So my buddy plays slivers and i on occasion i play Mono White Clerics.My question is if he has brood sliver out along with say bonescythe sliver and a few slivers attacking and im preventing damage with Battletide Alchemist a hand full of clerics and Master Apothecary how do we know what goes through off of what sliver for his abilities to trigger?
Each sliver that deals damage to you will give your opponent a trigger for Brood Sliver. So, if you manage to prevent all damage of a Sliver it doesn't trigger. So, if you manage to prevent all damage - no trigger for your opponent. If you prevent all but say 2 damage it depends, if one sliver still deals the 2 damage or two slivers deal 1.
So, in your example, if he attacks with brood sliver and bonescythe sliver and the two clerics are all clerics you control and you don't block Battletide Alchemist prevents all damage from Bonescythe Sliver (because he only does two at a time and you control two clerics) and Brood Sliver would deal one damage per damage step, so he will get two trigger (because it has double strike). If you tap a cleric to activate Master Apothecary's ability, you prevent another two damage and get no damage at all. So no trigger for your opponent.
His slivers with double strike would deal combat damage to you on two separate occasions (double strike makes it so there are two combat damage steps). Battletide Alchemist will prevent an amount equal to the number of clerics you control from each source (each sliver) on each of the two occasions. If you have as many or more clerics as the highest power among his slivers, it will already prevent all combat damage the slivers would deal to you!
Otherwise, as for Master Apothecary, it can only prevent a fixed amount, on the next occasion after you activate him, unless you prevent all the damage that would be dealt to the target on the first occasion and you have some amount of prevention left for another time on the same turn. Make sure to activate Master Apothecary in the declare blockers step if you want to prevent damage with him on the first combat damage step, it's too late come the step itself to activate any abilities before that damage is dealt. You can activate him after the damage in that step but before the second combat damage step to prevent damage in that second step if you want, though. Activating him puts an amount of damage prevention that applies as the next damage would happen this turn. An advantage of Apothecary here is that it could allow you to block some of the slivers and prevent damage to your blockers, in order to kill the slivers rather than just prevent the damage they would deal to you.
On each of the combat damage steps, all slivers are dealing their combat damage at the same time, so you get to choose which damage you prevent with which applicable prevention effect you have in place (if you apply Alchemist's effect first, you apply it to the full amount for that source, if that covers all of the damage you can't apply another prevention effect, not that you'd want to but just to be precise). For the damage that would be dealt to you, it would presumably be best to use all of Battletide Alchemist's effect before using Apothecary, since Alchemist's effect applies to any event of damage to you from any source, it's more repeatable and free. You can mock up any excess with Apothecary after that. Since you choose what to prevent with Apothecary, you can control how many slivers get to actually hit you to trigger the token-making of Brood Sliver, if any.
I'm a former judge (lapsed), who keeps up to date on rules and policy. Keep in mind that judges' answers aren't necessarily more valid than those of people who aren't judges; what matters is we can quote the rules to back up our answers. When in doubt, ask for such quotes.
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So, in your example, if he attacks with brood sliver and bonescythe sliver and the two clerics are all clerics you control and you don't block Battletide Alchemist prevents all damage from Bonescythe Sliver (because he only does two at a time and you control two clerics) and Brood Sliver would deal one damage per damage step, so he will get two trigger (because it has double strike). If you tap a cleric to activate Master Apothecary's ability, you prevent another two damage and get no damage at all. So no trigger for your opponent.
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Otherwise, as for Master Apothecary, it can only prevent a fixed amount, on the next occasion after you activate him, unless you prevent all the damage that would be dealt to the target on the first occasion and you have some amount of prevention left for another time on the same turn. Make sure to activate Master Apothecary in the declare blockers step if you want to prevent damage with him on the first combat damage step, it's too late come the step itself to activate any abilities before that damage is dealt. You can activate him after the damage in that step but before the second combat damage step to prevent damage in that second step if you want, though. Activating him puts an amount of damage prevention that applies as the next damage would happen this turn. An advantage of Apothecary here is that it could allow you to block some of the slivers and prevent damage to your blockers, in order to kill the slivers rather than just prevent the damage they would deal to you.
On each of the combat damage steps, all slivers are dealing their combat damage at the same time, so you get to choose which damage you prevent with which applicable prevention effect you have in place (if you apply Alchemist's effect first, you apply it to the full amount for that source, if that covers all of the damage you can't apply another prevention effect, not that you'd want to but just to be precise). For the damage that would be dealt to you, it would presumably be best to use all of Battletide Alchemist's effect before using Apothecary, since Alchemist's effect applies to any event of damage to you from any source, it's more repeatable and free. You can mock up any excess with Apothecary after that. Since you choose what to prevent with Apothecary, you can control how many slivers get to actually hit you to trigger the token-making of Brood Sliver, if any.