker ability won’t cause the specific effect to take place, do you still get to add a loyalty counter? Thank you for your help!
If a Loyalty ability says target opponent discards a card but that person has no cards to discard does the planeswalker still gain the Loyalty counter
Caerwyn says... Accepted answer #1
This will work with Estrid's +2.
To start, Loyalty Abilities are activated abilities. Like all activated abilities, you pay a cost as part of putting the ability on the stack. In the case of a Loyalty Ability, that cost is adding or removing loyalty counters from the planeswalker.
Estrid's first ability does not target, so you can pay the cost (adding 2 loyalty) and put the ability on the stack, regardless of whether that ability is going to have an effect or not. The ability resolves, and nothing happens, but that's irrelevant to your question--by that point the loyalty has already been put on Estrid.
Notably, however, this will not work if the planeswalker ability requires a target AND there are no legal targets for that ability--you cannot activate a targeted ability (and thus cannot pay the cost of gaining loyalty), unless you are able to satisfy the targeting requirements.
In practice, however, that's not going to be a big deal--Wizards went out of its way to ensure the + loyalty abilities will almost always have a sufficient number of valid targets. This is done in four ways:
The + loyalty ability will say something like "Up to one target" meaning you can choose 0 targets. This allows you to activate the loyalty ability with 0 targets, so you can still "pay" the cost of adding loyalty to your walker. Example: Huatli, Dinosaur Knight.
The planeswalker's ability will always have a target because it can target itself. Example: Ajani Vengeant.
The planeswalker might not be able to activate one of its + loyalty abilities due to lack of valid targets, but will have a second + loyalty ability that can be activated in the absence of targets. Example: Garruk, Apex Predator
The target of the loyalty ability will be an opponent, since you'll always have an opponent. Example: Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver.
So, the only situation where a player can't activate at least one + loyalty ability is going to involve a loyalty ability that requires a target and a complex boardstate rendering all those targets unavailable. For example, if Leyline of Sanctity gives your opponent hexproof, you will not be able to activate Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver's +2 ability due to a lack of valid targets.
October 16, 2019 10:22 a.m. Edited.