If I use Mindshrieker ability more than once, does the 'Power' increase stack?
Asked by xseiber 8 years ago
Mindshrieker's ability is that it let us (the card's controller) to pay (2) mana to put the top card of their library into the graveyard, and then it gets +X/+X until end of turn (where X is the milled card's CMC).
My question is, does the ability stacks on itself if used more than once?
Example: I have 6 lands open, and I use the ability 3 times on the same stack. Let us say that my opponent mills a (in terms on CMC) 1, 2, and a 3, if the stack resolves, does my Mindshrieker now have 7/7? (the +1/+1 resolves, then the +2/+2, and then the +3/+3; hence 7/7).
I assume it would.
Eh, yeah, I guess my example of the stack isn't that great. After all, when one thing on the stack resolves, someone else can use that time to start a new stack before the initial stack completely finish resolving. I digress. Thanks, I figured that Mindshrieker's ability can keep adding on additional power as long as I have the mana for it, since its effect does not say otherwise, just had to make sure.
November 1, 2015 8:30 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #3
Sorry to be pedantic, but again there is only ever 1 stack. There is never a "new stack" started. If someone casts a spell or activates an ability it becomes the top object of the stack. If one object is allowed to resolve and then another is put on the stack before the rest resolve then that new ability is the top object of the stack. There is no second stack started or any such thing. It is a game zone, like the battlefield. It would make no sense to say that the tokens from Geist-Honored Monk's ability enter a second battlefield. Likewise objects are never on a second stack.
November 1, 2015 8:44 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #4
To elaborate: The stack, like the battlefield or exile or your hand, can be empty. This doesn't mean that it's new or old. It's just empty. And objects (spells and abilities, in this case) can enter or leave the stack. The stack is just a container of sorts for things that are waiting to resolve. Don't think of it as a grouping of spells or anything like that. You can go from an empty stack to a nonempty stack or from a nonempty stack to an empty stack, but that process doesn't involve creating a "new" stack. The stack always exists; sometimes it is empty and sometimes it is not.
Gidgetimer says... Accepted answer #1
The answer your question is that yes, you can activate Mindshrieker's ability multiple times in the same turn and get a buff off of each time it is used.
You seem to have some misconceptions about how the stack works in your example though. The stack is a game zone much like hands, libraries, and the battlefield. Like the battlefield there is only one shared stack. So the term "on the same stack" has no meaning since there is only one. Also the stack doesn't resolve as a whole, spells and abilities that are on the stack resolve one at a time in First In Last Out order.
November 1, 2015 8:20 p.m.