Hangarback Walker dies to infect damage

Asked by Gandolfini 4 years ago

If a Hangarback Walker or Hooded Hydra dies to infect damage, does it still create tokens equal to the counters it had on it before taking damage in the form of -1/-1 counters?

Massacar says... Accepted answer #1

From the oracle text: "If enough -1/-1 counters are put on Hangarback Walker at the same time to make its toughness 0 or less, the number of +1/+1 counters on it before it got any -1/-1 counters will be used to determine how many Thopter tokens you get. For example, if there are three +1/+1 counters on Hangarback Walker and it gets four -1/-1 counters, you’ll get three Thopter tokens. That’s because Hangarback Walker’s triggered ability checks the creature’s existence just before it leaves the battlefield, and it still has all those counters on it at that point." (Bold added by me)

So basically it depends, if the infect is done all at once and kills it you get all your +1s, if it's killed over multiple instances of infect over multiple turns it's less.

September 6, 2019 2:37 p.m.

Rhadamanthus says... #2

So you know: the reason this happens is because a creature dying for 0 or less toughness and +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters removing each other are both "state based actions". If the game sees any SBAs that need to be taken care of, it handles them all simultaneously right before the next time a player would get priority to take another action. In your example this means Hangarback Walker still had all the +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters on it the moment before it died.

September 6, 2019 5:08 p.m.

Please login to comment