I was playing a round against my brother. He had an artifact that statically gave him hexproof.
I had lowered his life and went for the kill by sacrificing zombies with carrion feeder to activate all 4 of my Vengeful Deads. He argued that he is being targeted by the loss of life even though the card reads "Whenever Vengeful Dead or another Zombie dies, each opponent loses 1 life."
TO ME, knowing that destroy all creatures gets around shroud, it stands to reason that he should still be losing life because the card doesn't specifically say it targets multiple people.
Synopsis: Does Vengeful Dead's ability work against players with Hexproof?
Vengeful Dead is not a new card, so this belongs in Magic Rulings, not New Card Rulings. Moved.
Also please use card tags (like: [card]Vengeful Dead[/card]) when posting in Rulings.
Hexproof (assuming from Witchbane Orb or something) on a player will not protect against Vengeful Dead's effects. You are spot on in your reasoning: it doesn't target. Hexproof only prevents targeted spells and abilities.
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A spell or ability targets something only if it identifies it with the word "target" (C.R. 114.1a-d), or uses a keyword that does so (C.R. 114.1e; see also C.R. 114.10a; under C.R. 701.34a, the support keyword action also uses "target [something]"). "Each opponent" doesn't identify a target any more than "all creatures" does.
EDIT (Aug. 19): Edited first sentence.
EDIT (Sep. 1, 2018): Correctness edit to conform to changes in Dominaria.
EDIT (Nov. 30, 2018): Further edited to conform to rule changes with Dominaria.
Thanks for the prompt response! Duly noted about posting and tags. This is my first time on here.
Since you're already here, another situation arose. I used Patriarch's Bidding, allowing me to return all my zombies and brother to return all his beasts. The gimmick being that with all the zombies coming in, my Noxious Ghoul would causes all non-zombies to come into play with -14/-14.
He argued that the effect is activated and put on the stack, allowing him to use his Ravenous Baloth to sacrifice life before losing his creatures. To my understanding the effect is static.
The way I'm thinking is they would all come into play simultaneously with -14/-14 and cease to exist before abilities could even be used. Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.
Any ability that starts with "when", "whenever" or "at" is a triggered ability, not static. It uses the stack and can be responded to. Your brother is correct.
For each zombie entering the battlefield under your control, the Ghoul's ability automatically triggers and goes to the stack. That means there is 14 instances of the "non-zombies get -1/-1" ability on the stack after the zombies return. Their effect will only start when they resolve (so it actually goes from -1/-1 to -2/-2 all they way to -14/-14, meaning weaker creatures will die before others, rather than all of them at the same time).
Your brother can use the Ravenous Baloth's ability to sacrifice his beasts in response.
I had lowered his life and went for the kill by sacrificing zombies with carrion feeder to activate all 4 of my Vengeful Deads. He argued that he is being targeted by the loss of life even though the card reads "Whenever Vengeful Dead or another Zombie dies, each opponent loses 1 life."
TO ME, knowing that destroy all creatures gets around shroud, it stands to reason that he should still be losing life because the card doesn't specifically say it targets multiple people.
Synopsis: Does Vengeful Dead's ability work against players with Hexproof?
Also please use card tags (like: [card]Vengeful Dead[/card]) when posting in Rulings.
Hexproof (assuming from Witchbane Orb or something) on a player will not protect against Vengeful Dead's effects. You are spot on in your reasoning: it doesn't target. Hexproof only prevents targeted spells and abilities.
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EDIT (Aug. 19): Edited first sentence.
EDIT (Sep. 1, 2018): Correctness edit to conform to changes in Dominaria.
EDIT (Nov. 30, 2018): Further edited to conform to rule changes with Dominaria.
Since you're already here, another situation arose. I used Patriarch's Bidding, allowing me to return all my zombies and brother to return all his beasts. The gimmick being that with all the zombies coming in, my Noxious Ghoul would causes all non-zombies to come into play with -14/-14.
He argued that the effect is activated and put on the stack, allowing him to use his Ravenous Baloth to sacrifice life before losing his creatures. To my understanding the effect is static.
The way I'm thinking is they would all come into play simultaneously with -14/-14 and cease to exist before abilities could even be used. Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.
For each zombie entering the battlefield under your control, the Ghoul's ability automatically triggers and goes to the stack. That means there is 14 instances of the "non-zombies get -1/-1" ability on the stack after the zombies return. Their effect will only start when they resolve (so it actually goes from -1/-1 to -2/-2 all they way to -14/-14, meaning weaker creatures will die before others, rather than all of them at the same time).
Your brother can use the Ravenous Baloth's ability to sacrifice his beasts in response.