Thanks for taking the time to read this post. I'm considering building an aristocrats style Highlander deck and I'm trying to decide on whether to use white or not and one of the cards that'll probably break that for me is Return to the Ranks. I want to know if the timing on this scenario works.
Let's say I have 2 creatures in my graveyard with converted cost 2 or less, 4 mana available and something like 6 creatures on the board with cost 2 or less, one of them a sacrifice creature like Bloodthrone Vampire. Could I play Return to the Ranks, declare its X as 8, pay the 2 white mana, use the remaining 2 and tap all my creatures to pay the X of 8 and then, with the effect on the stack, sac my board before it resolved so I now have 8 legal creatures in my graveyard and return them all to the battlefield with Return to the Ranks or does this not work due to a missed timing trigger somewhere or something. I confess I'm not exceptionally good at understanding when something might miss an opportunity on the stack.
This doesn't work because when you cast a spell you need to choose targets before paying costs. If you choose X to equal 8 then you need 8 targets, so before you tap the creatures to pay the convoke cost you'll need to select your targets. Since you only have 2 creature cards in the graveyard you'll only be able to select two at most. On the other hand if you choose to sacrifice before casting the return to the ranks, the creatures won't be around to pay the convoke cost.
Your answer is pretty much exactly how I thought it worked but I wanted to be certain. Thank you very much. It's a bit annoying but it's looking like Jund Aristocrats MIGHT be in the lead for a Highlander deck.
Don't want to stray too far from rules and too far into strategy for a rules forum, but: because it doesn't target, you may get a lot of what you're looking for out of Immortal Servitude. Even if you sac all your X-cost creatures to your sac outlet while Immortal Servitude is on the stack, it will return all the matching-X-cost creatures that are in your graveyard when it resolves - it wouldn't need to 'lock in' its creatures at casting time like Return to the Ranks does.
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Let's say I have 2 creatures in my graveyard with converted cost 2 or less, 4 mana available and something like 6 creatures on the board with cost 2 or less, one of them a sacrifice creature like Bloodthrone Vampire. Could I play Return to the Ranks, declare its X as 8, pay the 2 white mana, use the remaining 2 and tap all my creatures to pay the X of 8 and then, with the effect on the stack, sac my board before it resolved so I now have 8 legal creatures in my graveyard and return them all to the battlefield with Return to the Ranks or does this not work due to a missed timing trigger somewhere or something. I confess I'm not exceptionally good at understanding when something might miss an opportunity on the stack.