Curse of the Swine, Narset's Reversal, and Misdirection
Asked by eternallee 3 years ago
I cast Curse of the Swine (X was 8) targeting eight of my opponent's creatures. He responded with Narset's Reversal, targeting my Swine. I hesitatingly responded with Misdirection. Here's where the question(s) started: 1. I know I can target Reversal w/ Misdirection, but then, what would I make Reversal target instead? It seems like my only choice is: Misdirection (no other spells are on the stack). 2. If I have Reversal target Misdirection instead of Swine, my opponent will copy Misdirection (and send Misdirection back to my hand) and then he...what? Targets his Reversal with the copied Misdirection to make it target Swine again? My head already hurts.
In the end, we agreed it was confusing but that likely there was no way Misdirection could save my Swine from his Narset's Reversal. I happened to have only six creatures at this time, btw, so I told him that he had to exile two of his own creatures since X was still 8. He didn't argue (in part because I was about to lose)
Is that correct? Or is there some other answer in the seemingly unending, blue vortex?
Tylord2894 says... Accepted answer #1
A spell or ability doesn't leave the stack until it has finished resolving, so while the Misdirection that is targeting Narset's Reversal is resolving, you can still choose to have Reversal start targetting Misdirection. After that, Misdirection has finished resolving and is removed from the stack. Next, Reversal would start to resolve, but its target, Misdirection, is not there. This causes Reversal to fizzle and just be removed from the stack, doing nothing. Lastly, your Curse has been left unscathed, so your opponent's creatures are now 2/2 Boars.
One of the keys here is that a spell only "remembers" what its target is, but it never remembers anything about it. Once Misdirection has switched the target of Reversal to Misdirection, Reversal doesn't "know" anything about Misdirection except where to look for it when Reversal tries to resolve, Reversal wouldn't try to make a copy of Misdirection. This happens anything a spell or abilities somehow loses all of its targets (either because they are not legal targets or they don't exist anymore).
Another important note (that didn't get brought up in your question) is that Misdirection can't cause a spell to target itself. For instance, if your opponent had cast Counterspell, you could not use Misdirection to have Counterspell target itself. A spell is never a legal target for itself.
Hope this helps!!
May 19, 2020 6:46 p.m.