state based actions: when are they checked? and when do they happen?
they are checked at two times. the first is just before any player would get priority. the second is at the end of clean up, which is complicated and basically the same as the first. just giving SBAs a time to act after you discard for turn and after "until end of turn" effects end. if any SBAs (or triggers) occur during this time, then there is a round of priority and another clean up.
if any SBAs occur then we repeatedly check SBAs until no more SBAs occur. (this leads to the famous lich's mirror draw). only after SBAs are checked do we get triggers put onto the stack.
then after that SBAs are checked again and any more triggers are put onto the stack. this repeats until there are no more triggers and no more SBAs.
challenge questions
answers below the cut
maro has p/t equal to the number of cards in your hand. what happens when you wheel? what if maro instead had an ability that said "when you have 0 cards in hand, sacrifice this creature"?
your opponent has a 2/3 tarmogoyf (from land + creature). you bolt it. does it die?
your opponent counters your commander with a transcendent dragon (counter and exile spell, then cast w/out paying mana cost). can you return it to your command zone to stop them from casting it?
your opponent has an elsh norn, grand cenobite (your creatures get -2/-2). you cast eternal witness (etb return target card from your grave to hand). can you return e wit with its own etb?
your opponent has an elesh norn, grand cenobite. you play burnout bashtronaut (a 1/1 with start your engines). start your engines starts from SBAs. do you start your engines?
this puzzle needs some more knowledge than just SBAs, but should be doable from this post by itself + looking up cards.
both players are at 1.
mana wise your opponent has a tapped mountain and untapped plains. they also have an elesh norn, grand cenobite in play and an angel's grace and sudden shock in hand.
you have an anthem of champions and grizzly bears in play that is enchanted with blessing. you have two lightning bolts and an angelic purge in hand. mana wise you have two plains, two mountains, and a sol ring.
win this turn (or you die to sudden shock)
maro becomes a 0/0, then you draw 7 so he becomes a 7/7. then SBAs are checked and so he survives. if he had that trigger, you would have 0 cards in hand, then he would trigger, then you would draw 7, then the trigger goes on the stack and so you would still have to sac him. sorry maro!
goyf takes 3 damage, then bolt goes to grave and goyf becomes a 3/4 with 3 damage marked on it, then SBAs are checked and goyf lives.
because this is all one ability, no player would get priority during it. therefore SBAs are not checked. therefore you cannot move your commander to the command zone during this ability. sorry EDH players!
e wit dies, then her trigger goes on the stack and targets. at this point she has already died and so can target herself.
yes. when SBAs are checked you have a start your engine permanent. doesnt matter its a -1/-1 and is dying.
the puzzle:
you bolt opponent. they will angel's grace and live. then pump the bear and purge to get rid of anthem and either blessing or sol ring (not the bear or elesh norn). in clean up your bear will die as there would no longer be any more pumps on it. therefore we have a round of priority during clean up before they untap where we can bolt them after angel's grace's protection has worn off.
i believe this is the only way to win here, if i missed anything please tell me!
At what point do you lose the game if you have no cards left in your library? Does it have to be in your draw step or just any time you would draw a card? A level 1 judge told me the other day that it has to be on your draw step
You lose the next time a player would receive priority after you attempted to draw from an empty library. This works any time you would draw from an empty library, not just in the draw step.
removing all counters from an earthbent dark depths
really what it says on the tin. do we get the marit lage or not if we remove all counters, +1/+1 and all, from the dark depths?
nope. well, not without a little bit of help.
what happens is the dark depths becomes a 0/0 and will trigger, then it will die to SBAs. after that its trigger will be put on the stack and we will try and sac it. because it has died already, it will not be sacced. but its trigger says "if you do" sac it then you get the marit lage.
however, if we have some way of boosting its toughness (eg a giant growth) then it wont die to SBAs, we can sac it, and we can get marit lage.
state based actions. what if we have multiple SBAs at a time? or some other more complicated situation?
theres only really two or three new things here depending on how you look at it. they are each complicated though, so there will be quite a few questions for so little rules. also the questions will necessarily be more complicated than last SBA post, as we need more set up for multiple things to happen. anyways preamble over.
if multiple SBAs cause the same effect, then one single replacement effect can replace them all.
e.g. you block a typhoid rats (1/1 deathtoucher) with a drudge skeleton (1/1 that regenerates for a black). dying to deathtouch is an SBA, and so is dying to damage. so we have two dying SBAs. we only need one replacement effect though, so we only need to regenerate once to save drudge skeletons.
SBAs all happen at the same time. this also means that if any choices need to be made by different players they are done in APNAP order. (turn order, starting with the active player)
e.g. if you blasphemous act with a blood artist in play theres gonna be a lot of triggers, as all creatures die simultaneously (and blood artist's trigger "looks back in time". but thats not what this is about).
if instead SBAs happened at different times, then we would have to worry about which creatures die before and after the blood artist.
and if multiple people had blood artists in play, we go in turn order for choosing the targets starting with the active player.
now, if an effect needs a an object's last known information, and that object changes zones due to SBAs. its last known information is from before SBAs are applied. all SBAs happen at once, after all.
e.g. young wolf is a 1/1 with undying. undying means if it dies without any +1/+1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it.
if we put two -1 counters on a young wolf that has a +1 counter on it, then the undying will see that it died with a +1 and two -1 counters on it, not reanimating it as it had a +1 counter.
challenge questions
no puzzle this time as its really difficult to think of a puzzle that isnt needlessly complicated. there are more difficult questions this time around to compensate though - especially questions 9-13. feel free to skip to them if you feel confident with everything above. (theres some very easy questions early on.)
if you do want a puzzle thats not by me, have a look at enrage against the machine. is is some of the most beautiful abuse of SBAs ive seen, and much harder than anything i could come up with.
alice has an isamaru, hound of condor (a 2/2 legend) and a mayhem devil (when anyone sacs a permanent, deal 1 damage anywhere). she then plays another isamaru, letting it die to the legend rule. does she get a mayhem devil trigger?
alice and bob are playing commander and their commanders fight and kill each other on alice's turn. does alice get to know if bob puts his commander in the grave before she get to choose where to put her commander? (eg in case some mass reanimate spell like exhume or living death is known to be in someones hand)
your opponent controls a death's shadow (13/13, has -X/-X where X is your life) and is at 12 life (so its a 1/1 right now). you attack with a colossal dreadmaw (6/6 trample). how much damage do you need to assign to the death's shadow to kill it?
you control a wall of roots (an 0/5 with put a -0/-1 counter on it: get a green mana) with 4 -0/-1 counters on it, and a birthing pod ({1}{G/P}, sac a creature: do some nonsense) ({G/P} is a phyrexian green mana). can you use wall of roots to pay for pod's ability, putting its toughness to 0, while also saccing it to the birthing pod?
you control an arcbound worker with a +1/+1 counter on it (a 0/0 with modular 1. meaning it enters with a +1 counter on it, and when it dies you move its +1 counters to another artifact creature). it fights a glistener elf (a 1/1 infect, meaning it deals damage as -1 counters instead of actual damage). when arcbound worker dies, do you get to move its +1 counters?
all roles are aura enchantments. the role SBA is that if you control a permanent with more than one role attached to it, move all but one role into the graveyard.
you cast cut in (deal 4 damage to target creature. put a role aura token on target creature you control) targeting your own ashioks reaper for both effects (3/3. when an enchantment goes to the grave, draw a card). your ashioks reaper already had a role attached. do you draw?
alice and bob both have no cards in their libraries, and both draw at the same time on alice's turn. who wins? what if alice cast stunning reversal earlier (next time you would lose this turn, instead your life becomes 1 and you draw 7 cards)?
you are playing commander and need one more attack with your commander to win through commander damage. however your opponent has a platinum emperion (their life total cant change). your commander connects. do you win?
(this question is less about SBAs but can come up with teferi's prot + unpreventable damage, or everybody lives!, or similar effects so i thought i should include it as ive heard those are relatively common in edh.)
you have no cards in your library and have a platinum angel out (a 4/4 with you cant lose the game and your opponents can't win). your opponent casts explosion (from expansion // explosion) to deal 4 damage to your plat angel and force you to draw 4 cards. do you lose?
your opponent attacks you with two grizzly bears while you are at 2. you block with one grizzly bears while you control a darkness crystal (if an opponent's nontoken creature would die, instead exile it and gain 2 life). what happens?
you control a thespian's stage (land that can tap to copy another land except it keeps the ability to copy) that is copying an urza's saga (a saga land with 3 chapters) and a basic island. can you save it while still getting the third chapter ability? i would recommend reading the actual SBA for sagas.
your opponent has the situation described above in question 11. you have a stifle (counter target activated or triggered ability). how do you stifle optimally here?
you sign in blood (lose 2 life and draw 2 cards) yourself while at 1 with 1 card in deck. you control a laboratory maniac (if you would draw from an empty library, you win instead). what happens?
what if lab man instead said the much less catchy "if you were to lose the game due to drawing from an empty library, you win the game instead"?
we get no mayhem devil triggers. the legend rule is not sacrificing.
unfortunately alice does not get to see where bob puts his commander. she is the active player so she chooses first. sorry alice!
if we assign 1 to it and 5 to face, death's shadow becomes a 6/6 before SBAs are checked, so our 1 damage wont be enough. we need to assign 3 damage to it and 2 to face to kill the deaths shadow.
you can get wall of roots to 0 toughness and sac it to pod. first activate pod, you need to pay its costs. use wall of roots' mana ability for the mana cost, then sac it for the sac cost. because this is during the payment of an ability, wall of roots does not die to SBAs.
all SBAs happen at the same time, so the last known information is before SBAs when it had a +1 and a -1 counter on it. therefore it died with a +1 counter on it and it can move it.
removing the role is an SBA, so it happens same time as lethal damage. ashioks reaper's trigger looks back in time. so you draw a card. (if this is confusing think if the roles are creatures and you had a blood artist. even if the blood artist dies at the same time as other creatures you still get triggers.)
alice draws first as she is the active player. both lose at the same time as all SBAs happen at the same time, so its a draw.
now with stunning reversal, usually it wouldnt save you from milling. you wouldnt lose but would then draw 7 so you lose again. in this case, however, the first time SBAs are checked, alice's SBA gets replaced with not losing while bob's SBA is not replaced. so bob loses the first time SBAs are checked, and even though alice would lose the next time SBAs are checked, her opponent has already lost, so she has already won.
although their life total does not change, they still take damage. and so they take commander damage, and lose.
in my opinion as someone who doesnt play commander: this is the most interesting way to get past a t's prot.
we do not die. the SBAs happen at the same time. we check SBAs, see us losing to decking, and plat angel dying to damage. then we apply any replacement or prevention effects, so plat angel prevents us from losing. then we apply SBAs, killing plat angel.
theres 3 SBAs: you dying to damage, and 2 bears dying.
then a bear's death gets replaced to exiling it and you gaining 2 life. losing the game happens at the same time as gaining this life, so you lose and gain 2 at the same time - losing to damage while ending above 0. isnt that fun!
while the third chapter ability is on the stack the copy will not die, hold priority and copy the island. the thesp stage becomes an island (with a whole bunch of other abilities. urza's saga is a messed up card) and it stops being a saga. so it will not die when the third chapter ability resolves.
there are three ways to cast stifle here.
a) letting the copy resolve, then countering the chapter ability - which only stops the chapter ability.
b) countering the copy ability - which only stops the copy ability, letting their thesp stage die but they get the third chapter ability.
c) immediately countering the chapter ability - which removes the chapter ability from the stack, letting the thesp stage die due to SBAs before it can copy the island.
clearly option c is best.
this is a bit sneaky as lab man replaces the drawing of the card, not the loss. so you win before SBAs are checked. we win before we would lose from dying to death.
lets go through step by step what happens with the changed ability. first, we sign in blood ourselves - decking and dying to damage at the same time.
then SBAs happen and we have two SBAs - dying to damage and dying to decking.
our replacement effect only applies to one of these, so it can only replace one. we have now two SBAs - dying to damage and winning to decking. so we lose and win at the same time.
theres a rule that if a player would win and lose at the same time, they lose. afaik this rule cannot come up in actual play so i dont blame you if you didnt know it, and you should consider getting the question correct if you got "they win and lose at the same time".
state based actions. what are they and what problem do they solve?
well. we dont want everything to use the stack, right? like we dont want crap like stifling a draw or saccing a mogg fanatics in response to combat damage. (two things that were once possible) so we need some way of things happening that dont use the stack.
the rules have three categories of actions that dont use the stack.
actions the player can choose to take - special actions.
actions that happen automatically at a specific part of the turn - turn based actions.
actions that happen automatically due to some gamestate - state based actions.
actions that dont use the stack can be put into one of these categories. combat damage? happens at a specific point in the turn - turn based action. creatures dying to damage? this can happen at any time based on gamestate - state based action.
SBAs are used for a few things here is a list of the main ones.
creatures + planeswalkers dying.
the legend rule.
a commander returning to the command zone from exile or the grave (from the hand and deck are replacement effects).
dying, decking, poison. all that stuff.
some more cleany up things like
dealing with auras and equipment that are attached illegally (or nothing).
tokens ceasing to exist.
+1 and -1 counters removing each other.
then theres some mechanic specific things and rarer things that you can check in CR 704.5 and 704.6.
