Mairsil, Spellskite and Mirage Mirror Interaction
Asked by ulysses2009 5 years ago
If someone targets for example a creature other than mairsil with a spell and I have Mairsil, the Pretender on the field with Spellskite and Mirage Mirror caged, can I activate Mirage Mirror and then Spellskite in response to that (for example targeting a land) to "counter" the spell? My idea is to change the target to Mairsil, the Pretender while it is a legal target and make it an illegal target on the stack after Spellskite 's redirect ability resolves.
1st case: Opponent cast Murder on another creature. You respond with caged Mirage Mirror targetting a land, then before that resolves activate caged Spellskite . The spellskite ability resolves first and you retarget the Murder to Mairsil and hes considered a legal target so Spellskite limitation from the rules shouldn't apply. Then the caged Mirage Mirror resolves and turns Mairsil into a land. Finally Murder tries to resolve and at this point it should fizzle.
2nd case: I think there won't be need to sacrifice Mairsil att all in this case either. I cast Abrade on your Sol Ring . You activate Mirage Mirror 's caged ability targetting a land, the spellskite, then Mirage Mirror again, targetting Sol Ring . Now Mairsil becomes an artifact, then redirects Abrade to himself, then becomes a land and at the end of all of this Abrade should fizzle.
Rules sidenotes: (2011-06-01) The target of the spell or ability won’t change unless Spellskite fulfills all the targeting criteria, even if multiple instances of the word “target” are used. For example, you can’t change both targets of Arc Trail to Spellskite.
I'm reading this as "fulfills targetting criteria" by the time of the resolution of spellskite's ability, not the re-targeted spell. I'm sure the other guys here will correct me if I'm wrong so I'd wait for their opinion too just to be on the safe side about this interaction.
Cheers!
April 10, 2019 8:48 a.m.
Madcookie, you wouldn't be able to activate caged Mirage Mirror twice in your second case because Mairsil's caged abilities may only be activated once per turn.
If an opponent casts Smelt on one of your artifacts and you want to save it, you would first activate the caged Spellskite ability to retarget to Mairsil (this is allowed, though as long as Mairsil is not an artifact, nothing will change when it resolves). Then you activate Mirage Mirror targeting whatever artifact of yours is going to be destroyed, turning Mairsil into that artifact. Then the Spellskite ability will successfully retarget Smelt to Mairsil, and Mairsil will be destroyed.
Madcookie's answer for the first case is correct.
April 10, 2019 2:14 p.m.
Thx, Kogarashi for correcting me, I red all the other cards, but Mairsil (facepalm). Glad I was correct about the rest tho :)
April 10, 2019 3:18 p.m.
In the future, please remember to hit the "Mark as Answer" button to indicate your question has been resolved and you have no follow-up questions. This keeps the Rules Q&A section clutter-free and helps future users quickly identify the correct answer. Since this question has been answered for several days without any subsequent questions, I've gone ahead and marked an answer accepted.
ulysses2009 says... #1
Additionally, if Mairsil, the Pretender is less important than another card (for example an artifact) and is not a legal target (for example for a "destroy target artifact" effect), could i activate Spellskite and respond with Mirage Mirror to sacrifice Mairsil, the Pretender instead of that artifact, making it a legal target on the stack after activating Spellskite ?
April 10, 2019 5:24 a.m.