You're exactly correct. Damage continues to pile up throughout the turn and gets wiped at the cleanup step - barring some really esoteric situations, it's the very last thing that happens in the turn. Note that that's all damage, not just combat damage.
When something is "put onto the battlefield", unless explicitly stated otherwise, it enters under the control of its owner. Ashiok has that wording because the cards in question belong to your opponents.
109.1. An object is an ability on the stack, a card, a copy of a card, a token, a spell, a permanent, or an emblem.
110.2. A permanent’s owner is the same as the owner of the card that represents it (unless it’s a token; see rule 110.5a). A permanent’s controller is, by default, the player under whose control it entered the battlefield. Every permanent has a controller.
110.2a If an effect instructs a player to put an object onto the battlefield, that object enters the battlefield under that player’s control unless the effect states otherwise.
110.5a A token is both owned and controlled by the player under whose control it entered the battlefield.
That would do it. Yes, because the trigger condition is "Whenever [THIS CARD] or another enchantment enters the battlefield under your control", each Grim Guardian already on the battlefield will trigger when a new one enters, because that card is both an enchantment and a creature. Each one on the battlefield would also trigger if their controller cast Unholy Strength or Sanguine Bond.
Normally, this isn't even an option, since creatures can normally only block a single attacker.
However, if your blocker is something like a Palace Guard or a Hundred-Handed One, and you pump it up to have 18 power and first strike, then it would work like you're hoping. You would assign all of that damage and kill all of the attackers during the first combat damage step, before any of them would have even had the chance to assign damage.
The battlefield is one of many "zones" in the game. It is the place that contains all the permanent cards each player has played until they're killed or destroyed.
Other zones include the players' hands, their libraries, their graveyards, and the "stack" - the temporary place spells go in between leaving your hand and entering the battlefield (this is where a counterspell might catch it instead!).
To bring this around, a creature card will normally enter the battlefield just once, after you successfully cast it. However, a black deck might use the same card multiple times by returning it from the graveyard. Whether that card entered the battlefield by the route of [hand -> stack -> battlefield], or [graveyard -> battlefield], it still met that trigger condition, so it triggers. A blue or white deck might instead use a "flicker" effect, like Eldrazi Displacer, in which case being returned to the battlefield [exile -> battlefield] works too.
So, a trigger such as what you're talking about could trigger multiple times over the course of a game, but only once for each time that card enters the battlefield.
(And, as a fine detail, each time the card enters the battlefield, it represents a new, different creature permanent. This is mostly interesting for something like: If I cast Lightning Bolt at your Gray Ogre, then you flicker the Ogre with Eldrazi Displacer, my Bolt gets countered, because the original Ogre isn't there any more!)
What happens depends on when player 2 casts Vines of Vastwood. If he casts it in response to the activation of Spellskite, the target of Giant Growth cannot be changed to the 'skite. Player 1 can activate the 'skite in response again, though. If Spellskite's ability resolved and changed the target already, then Giant Growth gets countered on resolution by the game rules (it "fizzles"), because all its targets have become illegal. Since the 'skite can be activated by paying life instead of mana, the second outcome is much more likely, unless player 2 doesn't have enough life/mana or doesn't want to activate the ability again.
No, this is false. Player Two controls both Vines of Vastwood and Giant Growth. On resolution, Vines will prevent any spell or ability controlled by Player Two's opponents, i.e. Player One, from targeting the ultimate target of Vines of Vastwood. There is no combination of interactions with the cards provided that would give Player One control of Giant Growth, and thus no condition under which it would fizzle.
In other words, as explicitly stated by the ruling on Vines's Gatherer page, Vines does not grant hexproof (which would cause a scenario such as you describe). It prevents targeting by the opponents of Vines's controller.
This is not the same as hexproof. If, for example, you target one of your opponent’s creatures, your opponents won’t be able to target their own creature with spells or abilities.
Vines resolves, preventing Player One from targeting their own Spellskite. Then Giant Growth resolves normally.
As for the second question, any fair shuffling method is adequate. It's not cheating until it provides an advantage (more technically, information about the card order in your deck that you wouldn't otherwise know); it's merely tedious and time-wasting if the deck is truly randomized afterward. If you feel that your opponent may have "shuffled" in a non-random manner, you have the opportunity to shuffle or cut their deck once they have finished, or you may ask a judge to do so if necessary.
I could see guidelines for templates with many arguments, and especially templates that allow included lists. However, I think imposing a style rule on spacing with headers or after bullet points in lists, or applying such a template rule to a template with only a few arguments, is unnecessary.
We do have one. As you can see in the header, it's a bit dated, and has been for a while.
I think a style guide is a good idea, and necessary for minimizing reverts and edit wars. Taking a cue from the Minecraft wiki, I'm interested to see if there is any consensus to be found in regards to notability standards, particularly as regards many poorly attested prerevision story elements, and for pages dedicated to specific decks and/or cards.
For smaller issues of punctuation and formatting, I think the Wikipedia Manual of Style is an excellent guide. To touch on a few relevant points, per Wikipedia, we should prefer straight quotes and apostrophes to curly (MOS:PUNCT and MOS:QUOTEMARKS), and there should be no space preceding or between references (MOS:REFPUNCT). As for mere code formatting, which does not impact the user-readable page, I cannot find a exactly equivalent rule (though I thought one existed), but I suggest we act in accordance with MOS:RETAIN - stick to the style previously established for the article.
It's actually a tiny bit different in that case, because they're the active player and get priority first, but in practice it works out largely the same.
They cast Sorin, and pass priority.
You cast Anticipate. They gain priority, and if they don't act, you regain priority.
Unless you respond to your Anticipate, it resolves. They gain priority, and if they don't act, you regain priority.
Sorin is still on the stack. You cast Overwhelming Denial for its Surge cost.
The main difference, in this scenario, is that they gain priority between the resolution of Anticipate and your cast of Overwhelming Denial. That won't matter often.
Assuming you have ten mana, you can do as you've described.
You cast Sorin, Grim Nemesis, and hold priority.
You cast Anticipate, and pass priority to your opponent. Assuming they don't act, it resolves, and you hold priority afterwards.
You cast Overhwelming Denial (for its Surge cost!), and pass priority. Assuming they don't act, it resolves, countering Sorin. Sorin goes to the graveyard.
The stack is empty. You have priority.
Mind you, I have no idea why you'd do this, but it works.
I think the current arc is very high on the spectacle scale, and it needs to come down from this point before long. Otherwise, what next? Superdrazi threatening to devour the Expontialverse? Or maybe we milk the storyline by interspersing Eldrazi blocks with smaller stories, thus sustaining the state of Lovecraftian fear for maximum profit? That's certainly a proven tactic.
Really, though, I think the bigger problem right now is that we've left plausibility stone-dead in the dust behind us, and the high spectacle is only a part of that. Kozilek's physics-distortion field has nothing on the Jacetus League - my suspended disbelief tore out of my hands and crashed into the subbasement.
So a product with a massively inflated price and nothing but reprints. I've been hoping for a new Planechase product, but I sincerely expect this to flop horribly and kill our odds of future Planechase sets entirely.
While I'll concede to Ashiok that this chapter had flaws, by the gods, this is the best I've felt reading Magic's story in years. I think the hype stems from a feeling of relief.
While I won't play much at technical analysis, this is the first piece of the story I've read in quite a long time that managed to evoke a sense of wonder. Part of that is Tamiyo's novel approach to magic, and a part is the call back to Serra's Realm, and a part is the identity of the final scrolls, and any one of those three parts carries more mystery than was present throughout all of the last block's story. I think that aspect is something that's been desperately missing of late.
Honestly, Ruinous Path is great. Casted it for awaken is one of the best moves you can do late game especially against control... since you still get the 4/4 land if it gets countered!
That's not true. If Ruinous Path is countered, the entire spell, including the spell ability that's a part of awaken, gets countered. In fact, if you awaken a spell that normally lacks a target, like Planar Outburst, your opponent could fizzle that spell if they have a way to remove that land (which is now the spell's only target) in response.
On the flip side, awakening Ruinous Path might let you avoid that same problem if you expect them to bounce or flicker its first target (so long as the land target continues to exist, some of the Path's targets are still legal, so it continues to resolve), which might have been what you meant.
I hope that the deck builder will include newly previewed cards as soon as they're confirmed. That would be a killer feature that Deckstats and TappedOut have yet to incorporate.
However, if your blocker is something like a Palace Guard or a Hundred-Handed One, and you pump it up to have 18 power and first strike, then it would work like you're hoping. You would assign all of that damage and kill all of the attackers during the first combat damage step, before any of them would have even had the chance to assign damage.
Other zones include the players' hands, their libraries, their graveyards, and the "stack" - the temporary place spells go in between leaving your hand and entering the battlefield (this is where a counterspell might catch it instead!).
To bring this around, a creature card will normally enter the battlefield just once, after you successfully cast it. However, a black deck might use the same card multiple times by returning it from the graveyard. Whether that card entered the battlefield by the route of [hand -> stack -> battlefield], or [graveyard -> battlefield], it still met that trigger condition, so it triggers. A blue or white deck might instead use a "flicker" effect, like Eldrazi Displacer, in which case being returned to the battlefield [exile -> battlefield] works too.
So, a trigger such as what you're talking about could trigger multiple times over the course of a game, but only once for each time that card enters the battlefield.
(And, as a fine detail, each time the card enters the battlefield, it represents a new, different creature permanent. This is mostly interesting for something like: If I cast Lightning Bolt at your Gray Ogre, then you flicker the Ogre with Eldrazi Displacer, my Bolt gets countered, because the original Ogre isn't there any more!)
No, this is false. Player Two controls both Vines of Vastwood and Giant Growth. On resolution, Vines will prevent any spell or ability controlled by Player Two's opponents, i.e. Player One, from targeting the ultimate target of Vines of Vastwood. There is no combination of interactions with the cards provided that would give Player One control of Giant Growth, and thus no condition under which it would fizzle.
In other words, as explicitly stated by the ruling on Vines's Gatherer page, Vines does not grant hexproof (which would cause a scenario such as you describe). It prevents targeting by the opponents of Vines's controller.
Vines resolves, preventing Player One from targeting their own Spellskite. Then Giant Growth resolves normally.
As for the second question, any fair shuffling method is adequate. It's not cheating until it provides an advantage (more technically, information about the card order in your deck that you wouldn't otherwise know); it's merely tedious and time-wasting if the deck is truly randomized afterward. If you feel that your opponent may have "shuffled" in a non-random manner, you have the opportunity to shuffle or cut their deck once they have finished, or you may ask a judge to do so if necessary.
I think a style guide is a good idea, and necessary for minimizing reverts and edit wars. Taking a cue from the Minecraft wiki, I'm interested to see if there is any consensus to be found in regards to notability standards, particularly as regards many poorly attested prerevision story elements, and for pages dedicated to specific decks and/or cards.
For smaller issues of punctuation and formatting, I think the Wikipedia Manual of Style is an excellent guide. To touch on a few relevant points, per Wikipedia, we should prefer straight quotes and apostrophes to curly (MOS:PUNCT and MOS:QUOTEMARKS), and there should be no space preceding or between references (MOS:REFPUNCT). As for mere code formatting, which does not impact the user-readable page, I cannot find a exactly equivalent rule (though I thought one existed), but I suggest we act in accordance with MOS:RETAIN - stick to the style previously established for the article.
It's actually a tiny bit different in that case, because they're the active player and get priority first, but in practice it works out largely the same.
They cast Sorin, and pass priority.
You cast Anticipate. They gain priority, and if they don't act, you regain priority.
Unless you respond to your Anticipate, it resolves. They gain priority, and if they don't act, you regain priority.
Sorin is still on the stack. You cast Overwhelming Denial for its Surge cost.
The main difference, in this scenario, is that they gain priority between the resolution of Anticipate and your cast of Overwhelming Denial. That won't matter often.
You cast Sorin, Grim Nemesis, and hold priority.
You cast Anticipate, and pass priority to your opponent. Assuming they don't act, it resolves, and you hold priority afterwards.
You cast Overhwelming Denial (for its Surge cost!), and pass priority. Assuming they don't act, it resolves, countering Sorin. Sorin goes to the graveyard.
The stack is empty. You have priority.
Mind you, I have no idea why you'd do this, but it works.
Really, though, I think the bigger problem right now is that we've left plausibility stone-dead in the dust behind us, and the high spectacle is only a part of that. Kozilek's physics-distortion field has nothing on the Jacetus League - my suspended disbelief tore out of my hands and crashed into the subbasement.
While I won't play much at technical analysis, this is the first piece of the story I've read in quite a long time that managed to evoke a sense of wonder. Part of that is Tamiyo's novel approach to magic, and a part is the call back to Serra's Realm, and a part is the identity of the final scrolls, and any one of those three parts carries more mystery than was present throughout all of the last block's story. I think that aspect is something that's been desperately missing of late.
That's not true. If Ruinous Path is countered, the entire spell, including the spell ability that's a part of awaken, gets countered. In fact, if you awaken a spell that normally lacks a target, like Planar Outburst, your opponent could fizzle that spell if they have a way to remove that land (which is now the spell's only target) in response.
On the flip side, awakening Ruinous Path might let you avoid that same problem if you expect them to bounce or flicker its first target (so long as the land target continues to exist, some of the Path's targets are still legal, so it continues to resolve), which might have been what you meant.