REALLY stupid question but it's bugging me ever since!
Asked by Sephirothusa 8 years ago
I was playing with a friend of mine and we came across an argument about how and when things resolve and IF they resolve.
I hate Royal Assassin on the battlefield, it didn't have summon sickness and he had Visara the Dreadful, he tapped his visara to kill another creature of mine and I tapped my assassin to kill his visara.
So according to the order, my assassin killed his visara BEFORE his visara could do any damage, no? or both of the abilities will resolve?
What if he had cast a Unmake on my assassin as well? so the order would have been:
Unmake on my assassin > assassin > visara targeting my creature
What would have happened?
Thanks guys!
canterlotguardian says... Accepted answer #2
Abilities exist independent of their source once on the stack, unless the wording of the card would say otherwise. Visara the Dreadful's ability would go onto the stack, then Royal Assassin's would. The Assassin would destroy Visara, then Visara's ability would destroy whatever creature it was targeting, assuming the target for Visara's ability is still a legal target once that ability resolves.
In your second case, even if your opponent Unmakes your creature, again the ability will not remove itself from the stack and the Assassin will still destroy the creature even after being exiled.
January 3, 2016 11:26 a.m. Edited.
Sephirothusa says... #3
So... basically you're telling me that it doesn't matter what sort of response my adversary cast, my creature's abilities will ALWAYS resolve? thats so weird...
I always played Magic in a different way, like... for example, if I had the assassin on the battlefield and i tapped it to destroy target creature and my opponent would cast Shock to kill the assassin, shock would resolve first killing the assassin and when the ability of the assassin would try to resolve it wouldn't cause the assassin would have been dead already....
January 3, 2016 12:18 p.m.
Raging_Squiggle says... #4
You can certainly play with your own house rules, but doing so may put you at a disadvantage when playing with another play group because they might follow the official rules which you're not used to.
As stated above, any ability (normally) is independent of its source, meaning it'll resolve regardless of whether or not its source is still in the zone it sourced from (eg: Royal Assassin=battlefield, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre=stack).
In this scenario, no matter what your opponent does, your Royal Assassin's ability will resolve and destroy his Visara the Dreadful.
Note: if your opponent cast a spell or used an ability to untap his Visara the Dreadful in response to you activating Royal Assassin, your Assassin's ability would be countered upon resolution due to its target being no longer legal.
January 3, 2016 12:31 p.m.
In the Shock and Royal Assassin scenario you just described, the Assassin's ability does indeed resolve and kill the targeted creature (and this has always been the case).
The easiest way to think of it is from a somewhat flavor-perspective. Say the Assassin's using a poisoned dart (or something). He fires it, then gets shocked and dies. That doesn't stop that dart which is already airborne.
January 3, 2016 12:34 p.m.
Raging_Squiggle says... #6
@ Drilnoth unless the Shock came from a Chain Lightning or Arc Lightning and hit the dart as well. :p
January 3, 2016 12:41 p.m.
Darn that Arc Lightning and its suddenly targeting non-creature non-player objects! :)
January 3, 2016 12:47 p.m.
Sephirothusa says... #8
OMG guys... im shocked with all these revelations! LOL
I ALWAYS played Magic differently! IN my head I always thought that if you do something to the creature before it's ability is resolved, the ability would be countered! Wow.....
..... So to summarize everything. I got Avatar of Woe and tap to destroy my opponent's creature, he then respond with a Swords to Plowshares to destroy my Avatar, My avatar will be removed AND his creature will still be destroyed, right?
Sorry, it's just that....I couldnt believe I had been playing differently all along!
January 3, 2016 1 p.m.
Raging_Squiggle says... #9
Correct. As long as nothing else happens to make your target for Avatar of Woe illegal before resolution.
January 3, 2016 1:12 p.m.
Sephirothusa says... #10
Ok! thank you so much for that! really appreciate all the replies!
January 3, 2016 1:17 p.m.
atomic_moose says... #11
In the OP scenario, cards like Trickbind or Stifle would have the intended effect of stopping the opponent's Visara the Dreadful tap effect. Time Stop could do it too I suppose.
January 4, 2016 7:45 p.m.
Raging_Squiggle says... #12
Well, yes, there is always something that can stop another thing. That is the beauty of Magic and the interactions between cards. Unfortunately, some things have more answers against them than others... Interdict, Squelch, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Sundial of the Infinite (Assuming opponent activated it on the Sundial's turn), Voidslime, Azorius Guildmage, Bind, Diplomatic Escort, the list goes on (Including the ones stated above)
Sephirothusa says... #1
Sorry about the spelling mistakes! Stupid ipad!
January 3, 2016 11:24 a.m.