War's Toll and Ghostly Prison
Asked by swkelly89 8 years ago
so i control War's Toll and Ghostly Prison and my opponent attacks with X amount of creatures and i would like some clarification on what happens. would they be forced to pay the 2 mana if they have it open, or would wars toll "override" ghostly prison's ability
Epochalyptik says... Accepted answer #2
Neither.
War's Toll's second ability creates a requirement that each creature your opponent controls must attack, if able, if he or she attacks with any number of creatures. Ghostly Prison's ability creates a restriction that a creature can only attack if its controller pays 
for it.
When you're declaring attackers or blockers, you need to fulfill as many requirements as possible without violating any restrictions. However, the rules do not force you to pay for Ghostly Prison, even if you are able to do so. If you choose not to pay for a creature, then it is not able to attack and thus can't be forced to attack by War's Toll's ability.
This, of course, likely requires your opponent to activate mana abilities of his or her lands, so War's Toll's first ability will trigger (if that is indeed the case) and it'll go onto the stack after the declaration of attackers is complete.
Named_Tawyny says... #1
First, the declare combat step would happen.
Then they'd declare attackers. For each attacker, they'd have to pay 2 mana. If they tap any land for mana to pay this, they'd have to tap all of their land (they can generate mana with that land).
A player can never be forced to pay mana to make a creature attack - so all their other creatures, if they decline to pay the 2 mana, would not attack. This is true regardless if they've run out of mana, or if they're just letting excess mana empty from their pool.
August 4, 2015 11:42 p.m.