The Atla Palani Loop
Asked by TheDarkPlague 3 years ago
I've recently seen someone posting this on an Atla deck but I can't understand how it works
This is what I saw
Here's how you order the stack.
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Pump Atla with a pump spell.
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Activate Mirror Entity 's ability for 0, placing Mirror Entity 's ability on the stack.
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While Mirror Entity 's ability is on the stack, activate Mirror Entity for 0 again. You now have a stack with two Mirror Entity abilities on it; neither has resolved.
Repeat step infinite times. You now have an infinite amount mirror entity triggers on the stack, none of which have resolved.
You let the first Mirror Entity trigger resolve. Your Atla is a 0/0 with a pump spell, so it survives; your Mirror Entity is a 0/0 and dies.
My question here is how the Atla Palani isn't dying? She was pump earlier by a spell so yeah sure she's stronger but doesn't mirror entity's effect not bring her to 0/0 anyway no matter how strong she is?
Rhadamanthus says... #2
The key thing to understand here is that Mirror Entity changes the base power and toughness to X/X. Any other +/- effects will be applied on top of the new base P/T, even if they resolved earlier in the turn.
Note that older printed versions of Mirror Entity don't use the words "base power and toughness" in the rules text, but it works the same way. Several things about rules text were written differently back when Mirror Entity was first printed versus today.
Tylord2894 says... Accepted answer #1
This is probably one of the most initially unintuitive things about Magic. Your line of thinking makes a lot of sense, it follows the actions that are happening in a strict chronological order. That is not quite how Magic works. The game uses a system of layers and sublayers to determine the characteristics of an object in the game (in this case, a creature).
All of the interaction in this question happens in layer 7 (the last one), which handles the power and toughness of a creature. In layer 7, there are 4 sublayers. The first determines the P/T as printed or as calculated by characteristic-defining abilities (like Tarmogoyf). Next, P/T setting effects are applied to the previous P/T. Mirror Entity's abilities happens here. Third, "plus and minus" effects adjust that P/T, things like counters or pump spells (i.e. Giant Growth). Lastly, P/T inverting effects happen (no need to go into those here).
As a quick note, if there are multiple effects in the same sublayer, then "timestamp" order (i.e. chronological) is used.
So, here's what that means for the interaction you pointed out. First, Atla Palani, Nest Tender
has it's P/T increased by Giant Growth. Then we stack a bunch of Mirror Entity activation for . The first resolves and the game moves through layer 7. Changing Atla from a 2/3 into a 0/0 in the second sublayer. Then from a 0/0 into a 3/3 in the third sublayer. The game then considers Atla to be a 3/3, so she won't die. As the tower of activations resolves, this will only change how many times she becomes a 0/0 before applying the +3/+3 from Giant Growth.
Hope this helps!!
April 28, 2020 4:48 p.m.