Lightning Bolt and Essence Flux Interaction

Asked by 40cal 6 years ago

If someone were to Lightning Bolt say a Tallowisp can I use Essence Flux after to instead exile it instead, or since he cast's Lightning Bolt first it kills my Tallowisp?

Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #1

Yes, you can use Essence Flux to save your creature. In fact, that's one of the main things the card and others like it are meant to be used for.

A spell doesn't resolve immediately after it's cast. Everyone gets a chance to make responses first. Those responses get added to the stack on top of whatever was cast before, and after everyone's done responding the various spells and abilities on the stack will start resolving from the top down.

When your opponent casts Lightning Bolt on your creature you can respond by casting Essence Flux. If no one has any further responses then Essence Flux will resolve first, sending the creature to exile and then bringing it back. Lightning Bolt will get countered by the rules of the game because it doesn't have any legal targets anymore (when your creature changes zones it's treated as a new game object, i.e. it isn't the same creature that Bolt was originally targeting).

August 5, 2017 4:51 p.m.