Heroic Vs Spells Removed From the Stack
Asked by chaoswalker 8 years ago
Someone Correct me if this is not possible. It's a moderately complex combo and I want to make sure I'm exploiting a loophole, not breaking the rules.
Let's say I have a Battlewise Hoplite and a Nivmagus Elemental on the battlefield. I cast Gigadrowse, and pay the replicate cost 3 times. There are now 4 Gigadrowses on the stack targeting Battlewise Hoplite. Heroic activates, giving Battlewise Hoplite a +1/+1 counter and allowing me to scry 4 times in a row: Once for each Gigadrowse. Now I activate Nivmagus Elemental's ability and exile all 4 copies, preventing them from resolving and putting 6 +1/+1 counters on Nivmagus Elemental. Because I exiled all 4 Gigadrowses, Battlewise Hoplite does not become tapped.
Long story short, can I target a heroic creature with a spell, have heroic activate, and then exile the spell before it resolves?
chaoswalker says... #2
Ah, so it doesn't work with replicate due to the nature of how the spells were created. A copy from something like "Isochron Sceptar" though would work as it specifies it as being cast then?
August 31, 2015 5:44 p.m.
Exactly. Isochron Scepter casts the spell, but copies aren't cast unless specified.
August 31, 2015 5:48 p.m.
TheRedMage says... #4
The word "Cast" has a very specific meaning in magic. To "cast" a spell means to go through a very structured procedure made of seven steps (Announcing the spell, choosing modes, choosing targets, distributing the effect, figuring out the cost of the spell, paying the cost).
When you "copy a spell", for example thanks to its replicate ability, the copies are technically not cast, but rather, they just appear on the stack. All the decisions made during the casting of the spell are propagated to the copies (which is why all these abilities say "you may choose new targets for the copy" - if they didn't the copies would still have the same target as the original, as that is part of the choices that would be copied). It's kind of the same as some creature tokens that are created already tapped and attacking, but because of that, they never technically attacked.
Other cards or abilities (the RTR Dimir mechanic Cipher, for example, or cards like Isochron Scepter) instruct you to "copy a card and then cast the copy". Those cards make the copied spell go through the whole 7-step process and trigger heroic abilities.You can tell when this happens because the word "cast" will explicitly appear on the effect somewhere (i.e. it will say to copy a card and then cast it as opposed to just copy a spell).
So to answer you question - JWiley129 is indeed correct. There will be four spell on the stack (the original Gigadrowse and its three copies. Each can be exiled to Nivmagus Elemental, netting two counters. However, only the original spell was cast, and as such, it's the only one that will trigger Battlewise Hoplite's heroic ability.
In order for it to work the way you hoped, it would have needed to be worded "Whenever Battlewise Hoplite becomes the target of a spell you control..." as opposed to "Whenever you cast a spell that targets Battlewise Hoplite...".
JWiley129 says... Accepted answer #1
Bad news, in the scenario you describe, you'll only get one Heroic trigger off of Battlewise Hoplite. That's because Heroic is a "When you cast a spell that targets ~...", and the copies you create with Replicate aren't being cast.
To answer your last question, yes. You could cast Gigadrowse and exile it to Nivmagus Elemental but still get the Heroic trigger. This is because the Heroic trigger exists independent of the targeting spell.
August 31, 2015 5:35 p.m.