How do infinite life and damage interact?

Asked by Magnivore 9 years ago

I had a game where an opponent was able to gain infinite life at instant speed, or as much life as he's like to. I was able to deal infinite damage as instant speed, or as much as I wanted to. Would he live or die? Could I argue that I would use a higher level/magnitude of infinity than he used? Does it Schrdinger's Cat and end in a draw?

Raging_Squiggle says... #1

Nothing happens. The game just continues, it's not an infinite loop.

Also, infinite shouldn't be used to represent an amount as it's not actually a number. 1 million or 100 Novendicillion, or Googolplex and the like can be used. Using infinite creates problems like this.

In order to win you must stop his life-gain combo. Otherwise, in response to you dealing him X damage, he will just gain X life and nothing will change.

February 13, 2016 1:39 p.m.

Raging_Squiggle says... Accepted answer #2

After scouring the Conprehensive rules and digging deeper into the problem, I found this little ruling that should answer your question.

716.3. Sometimes a loop can be fragmented, meaning that each player involved in the loop performs an independent action that results in the same game state being reached multiple times. If that happens, the active player (or, if the active player is not involved in the loop, the first player in turn order who is involved) must then make a different game choice so the loop does not continue.

Example

Example: In a two-player game, the active player controls a creature with the ability 0: [This creature] gains flying, the nonactive player controls a permanent with the ability 0: Target creature loses flying, and nothing in the game cares how many times an ability has been activated. Say the active player activates his creatures ability, it resolves, then the nonactive player activates her permanents ability targeting that creature, and it resolves. This returns the game to a game state it was at before. The active player must make a different game choice (in other words, anything other than activating that creatures ability again). The creature doesnt have flying. Note that the nonactive player could have prevented the fragmented loop simply by not activating her permanents ability, in which case the creature would have had flying. The nonactive player always has the final choice and is therefore able to determine whether the creature has flying.

If you are the active player, You activate your X damage and in response your opponent activates X life. Now you must make a different choice because the game state has returned to what it was before. Same if your opponent is the active player. Simply put, if you are the non-active player, you win because you can repeatedly deal X damage while your opponent, the active player, can only gain X life one time.

February 13, 2016 2:06 p.m.