I have the Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and Nameless Inversion combo. With Nameless Inversion as the only tribal card in graveyards, my opponent has a 6/7 Tarmogoyf. I want to destroy the Tarmogoyf by casting Nameless Inversion from my graveyard three times. My opponent says I can't do this, because when I announce it for the third time, Tarmogoyf will die as an 11/0, forcing me to target my own Haakon as the only other creature. Does Tarmogoyf actually become an 11/0 and die when I announce Nameless Inversion, but before I can target it? I know the ruling about how a 2/3 Tarmogoyf doesn't die to Lightning Bolt if there's no instants in the graveyard yet, which also prevents me from killing it with just two Nameless Inversion castings. Does the P/T switch work differently if I'm casting it for the third time out of a graveyard?
No. The only way for a creature to die during the casting process is to be sacrificed as a cost for the spell or for activating a mana ability to pay for the spell. Dying for having 0 or less toughness, however, is a state based action, which are checked frequently during the turn everytime before a player gets priority, but not constantly. The Tarmogoyf will become a 11/0 creature during the casting process right from the beginning, because putting the spell on the stack is the first thing to do when casting a spell. The 'goyf's ability does check constantly, but that doesn't cause the creature to die yet. A check of state based actions is needed for that. The next time that check will happen is right after you've finished casting your spell, with targets chosen and all costs paid. So your Nameless Inversion will end up sitting on the stack with an illegal target, and will be put back into your graveyard when it would resolve.
Your opponent is wrong. A creature with 0 toughness is not put into the graveyard until state based actions are performed. That happens the next time a player gets priority, when you go to cast Nameless Inversion the first step of casting is to put it on the stack, which at that point will make Goyf's toughness 0. However players don't receive priority during the process of casting a spell, before a player does the spell must be successfully cast and that includes choosing targets. So you can indeed target they Goyf, when the spell is cast state based actions are performed and the Goyf goes to the graveyard, the spell will be removed from the stack when it tries to resolve for having an illegal target then.
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