Natural End - no artefact or enchantment in play
Asked by xuerebx 12 years ago
What if I play Natural End and there are no art/ench. in play, is the destroy enchantment a prerequisite to play the card?
Gatecrashed says... #2
Well, technicaly you can cast the card. But if there is no legal target it counters or fizzles. An example could be if you have a Talrand, Sky Summoner you would still get a drake. Or Guttersnipe would still hit for.damage sorry just a little nit pick
December 22, 2012 6:43 p.m.
Thank you. So I can't gain. 3 life.
Similarly, can card:Trostani's Judgment be used if there are no tokens on the battlefield? Can I exile a creature and then populate nothing?
December 22, 2012 7:22 p.m.
MagnorCriol says... #6
The base question has been answered, but I'd like to point out something significant - Gatecrashed, you're incorrect about being able to cast the spell.
You can't cast a spell that requires a target unless you have one - targeting is part of the casting of the spell, and if you can't do it you can't cast it, just the same as if you can't pay the cost.
So you can't just cast a Natural End onto a board with no artifacts or enchantments just to get a Talrand drake or a Guttersnipe shock.
If you cast the spell with legal targets, then someone removes those legal targets, the game will then counter the spell ("fizzling") - but that's only after it's been cast.
This seems nitpicky, I know, but this is actually pretty important to the game.
As skyb0rg said, since populating doesn't target it doesn't impose a target restriction on the spell, so it can be cast without anything to populate. You could cast Rootborn Defenses onto a board with no creatures and no tokens if you had some reason to do so, since no part of the spell targets.
December 22, 2012 8:22 p.m.
If a spell requires a target, then it needs one when you attempt to cast it.
A spell only "fizzles" if its previous target(s) is no longer a legal target. For example, if you target your opponent's Staff of Nin with Natural End , but your opponent then uses Naturalize on it, Natural End will be countered by game rules and none of it will resolves. This is because it had no legal targets by the time it tried to resolve.
December 23, 2012 2:16 a.m.
Gatecrashed says... #8
Haha shows what I know! :D I need to stay away from answering questions, until I learn more about the rules myself. Thanks for clearing that up zandl.
zandl says... Accepted answer #1
You can't cast a card if there are no legal targets for it.
If there are no Artifacts or Enchantments on the battlefield, you can't cast Natural End .
Similarly, you can't cast something like Doom Blade if there are no creatures or only Black creatures.
December 22, 2012 6:01 p.m.