Do planeswalker's abilities activate at instant or sorcery speed?
Asked by thataddkid 11 years ago
Say I drop a Liliana of the Veil , and my opponent Searing Spear 's it. Can I activate Liliana's +1 in response to the spear? With this, can I activate PW abilities at the end of my opponent's turn?
It might be worth noting that you are always able to activate a Planeswalker's ability if you can get one onto the battlefield. After the spell that 'summons' the Planeswalker resolves, you receive priority as the active player. At this point, as it will be a main phase (given that you cast a Planeswalker), you can activate a Loyalty Ability. This is all unless the PW entering the battlefield triggered some other ability that must go onto the stack and resolve first, as that can be responded to by Searing Spear or other instants...
October 6, 2013 11:34 a.m.
thataddkid says... #3
ekim32, but now in response to my +1 on the stack my opponent will searing spear before the +1 resolves, but there's still no point in not activating it if you can only do it on your turn.
October 6, 2013 11:42 a.m.
MagnorCriol says... #4
thataddkid - While you're not wrong that the Spear will resolve before the PW ability, there's still something you're probably missing.
Adding and removing the loyalty counters is part of the cost to activate the ability. It's not part of the effect. This means that you pay the "cost" of adding counters to her just to put the ability on the stack, so the extra counter is already there by the time your opponent even has the option to respond to it.
You cast Liliana of the Veil . -> She resolves and enters the battlefield with 3 loyalty counters. -> It's your main phase with an empty stack now. You have priority. You pay the cost of adding one loyalty counter to her, then put her discard ability on the stack. -> Your opponent receives priority. They have the ability to cast Searing Spear now if they wish, but she's at 4 loyalty, so it won't kill her if they do. ->
October 6, 2013 11:56 a.m.
thataddkid says... #5
MagnorCriol, wow, that's great. I didn't realize that, thanks for pointing it out to me!
October 6, 2013 12:11 p.m.
MagnorCriol says... #6
Not a problem. It's one of those interactions that's not really evident right out the gate but it pretty important at times (for situations exactly like you put forth). This was also a big deal back when Jace, the Mind Sculptor was in Standard with Lightning Bolt .
October 6, 2013 12:18 p.m.
MagnorCriol says... #7
And if you need to explain this to any of your friends who don't believe you, another way of describing it is that adding or subtracting the loyalty counters is the same as paying mana for spells, or tapping Royal Assassin for his ability, or paying 2G for Jade Mage 's ability, etc etc. Planeswalker cards have a fancy frame, but what they're really saying is simply "Add a loyalty counter to Liliana of the Veil: Each player discards a card." The colon is "hidden", but it's still technically there.
October 6, 2013 12:22 p.m.
One further note: If you have activated the PW Loyalty Ability, it goes on to the stack. Once there, it will resolve no matter what happens to the PW that was its source. If it was a Hero's Downfall rather than Searing Spear , Liliana would die but the ability you activated would still resolve afterwards.
MagnorCriol says... Accepted answer #1
No; loyalty abilities (the CR name for a planeswalker ability) are sorcery-speed only. This is important for the balance of the game.
606.3. A player may activate a loyalty ability of a permanent he or she controls any time he or she has priority and the stack is empty during a main phase of his or her turn, but only if no player has previously activated a loyalty ability of that permanent that turn.
October 6, 2013 11:04 a.m.