Is it possible to flip a morph in a way that my opponent can't respond until it's too late?
Asked by chosenone124 7 years ago
Suppose I have a facedown Deathmist Raptor.
My opponent attacks with his Autochthon Wurm. They have a [[Humble the Brute] in hand. I declare my facedown as a blocker.
Is is possible for me to flip Deathmist Raptor so that it battles the Wurm without getting shot by the instant? When is the last possible second for me to flip it so that Deathtouch is relevant for the battle?
No, because both players have to pass priority with an empty stack for you to go to the combat damage step and it to deal its combat damage. There is a trick you can do to flip a morph creature and keep your opponents from responding to its "when this creature is turned face up" trigger though.
For this trick you would have a face down creature with such a trigger, such as Ainok Survivalist, a reason you'd be worried about a response, such as if you're trying to destroy an untapped Nevinyrral's Disk, and a split second spell like Stonewood Invocation. What you do is cast the split second spell, then holding priority you morph the creature. You are allowed to do this because Morph is a special action rather than an activated ability. The trigger goes on the stack, and because there's still a split second spell on the stack your opponent can't cast spells or activate non mana abilities, making the trigger much harder to deal with. Note your opponent can still respond with special actions themselves, like their own morph, or activate mana abilities, such as sacrificing the disk to Krark-Clan Ironworks.
April 16, 2017 2:25 a.m.
To add to that, if you had a Temur War Shaman on the battlefield you could use the split second trick to make a Deathmist Raptor fight a creature without being able to respond with a spell, the real problem is just doing it with combat damage. Additionally, if you just keep your opponent from being able to cast spells at instant speed, such as with Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir or Basandra, Battle Seraph you could even use combat damage.
April 16, 2017 4:19 a.m.
chosenone124 says... #4
But Neotrup, since morphing doesn't use the stack and Deathmist Raptor has no flip trigger, why wouldn't we move directly into the combat damage step? They've already passed priority to me, and I didn't change the stack in any way. Therefore shouldn't we move to the combat damage step immediately?
Are you referring to the +1/+1 counter? That's not a trigger, that's part of Megamorph
https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rulestips/2015/04/how-megamorph-works/
April 16, 2017 6:57 a.m. Edited.
That sounds right, which means I needed to look up rules to figure out exactly why you were wrong:
116.4. If all players pass in succession (that is, if all players pass without taking any actions in between passing), the spell or ability on top of the stack resolves or, if the stack is empty, the phase or step ends.
Because you took an action without adding anything to the stack, the game will not progress to the combat damage step until the active player passes priority, which is unusual because the inactive player is normally the last person to get priority.
chosenone124 says... #1
Oops. Meant Humble the Brute.
April 16, 2017 12:23 a.m.