Two Upkeep Questions
Asked by CharonSquared 13 years ago
So, I'm working on a Zedruu, the Greathearted deck and have a couple questions regarding upkeep triggers.
First, can I use his ability to donate a permanent in response to his upkeep trigger in order to gain an extra life and draw an extra card?
And second, can I donate a permanent with cumulative upkeep during my upkeep in response to the upkeep trigger? And if so, does the recipient have to then add an age counter and then pay the cost or sacrifice it?
BrightGreenLine says... #2
I forgot to answer another point to #2: Even if you opt to not pay Cumulative Upkeep, you will put an age counter on the permanent as well.
Cumulative Upkeep reads "At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for each age counter on it."
June 21, 2011 2:49 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... Accepted answer #3
At the beginning of your upkeep, Zedruu's first ability will trigger and go on the stack. The first ability does not check how many permanents they control until it resolves. Therefore, you can, in response, activate his second ability any number of times (that you can pay for) and give your opponent control of permanents you controlled at the time of activation. Then, when the first ability finally resolves, it will tally the number of permanents they control as of resolution and base the effect on that number.
You can donate a permanent with a cumulative upkeep cost. I do not know the correct answer to the rest of the question, but I can hazard a guess.
702.22a Cumulative upkeep is a triggered ability that imposes an increasing cost on a permanent. Cumulative upkeep [cost] means At the beginning of your upkeep, if this permanent is on the battlefield, put an age counter on this permanent. Then you may pay [cost] for each age counter on it. If you dont, sacrifice it. If [cost] has choices associated with it, each choice is made separately for each age counter, then either the entire set of costs is paid, or none of them is paid. Partial payments arent allowed.
I believe that, since the trigger goes on the stack at the beginning of your upkeep when you control the permanent, you put the age counter on it. However, since you can't sacrifice a permanent you don't control, nothing happens if you choose not to pay the upkeep cost. Your opponent will then have to deal with the next trigger, which goes off on the beginning of their upkeep. I conclude this because nothing in the rules indicates to me that CU checks control of the permanent on resolution, it just checks that it's still on the battlefield. If someone knows the real answer, please correct me.
June 21, 2011 2:56 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #4
BrightGreenLine and Epochalyptik are both right about cumulative upkeep. If you switch control of the permanent before the upkeep trigger resolves, you still control the ability. When the triggered ability does resolve, you put an age counter on it and choose whether to pay the cost. If you don't, nothing happens (Thought Lash is a special case, since it has a triggered ability that triggers when its cumulative upkeep cost isn't paid), because you're not allowed to sacrifice permanents you don't control.
June 21, 2011 9:20 a.m.
CharonSquared says... #5
Cool, thanks very much everyone. Sheesh, so Thought Lash is a pretty mean card with Zedruu.
BrightGreenLine says... #1
Zedruu the Greathearted
- Yes, you can do this. His ability is a triggered ability because of its wording, "At the beginning of your upkeep." This ability always triggers, even if you don't have any permanents currently donated to another player. In response to the trigger you can donate as many permanents as you want and when it resolves you'll gain life and draw cards for each of them.
- If you donate a permanent, you still control any triggered abilities that are on the stack even though another player controls the permanent that spawned them. This means you can use Zedruu to Donate
an enchantment with Cumulative Upkeep like Thought Lash
, and after Zedruu resolves you can opt to not pay the upkeep and it will exile your opponent's library.
Coincidentally though, you won't be able to sacrifice the permanent for failing to pay its cumulative upkeep, since you can't sacrifice permanents you don't control.As a final point, you can get creative with stacking triggers if you really want to be harsh with your opponent. At the beginning of your upkeep Zedruu and the cumulative upkeep will trigger, so if you put the upkeep trigger on the stack first followed by Zedruu's trigger, you can actually donate the permanent, gain life/draw cards from Zedruu, and then fail to pay upkeep and leave your opponent with a permanent with Cumulative Upkeep and age counters.
June 21, 2011 2:46 a.m.