undying and -1/-1 counters
Asked by swkelly89 9 years ago
i am wondering if a creature with undying (ie. Butcher Ghoul ) that has a +1/+1 counter on it, and then has a -1/-1 placed on it by say Black Sun's Zenith , if the counters are canceled out and undying will trigger or if the counters are treated as separate things
Counters annihilate each other the way Epochalyptik describes. It is worth noting, however, in the case of Black Sun's Zenith , if that creature is dying because of Black Sun's Zenith Undying will not trigger.
704.7 If a state-based action results in a permanent leaving the battlefield at the same time other state-based actions were performed, that permanents last known information is derived from the game state before any of those state-based actions were performed.
Example: You control Young Wolf, a 1/1 creature with undying, and it has a +1/+1 counter on it. A spell puts three -1/-1 counters on Young Wolf. Before state-based actions are performed, Young Wolf has one +1/+1 counter and three -1/-1 counters on it. After state-based actions are performed, Young Wolf is in the graveyard. When it was last on the battlefield, it had a +1/+1 counter on it, so undying will not trigger.
August 8, 2014 8:08 p.m.
FancyTuesday says... #3
Oh, and when I say "counters annihilate each other" I only mean +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters. Derp.
Epochalyptik says... Accepted answer #1
They cancel out.
If a permanent has N +1/+1 and N -1/-1 counters on it, N counters of each type are removed from that permanent as a state-based action. Therefore, you can use a -1/-1 counter to cancel out a +1/+1 counter in order to get undying to trigger again.
August 8, 2014 7:37 p.m.