Stack Question
Asked by Cardgamer9632 3 years ago
Ive recently begun playing with my friends and we came across an interesting stack problem.
I had Midnight Clock on the battlefield and was gaining the counters to 12. I needed my turn to begin so that I could gain the 12 counter. I would need the upkeep to begin, giving it one counter, and then I would need to subsequently tap 6 lands in order to give it another 2 counters.
My turn began and my friend played Revoke Existence. Admittedly he said that he should have played it during his turn, but he played it when my turn had began.
The question that came up was, could i have spent the 6 mana and activated the Midnight Clock?
Would it have been better for my friend to have cast Revoke Existence after i tapped the lands? What is the best move for me and him respectively.
Rhadamanthus says... #2
There's a problem with the example as-written because Revoke Existence is a sorcery, and your opponent wouldn't be allowed to cast it during your upkeep. If you replace it with something like Disenchant then the example can work.
June 18, 2020 5:28 p.m.
Cardgamer9632 says... #3
palm to face, your right well if he had used Disenchant what would the outcome be?
June 18, 2020 6:02 p.m.
Cardgamer9632 says... #4
thanks everyone for your input. i figured it would come to priority.
Tylord2894 says... Accepted answer #1
I want to make sure that I'm understanding your question correctly. Midnight Clock had 9 counters on it, and you needed the one from your upkeep and the additional two from paying 2x in order to trigger it, right?
Luckily, the specifics don't really affect the rules, but they do affect the outcome. At the beginning of your upkeep, the Clock will trigger. There is nothing your opponent can do before this on your turn. Next, since it's your turn, you have priority first. According to your plan, you would have tapped your lands add activated the Clock twice. The priority would have gotten to your friend, and they could have cast Revoke Existence. The Revoke would resolve, and you would have lost your Clock and spent six mana to do nothing. Rules-as-written, that's how things should have played out.
However, it sounds like, your friend was a little too overzealous and played when they were not supposed to. What to do then is an entirely different conversation about fixing mistakes and (for tournment-type play) the policy for that, but I won't bore you with that. But, since they acted too early, you can still activate the ability of the Clock. There is no timing restriction on when you can activate its ability, so you could activate it in response to the Revoke. The most important thing here is to make sure you aren't baiting your opponent into doing thing when they aren't allowed to. If you have something that you want to do, it is important to be vocal about it. That said, there isn't anything your can do about an overly eager opponent.
Hope this helps!!
June 18, 2020 5:14 p.m.