How does Portcullis interact with enter the battlefield destroy effects?

Asked by scruffythej 9 years ago

I am curious how Portcullis will interact with an enter the battlefield effect that causes another creature to either be destroyed or exiled.

  1. If portcullis is in play and then I play either Diluvian Primordial or Jace's Mindseeker, allowing me to play a card like Doomblade or Murder from my opponents graveyard, will Diluvian Primordial or Jace's Mindseeker stay in because I destroy my opponents creature?

  2. I am assuming that this would be the same for Glimmerpoint Stag or Fiend Hunter, where I cast Glimmerpoint Stag exiling their creature and then mine stays on the battlefield as long as there are only the 2 creatures.

erabel says... #1

It depends on who controls the Portcullis.

If you control both, you can stack the triggers however you like. You can have the Portcullis trigger be put on the stack first, then the creature's own ETB. The creature ETB will resolve first, allowing you to remove an opponent's creature, then Portcullis's intervening-if clause ("if there are two or more other creatures in play") will re-check on resolution, realize there aren't enough creatures in play, and the rest of the effect won't occur.

If your opponent controls the Portcullis, then you're out of luck. Since none of these creatures have flash, you'll be playing them on your turn, so you're the active player. Triggers that trigger off the same event go on the stack in Active Player, Non Active Player order (APNAP). So, in this case, your creature ETB will go on the stack, then the Portcullis trigger will go on top of that. Since the stack resolves top-down, the Portcullis trigger will exile your dude before you've got a chance to use their ETB to get rid of a creature.

December 4, 2014 1:10 p.m.

Absinthman says... Accepted answer #2

For older cards, always take a look at their oracle text (the most recent wording of that card). You will see that Portcullis now reads Whenever a creature enters the battlefield, if there are two or more other creatures on the battlefield, exile that creature. Return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control when Portcullis leaves the battlefield.

Basically this is a regular "intervening if" triggered ability. That means that the triggered ability checks for the truthfulness of its condition twice. Once upon triggering, and then again when it resolves. This is actually an interesting scenario because it depends on who controls Portcullis.

Situation 1.: You control Portcullis. Your Diluvian Primordial (or whatever else) enters the battlefield. Two triggers are about to be put onto the stack - Diluvian Primordial's ability, and Portcullis's ability. Since you control both of them, you can choose the order in which you put them onto the stack. If you stack Portcullis first and Diluvian Primordial second, Primordial's ability will resolve first, you'll be able to cast the spell and if that reduces the number of other creatures than the primordial below 2, Portcullis's ability will check this condition when it starts to resolve, see that it is no longer true, and will do nothing. Your Primordial will stay. If, however, you stack those two abilities in an opposite way, then Portcullis will resolve first and exile your Primordial. You will still get to resolve Primordial's ability though.

Situation 2: Your opponent controls Portcullis. The situation is similar in that both abilities again trigger at the same time. But because in such situations, triggered abilities are put onto the stack in APNAP (Active Player, Next Active Player) order, you don't get to choose the order. The active player is you, so your Primordial's ability will go onto the stack first no matter what. Portcullis will be put on top of it, and the outcome will be the same as in the part of the previous situation that I typed in bold.

It works the same for all creatures with ETB effects, however, there is a special thing worth noting about Fiend Hunter. In case of this card, you may actually want to stack the abilities in that seemingly wrong way, because what will happen is this: Fiend Hunter enters the battlefield and triggers both itself (you choose a target) and Portcullis. You let Portcullis resolve first, so Fiend Hunter is exiled. This puts his LTB trigger onto the stack. You resolve it, but there's nothing to bring back because nothing has been exiled with it yet. Finally, his ETB trigger resolves and exiles its target which has no way of coming back as the LTB trigger has already resolved.

December 4, 2014 1:13 p.m.

scruffythej says... #3

Both of these answers clear up so much confusion we had. Thank you so much for the insight!

December 4, 2014 3:15 p.m.

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