Primal Surge, Triggers, and Priority
Asked by hiddengibbons 12 years ago
After reading the rulings for Primal Surge, Its my understanding that the surge resolves and then triggers happen for permanents that entered the battlefield as a result of the surge. With that said, say I do the surge and I get Soul of the Harvest and Laboratory Maniac and the whole deck goes out on the table. After the surge finishes, I get ready to draw the cards from the Soul of the Harvest's trigger. At that point, can my opponent cast an overloaded Cyclonic Rift and put everything back in my hand, preventing the card draw from winning the game for me with the Maniac? Or do I have some sort of Priority thing that allows me to draw those cards with the maniac out on the table un-interrupted by Rift? Please forgive the length of this question.
The affect of Primal Surge has a ruling on Gatherer:
If putting any of those permanent cards onto the battlefield causes abilities to trigger, those abilities will wait to go on the stack until Primal Surge has finished resolving. Starting with the active player, each player puts his or her abilities on the stack in any order.
When you repeat the process of Primal Surge, it is not yet done resolving, and so no triggered effects go on the stack until after it has failed to repeat its own process. At that point, all of the queued triggers from any permaments going on the field will be put on the stack, with the active player choosing what order his/her triggers go on the stack, and then non-active players doing the same for their own.
Thus, if you put a eight permanents out on the field with Primal Surge while Soul of the Harvest is on the field, you willl get eight triggers to draw put on the stack after Primal Surge has finished resolving.
If you have seven cards left in library, this would spell inevitiable doom for you, but with Laboratory Maniac out, it means an impending victory. Your opponent should not be able to respond to you winning with Lab Maniac, because it merely is a replacement effect for the state-based action of what would typically be losing from drawing on an empty library, but there's a problem.
They CAN cast Cyclonic Rift in response to all those draw triggers going on the stack, which would return Laboratory Maniac to your hand before you do your draws, causing you to lose the game when you draw on an empty library.
March 6, 2013 5:05 p.m.
KrazyCaley says... Accepted answer #3
Not quite correct. Here's what happens.
1 - Your opponent CAN cast Cyclonic Rift with everything on the stack, including all applicable triggers, including Soul of the Harvest. Priority just means "who has right of way to cast instants and such right now," which you would have at first after all this stuff went on the stack. You wouldn't presumably be able to DO anything with it, and you wouldn't be able to draw the cards before your opponent could respond, because before anything comes off the stack (i.e., your Soul of the Harvest trigger), BOTH players must pass priority.
2 - You don't lose, though, necessarily, because Soul of the Harvest says you MAY draw a card.
March 6, 2013 5:06 p.m.
KrazyCaley says... #4
Guys. Soul of the Harvest. MAY draw a card. If he can recast Laboratory Maniac before his next draw phase, he'll presumably win/not lose.
March 6, 2013 5:08 p.m.
So what'll happen is if you get Cyclonic Rift cast on Laboratory Maniac with all of your draw triggers on the stack, you can choose to not draw for any number of them, most likely the choice if a draw would lose or cause you to lose on your next draw step.
March 6, 2013 5:19 p.m.
Also, Silence would not help so much against Cyclonic Rift. If it is put on the stack first, then the opponent can still cast Cyclonic Rift in response, as the "can't cast" effect will not yet have resolved. If Cyclonic Rift is put on the stack first, then Silence to follow, then it is already considered to have been cast, and Silence will do nothing to stop it, even though it resolves first.
Silence would have to be cast earlier, on a fresh stack that Cyclonic Rift was never and will never be a part of.
MindAblaze says... #1
While the triggers are on the stack resulting from all the ETB effects, you get priority to respond, and then your opponent does. So, if you cast say...Silence, then there's nothing your opponent can do to keep your Maniac from winning you the game. But if you pass priority w/o doing anything and your opponent bounces your maniac...you lose. Sorry.
March 6, 2013 4:56 p.m.