Possibility Storm and Friends Question

Asked by bpalermo 5 years ago

So I was playing a 4 player game of Commander with Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder and got out Eye of the Storm . I managed to get a Rishkar's Expertise and Baral's Expertise under Eye of the Storm . Then things got weird. I cast a Sunbird's Invocation , Swarm Intelligence , and a Possibility Storm . I then got in for damage with Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder , cast a Decimate , and my brain broke a little. As a group we tried to work through exactly what happened, but decided we were in over our heads and gave up. Any rules gurus out there who can walk me through what happens? And my strongest Power card for Rishkar's Expertise was 7.

Caerwyn says... #1

The answer is: It depends.

As the player who controls all these triggers, you get to decide what order they resolve in. At the time of casting, you have Eye of the Storm , Sunbird's Invocation , Swarm Intelligence , Possibility Storm , and a Cascade trigger that you will have to determine the order of.

That leaves you with 5! different ways you can order the stack on the trigger--a total of 120 different options.

Rather than go through all those options, I will hit some highlights.

Swarm Intelligence 's copies are not cast, so they will not implicate Eye of the Storm or Cascade.

Posibility Storm still will activate, even if the spell has already been activated by Eye of the Storm .

The cards cast with Eye of the Storm will trigger Sunbird's Invocation , but not Swarm Intelligence and Possibility Storm .

January 30, 2019 5:10 p.m. Edited.

bpalermo says... #2

Thanks cdkime! I am still a little confused though.

Why does Possibility Storm still resolve if Eye of the Storm has taken Decimate off the stack?

Why does Eye of the Storm trigger Sunbird's Invocation when the cards are not cast from the hand? Related, why does Eye of the Storm not trigger Swarm Intelligence even though you are casting the copies?

January 30, 2019 5:18 p.m.

Kogarashi says... Accepted answer #3

Given only the cards you have named, I'm assuming you cast nothing relevant with the extra cast from the two Expertise spells.

When you cast Decimate , Eye of the Storm , Sunbird's Invocation , Swarm Intelligence , Possibility Storm , and cascade all trigger at the same time because they all trigger from you casting the spell. You control all four triggers, so you can put them on the stack in whatever order you please, and that will change what happens next.

Just looking at what each trigger does if it resolves first....

  • Eye of the Storm will pull in Decimate , then copy that and the two Expertises and cast those copies in whatever order you choose.
  • Sunbird's Invocation will reveal 4 cards from the top of your library, and you may cast one of them with CMC 4 or less without paying its mana cost. The rest go on the bottom of your library. The new spell will go on top of anything else on the stack.
  • Swarm Intelligence copies Decimate . The copy is not cast.
  • Possibility Storm exiles Decimate , then exiles cards from your library until you hit another Sorcery. You may cast it without paying for it, and then all the exiled cards (including Decimate ) go on the bottom of your library in a random order.
  • Cascade will exile cards off your library until you hit one with CMC 3 or less that isn't a land, and then you may cast that for free. This would go on top of anything else on the stack.

It's important to note that Eye of the Storm , Sunbird's Invocation , and Possibility Storm look for you casting a card (Eye) or from hand (Sunbird and Possibility), so they won't look at copies, even ones cast from Eye.

Eye of the Storm will trigger for the cascaded spell, the Sunbird spell, and the replacement spell from Possibility Storm if they are instants or sorceries.

Sunbird's Invocation will trigger and resolve for the initial Decimate casting, but not for any other spells this whole mess adds to the stack since none of the rest are "from hand." Same with Possibility Storm . It doesn't matter if Eye ate the card that Possibility wants to exile; it will still resolve just fine.

Swarm Intelligence will trigger from the spells copied and cast by Eye of the Storm . As mentioned, those copies won't trigger anything.

Cascade will trigger for every spell you actually cast, which is all of them except Swarm Intelligence . Decimate will trigger it twice (initial cast, plus the copy from Eye of the storm).

It's a big mess. A lot really depends on what order you want to put the triggers in.

January 30, 2019 5:31 p.m.

Caerwyn says... #4

First question: Because the exile effect of Possibility Storm is part of the resolution, but not a necessary part (i.e. it does not say "Exile that spell, if you do, then [insert effect here]).

Possibility Storm 's gatherer rulings make this explicitly clear:

If Possibility Storm’s ability doesn’t exile the original spell (perhaps because another Possibility Storm already exiled it), you’ll still exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a card that shares a card type with it and have the opportunity to cast that spell.

Second question: That was an error on my part. It seems all the different triggers floating about hurt my brain as well, and I mixed up Swarm Intelligence 's and Sunbird's Invocation 's triggers.

Rightfully, it should say Swarm Intelligence will trigger off the spells cast by Eye of the Storm , while they will not trigger Sunbird's Invocation .

Apologies for the confusion.

January 30, 2019 5:36 p.m.

Kogarashi says... #5

It should be noted also that if you let Possibility Storm exile Decimate , then Eye of the Storm can't copy it, but you'll still get copies of all the other spells in the Eye.

It's also important to note that either Expertise spell may end up adding more triggers on top of things since they let you cast spells from hand, and for that you'll have to refer to the above info.

January 30, 2019 5:40 p.m.

bpalermo says... #6

Ok! Thanks everybody for the help! I think I probably lost that game from decking since Rishkar's Expertise drew me so many cards, but playing every spell in my deck about 1,000 times seems to be a pretty awesome end result!

January 30, 2019 5:45 p.m.

Caerwyn says... #7

That does sound like a pretty fun little rules nightmare.

Just so you are aware, I am going to go ahead and change the accepted answer to Kogarashi's, as mine contained a fairly significant error.

January 30, 2019 5:52 p.m.

Kogarashi says... #8

Yeah, probably, given that every copy from Eye of the Storm is going to have cascade, which will trigger Eye of the Storm again, which will all have cascade again.... You may very well end up casting every spell in your deck this way.

January 30, 2019 5:59 p.m.

Caerwyn says... #9

Kogarashi:

Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder 's rules text says that "as you cast spells from your hand" they gain cascade, so the spells you cast with from Eye of the Storm will not have cascade.

January 30, 2019 10:49 p.m.

Kogarashi says... #10

Ah, there's the bit I missed. I read the reminder text on cascade (which doesn't mention it), but missed the part where Yidris' ability specifies from hand.

January 30, 2019 11:44 p.m.

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