A friend of mine brought up this interaction and it seems VERY viable, I'm just trying to figure out if it really will create an infinite loop like this.
At some point, you play Ral, Storm Conduit, who reads "Whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell, Ral, Storm Conduit deals 1 damage to target opponent or planeswalker."
Later on, so long as you have 1 Shock and 2 Expansion // Explosion in hand (and your opponent has no counterspells), can you infinitely loop to deal infinite damage to your opponent?
Cast Shock, targeting the opponent for 2 damage
This procs Ral, who can target the opponent for an extra 1 damage
Cast Expansion to copy Shock. The initial cast procs Ral as well, and the copying of a spell counts as a proc. That's 2 more damage from Ral.
Now here's the weird part - cast your second Expansion to copy the first.
If this is all valid, you simply target the first Expansion on the stack, and just loop them back and forth, and as they come off the stack, Ral will just ping you to death. Does this work?
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With two Expansions and Shock, a loop as I describe in this thread can result (although the loop I describe there involves Wild Ricochet, not Expansion, Wild Ricochet's feature of choosing new targets for the targeted spell is not relevant to the loop). And each time you copy, not just each time you cast, Expansion (or any other instant or sorcery spell), Ral's first ability will trigger (not: proc). See also this thread.
Not in the way described, but yes, this does work.
The first spell doesn't have to be a shock, any instant or sorcery on the stack will do (with CMC 4 or less). Cast the first Expansion targeting ta spell, don't let it resolve, then cast the second Expansion targeting the first. This way, the second Expansion will create a copy of the first, which is another Expansion that can target the first, and you can continue, each time getting another trigger from Ral. But if you let the first Expansion resolve before casting the second, all you get is two copies of the original spell and no loop. You need to copy the copy spell, not the copied spell.
At some point, you play Ral, Storm Conduit, who reads "Whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell, Ral, Storm Conduit deals 1 damage to target opponent or planeswalker."
Later on, so long as you have 1 Shock and 2 Expansion // Explosion in hand (and your opponent has no counterspells), can you infinitely loop to deal infinite damage to your opponent?
If this is all valid, you simply target the first Expansion on the stack, and just loop them back and forth, and as they come off the stack, Ral will just ping you to death. Does this work?
Using card tags is mandatory in the Magic Rulings forum. Please check your private messages to learn how to use them. I've added them for this post.
-MadMage
The first spell doesn't have to be a shock, any instant or sorcery on the stack will do (with CMC 4 or less). Cast the first Expansion targeting ta spell, don't let it resolve, then cast the second Expansion targeting the first. This way, the second Expansion will create a copy of the first, which is another Expansion that can target the first, and you can continue, each time getting another trigger from Ral. But if you let the first Expansion resolve before casting the second, all you get is two copies of the original spell and no loop. You need to copy the copy spell, not the copied spell.
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