Grave Betrayal vs Gift of Immortality
Asked by NoctisSemper 11 years ago
So a friend of mine and I were playing a game the other day where he had Grave Betrayal on the field and I had a creature with Gift of Immortality . My friend used Doom Blade on my creature and it died and then this is where we got confused. Since my creature has Gift of Immortality on it I reasoned that my creature would go to the graveyard and then it would be placed back on the field and at the end of the turn the Gift of Immortality would be placed on my creature again. Since my creature isn't in the graveyard anymore Grave Betrayal wouldn't work. My friend argued that Grave Betrayal doesn't care if the creature is n the graveyard or not, as long as it died. So my creature would come back thanks to Gift of Immortality but at the end step he would gain control of it, put a +1/+1 counter on it, and have Gift of Immortality attached to it. I didn't really know how to proceed and in the end we just played rock paper scissors to see who was right. I would like to know the ruling on this in case of future problems like this.
Grave Betrayal sets up a delayed trigger upon a creature dying to return it from the graveyard to play at the beginning of the next end step.
Gift of Immortality has a perfectly regular trigger that triggers upon a creature dying and returns it directly to play. It also has a delayed trigger that will return it from the graveyard at the beginning of the next end step to re-enchant the creature if it is still around.
When the creature dies, all three triggers go onto the stack. Gift of Immortality's first ability resolves right away returning the creature to the battlefield. At the beginning of the next end step, Grave Betrayal's trigger resolves and goes looking for that dead creature in the graveyard, and doesn't find one.
Also at the beginning of the end step, Gift of Immortality's delayed trigger also resolves and comes back enchanting the creature if it is still alive in the meantime.
October 24, 2013 9:25 a.m.
A note to above now that I think of it. Technically, while the delayed triggers trigger, they don't actually go onto the stack until the beginning of the next end step. They don't go onto the stack and just hang around for the rest of the turn.
Relatively minor issue, but worth pointing out. My bad for mis-phrasing it the first time.
meecht says... Accepted answer #1
In game terms, "dies" means "goes to the graveyard."
By the time Grave Betrayal 's ability triggers, your creature is no longer in the graveyard so the ability is countered.
There's even a Gatherer ruling on Grave Betrayal that confirms this:
If the creature card leaves the graveyard before the delayed triggered ability resolves, it won't return to the battlefield. This is also true if the card leaves the graveyard and returns to the graveyard before that ability resolves.
October 24, 2013 9:20 a.m.