I use Yawgmoth's ability by paying 1 life, sacrificing the Gravecrawler, and the ability to put the ability "Put a -1/-1 counter on up to one target creature and draw a card." on the stack. When the Gravecrawler dies, Mikaeus triggers and returns the Gravecrawler to the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter. Can I place that -1/-1 counter on the Gravecrawler? Or would it no longer be a legal target because it left the battlefield and came back and I would need to choose a target prior to this?
I ended up using this as draw, and later on as a win with Blood Artist, but now I'm questioning if I made an illegal play.
You must choose a target before it comes back. In fact the first thing you do when activating an ability is choose targets and only at the end do you pay costs (like sacrificing a creature to Yawgmoth.
If you target the Gravecrawler you sacrificed to activate the ability, when the ability goes to resolve, it sees its only target is now illegal and the entire ability does nothing (so you will not draw a card). If you wanted to draw a card, you would need to target a different creature or choose zero target creatures (since it says "up to one", you can choose zero targets if you want).
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DCI Level 2 Judge
Scientists have calculated that the chance of anything so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
I use Yawgmoth's ability by paying 1 life, sacrificing the Gravecrawler, and the ability to put the ability "Put a -1/-1 counter on up to one target creature and draw a card." on the stack. When the Gravecrawler dies, Mikaeus triggers and returns the Gravecrawler to the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter. Can I place that -1/-1 counter on the Gravecrawler? Or would it no longer be a legal target because it left the battlefield and came back and I would need to choose a target prior to this?
I ended up using this as draw, and later on as a win with Blood Artist, but now I'm questioning if I made an illegal play.
Follow up question, when I target gravecrawler and he becomes an illegal target, does the ability fizzle or can I still draw?
Scientists have calculated that the chance of anything so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.