Can you stop Worldspine Wurm from going back into your library?
Asked by Ramz-E 11 years ago
Is it possible to prevent a Worldspine Wurm from being shuffled into your library by bringing it back from the graveyard?
I assume when it dies, the triggered ability to return it to you library goes on the stack. If you use place another ability that brings it back, such as Champion of the Stray Souls ability, after it on the stack, would the triggered ability fail to resolve as the card is no longer in the graveyard, or would you still have to put it back into your library anyway?
nighthawk101 says... #2
That's corrrect. If you activate Champion of Stray Souls while the Worldspine Wurm trigger is on the stack, the Champion's ability will resolve first and return it to the battlefield.
April 2, 2014 6:40 a.m.
Yes, but wouldn't then the ability of the wurm resolve and shuffle it back in still? It is not like you removed the ability from the stack...
also, Gatherer is the most useful place to check first for any rules questions:
"Worldspine Wurm's last ability is a triggered ability, not a replacement ability. Players can respond to this ability, for example, by trying to exile Worldspine Wurm from the graveyard before it's shuffled into a library."
April 2, 2014 7:19 a.m.
Absinthman says... Accepted answer #4
The "shuffle" ability expects to find Worldspine Wurm
in your graveyard. That's why if you move it anywhere else, it won't get shuffled into your library. By the way, there is one detail worth noting. The "shuffle" ability will still resolve. It won't get countered because it doesn't target Worldspine Wurm
. The thing is that it just fails to do anything because it doesn't find the worm where it is supposed to be. See this for reference:
603.6. Trigger events that involve objects changing zones are called "zone-change triggers." Many abilities with zone-change triggers attempt to do something to that object after it changes zones. During resolution, these abilities look for the object in the zone that it moved to. If the object is unable to be found in the zone it went to, the part of the ability attempting to do something to the object will fail to do anything...
April 2, 2014 8:12 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #5
When a card's ability uses its own name in its text it means "this specific object, right here", and a card that changes zones becomes a different object with no relation to what it was before (minus a small set of exceptions that don't apply here).
This means that if you use Champion of Stray Souls to move Worldspine Wurm out of the graveyard while the shuffle trigger is still on the stack, the "Worldspine Wurm" that the trigger refers to is the old object that used to be in the graveyard, not the new object on the battlefield. The Wurm on the battlefield won't be shuffled in.
Ramz-E says... #1
Got the name of a card wrong, should be Champion of Stray Souls .
April 2, 2014 5:44 a.m.