Does Warrior en-Kor and Torbran, Thane of Red Fell create infinite damage on the stack?
Asked by Ev1_ 2 days ago
If you use a Shock on Warrior en-Kor and you have Torbran, Thane of Red Fell on the battlefield, can you then redirect the damage from Warrior en-Kor to itself and get another+2 on the damage? If not, could you do so with 2 Warrior en-Kor on the battlefield. Do you need to change Warrior en-Kors colour?
Appologies. Needed an example and thought Torbran sufficed. Jaya, Venerated Firemage or Furnace of Rath can replace him :)
July 2, 2025 9:03 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #3
No, it doesn't go infinite. The reason is in the rules for how to handle damage prevention/redirection effects and replacement effects. Prevention, redirection and replacement effects modify the result of an event as it happens, and any such effect that could apply to an event can only be applied to that event once. Shock will only get its damage increased one time, even if it gets bounced around a bunch of times.
In the example of Shock, Warrior en-Kor and Furnace of Rath: You cast Shock targeting the Warrior. You respond by activating the Warrior's ability some number of times, let's say 4 (note the Warrior was printed at a time when some rules and text templates worked differently - the current Oracle text reads ": The next 1 damage that would be dealt to Warrior en-Kor this turn is dealt to target creature you control instead"). Shock starts resolving, and let's say you want to apply Furnace's replacement effect before the Warrior's redirection effect (since you control the object that would be affected by the event, you decide what to apply first). Now the event is that Shock is going to deal 4 damage to Warrior. Warrior's redirection effect is applied and now the event is that Shock is dealing its 4 damage somewhere else. The Furnace effect won't be applied again after this point, even if you sent the damage towards another Warrior and activated them a bunch of times to bounce the damage back and forth.
July 2, 2025 9:34 a.m.
As Rhadamanthus explained, one damage event won't make this work. What you could use is something like Toralf, God of Fury Flip or Boros Reckoner, both of which are triggered abilities, to create multiple damage instances so the damage will be multiplied each time. For example, if you have Furnace of Rath in play and target Boros Reckoner with Shock, the damage dealt to your Reckoner will be doubled from 2 to 4, then its ability will trigger and deal 4 damage to any target, which will be doubled again to 8.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #1
Maybe read Torbran again. Torbran says this:
If a red source you control would deal damage to an opponent or a permanent an opponent controls, it deals that much damage plus 2 instead.
Torbran doesn't increase the damage dealt to creatures you control yourself.
I couldn't actually find an answer regarding e.g. Furnace of Rath with Warrior en-Kor, but I think you could actually infinitely double your damage. Maybe someone else can confirm or deny?
July 2, 2025 8:45 a.m.