When do ninjutsu effects trigger?
Asked by mfogle 5 years ago
An extremely specific example that creates a step by step analysis for how "fast" ninjutsu effects are:
Assume you have 2 creatures on the field; Mistblade Shinobi and Faerie Miscreant. You also have a Quickling and a Ninja of the Deep Hours in your hand with plenty available mana.
You declare both creatures are attacking, then the opponent declares he will block Mistblade Shinobi but not Faerie Miscreant.
You then play Quickling with flash and return the Mistblade Shinobi to your hand with Quickling etb effect, removing the Mistblade Shinobi from combat before damge is dealt.
From there, can you pay the ninjutsu cost for Mistblade Shinobi and return the Faerie Miscreant to your hand within that same combat?
The second part to this question is whether ninjas are ninjutsu'd in before the damage step (after declare blockers) or afterwards, so that the ninja's and the unblocked attacker's damage are both applied?
If the latter is the case can a second ninjutsu be activated after the first has dealt damage?
Finally, once a ninjutsu is used, and the ninja is summoned (tapped and attacking), does the opponent get to declare blockers again?
Apologies for the long explanation, but i felt it necessary to avoid confusion.
As a note, ninjutsu itself doesn't trigger. It's an activated ability. The requirements to be able to activate it are that you must have an attacking creature that hasn't been blocked. This means you can't activate ninjutsu until the declare blockers step, and you have through the end of combat step to do so, when your attackers are no longer officially attacking. However, as long as you have priority during any of those steps, you can activate ninjutsu, so you could use Quickling to bounce your blocked Mistblade Shinobi and then use the Mistblade's ninjutsu ability to swap it with Faerie Miscreant.
And as DragonKing90 said, while first strike can cause the combat phase to have two combat damage steps, the combat phase will only have one declare blockers step no matter what, so using ninjutsu will not reset that.
October 3, 2018 9 p.m.
DragonKing90 and Kogarashi, you've been a huge help. That clears up a lot, thank you!
DragonKing90 says... Accepted answer #1
yes you can pay the ninjutsu cost for Mistblade Shinobi.
you can either ninjutsu before damage, or after damage, but the combat damage step only happens once. only 1 creature deals its damage. the only exception to this is if first strike is involved. if the unblocked creature has first strike (or double strike) it can deal its damage in the first strike damage step, then you can ninjutsu before the normal damage step to allow the ninja to deal damage as well.
blockers are only declared once. the opponent does not get to declare blockers again. if such a thing were allowed it would completely defeat the purpose of the ninjutsu mechanic to begin with, which is to showcase the ninja's specialty in stealth and surprise tactics.
October 3, 2018 8:05 p.m.