115.10. Spells and abilities can affect objects and players they don’t target. In general, those objects and players aren’t chosen until the spell or ability resolves. See rule 608, “Resolving Spells and Abilities.”
Spells or abilities that affect ALL creatures or ALL lands would be examples of this. Are there other ways that spells can affect objects or players besides TARGET something or ALL somethings?
I was told that Temur Sabertooth can be used to repeatedly draw cards from nonlethal damage to Grothama, All-Devouring. The idea must be to use Temur's activated ability after Temur inflicts fight damage on Grothama, All-Devouring, returning Grothama to one's hand and giving Temur indestructible so that it doesn't die to Grothama. Is this possible?
This doesn't work alone. Temur Sabertooth will die from fighting Grothama before you can activate its ability to give it indestructible or Grothama will no long be on the battlefield to fight due to having been returned to hand for the Sabertooth's ability. The basic concept of returning Grothama to hand to draw from any damage dealt functions but you need a way for the Sabertooth to survive.
I just realized that Temur Sabertooth's activated ability doesn't have a tap sign. The strategy being referred to must be to activate Temur's ability once, sending an unrelated creature that you control to your hand. You then fight Grothama, All-Devouring with an indestructible Temur, and finally activate Temur's ability a second time, returning a damaged, but still living, Grothama to your hand.
I was told that Temur Sabertooth can be used to repeatedly draw cards from nonlethal damage to Grothama, All-Devouring. The idea must be to use Temur's activated ability after Temur inflicts fight damage on Grothama, All-Devouring, returning Grothama to one's hand and giving Temur indestructible so that it doesn't die to Grothama.
Is this possible and, if so, how does the activation of the ability have to be timed?
Suppose that I want to kill my own Grothama, All-Devouring in order to draw cards. It sounds like one way to do this is to fight it with my own creatures, in the process of attacking an opponent. If one of my own creatures fights Grothama, All-Devouring and survives, then continues into combat with my chosen opponent, does it go into combat with the damage that it sustained from Grothama? In other words, does pre-combat fight damage carry over into combat?
Can I use a wrath or board wipe to kill my or my opponent's Grothama and draw cards? My guess is that cards like Hurricane and Crypt Rats would work, but cards like Wrath of God which "destroy" instead of inflicting damage won't. Is this correct? Does "destroying" a creature just send it to the graveyard (without inflicting damage)?
Persist is a triggered ability that each creature gains individually, so what happens exactly depends on how you order the persist triggers (they all go on the stack at the same time and you control them all, so you choose their relative order on the stack). Putting Melira's persist trigger on top of the stack so she enters first makes the most sense if you want as many creatures as possible to not enter with a -1/-1 counter. [EDIT: Her ability is taken into account for herself and makes it so she doesn't enter with a counter.] Then, provided she survives, her ability will prevent subsequent persist triggers from putting counters on the other returning creatures.
Solemnity's even easier since it's itself probably not destroyed by the board wipe (unless it also destroys enchantments) and won't persist if it is (unless you made it a creature somehow, in which case it works the same as Melira).
Thank you everyone for the time and effort you put into figuring this out. It's incredibly helpful!
I take it that what MadMageQc wrote earlier about ordering the Persist triggers is accurate. In the scenario described in the original post, if I choose to order the Persist triggers so that Melira, Sylvok Outcast's persist is on top of the stack, she will come in with a -1/-1 counter but will prevent the other creatures which were destroyed at the same time from coming in with any counters. If we're talking about a wrath, Solemnity will definitely prevent all the creatures from coming back with -1/-1 counters because it, itself, will not be destroyed. Am I understanding correctly?
I apologize for my ignorance but, as a person lacking your collective knowledge of Magic rules, regulations, and mechanics, I'm having a difficult time following this discussion. There are so many corrections, cancellations of corrections, and changes of opinion in this discussion that I'm not quite sure what conclusion we have come to. (It sounds to me like the final word is that Melira DOES in fact prevent herself from coming in with a -1/-1 counter, and DOES prevent the other creatures from coming in with counters as well. I wouldn't be at all surprised if I have misunderstood the final conclusion, though.
It would be tremendously helpful if someone could briefly summarize the final conclusions of the discussion above.
I know that if a creature has one or more +1/+1 counters on it, then receives enough -1/-1 counters on it to send its toughness to zero, it will go to the graveyard and can not be brought back with persist. That's because it still had a -1/-1 counter on it when it was last on the battlefield.
Suppose that a creature has some combination of +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters on it, but more +1/+1 counters (such that after they cancel out there will be no -1/-1 counters on the creature). If it dies for some reason other than these counters-- how soon, or at what point, would Cauldron of Souls be able to grant it persist and bring it back from the graveyard? At what point, or how quickly, do the +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters cancel each other out?
Suppose that Melira, Sylvok Outcast and a few vanilla creatures are on the playing field along with Cauldron of Souls, and someone casts a board wipe. If Cauldron of Souls is used to bring these creatures back into play, do them come back with or without -1/-1 counters?
What about the same situation with Solemnity instead of Melira? Does it work the same way?
Peteroupc and WizardMN are two of the biggest names in this rules forum. They and one other person are all telling you the same thing... ...My credentials: I have been playing since 1995. I graduated with an English degree.
Sorry, I didn't intend to challenge or question anyone's knowledge of the game in any way. I just couldn't honestly accept the assertions that were being made based on my current understanding at the time. To meekly accept those in spite of their not appearing to make any sense would be obsequious and insincere.
I didn't intend to challenge or question anyone's knowledge of the game in any way. I just couldn't honestly accept the assertions that were being made based on my current understanding at the time. To meekly accept those in spite of their not appearing to make any sense would be obsequious and insincere.
Tom's "You can't win the game" + Jane's "Your opponent (ie. Tom) can't lose the game" = Tom can't win the game" + "Tom can't lose the game." Do those cancel each other out?
C.R.104.3f states, "If a player would both win and lose the game simultaneously, that player loses the game."
The original question concerned the outcome of targeting Abyssal Persecutor with Fractured Identity in a multiplayer game. Since there's one player who wouldn't simultaneously win and lose the game (because their Abyssal Persecutor has been exiled), and everyone else WOULD simultaneously win and lose, it appears that (according to C.R.104.3f) the person who didn't cast Fractured Identity and Abyssal Persecutor wins the game by default, according to the rules. Am I understanding this correctly?
I mention Lab Man simply to highlight that a player does not lose simply because another player wins. Losing is outlined in the rules and on certain cards and is a specific situation that has been described very well above. A player winning on the other hand simply means the game is done. The other players did not lose (in game terms); they just longer have a game to participate in because that game is over.
While this is a bit of a departure from real life since we tend to track winners and losers of things and someone who didn't win is treated as someone who lost. That all makes sense, but Magic structured on a set of rules that dictate *everything* about the game. This includes the definitions of winning and losing. There are a number of ways for a player to lose in the rules. But, according to the rules, another player winning does not make them a loser in game terms.
I wasn't intending to question your extensive knowledge of the game, or the facts that you and peteroupc put forth. Nor am I in any way upset or angry or even frustrated. Your last post is extremely clear and directly addresses the point that I was attempting to make. In it, you use the phrase "in game terms." That expression is quite helpful/useful in terms of clarifying the issue, I think, because the real-world meanings of the words "win" and "lose" are obviously different from the technical terminology of Magic rulings. My original question concerned Commander game play rather than tournament play, and in casual play the gap in meanings is even greater. I can imagine that, in a tournament setting, people might be more inclined to allow official "game terms" to define their personal reality more than they would in a casual kitchen table setting.
I was arguing the point that, outside of tournament settings, Magic is commonly understood to be a zero-sum game in which winning is the opposite of losing. I believe that this is an objective fact-- that's what everyone I know take the words to mean-- in the realm of casual play such as Commander. In my play group, when one person wins, everyone else has lost the game. I can't imagine that this is an uncommon or atypical understanding among casual players of how the game of Magic works. These meanings are fundamentally different from the meanings rigourously spelled out in the game's official rules.
This means that, at the end of a Magic game, there are multiple meanings for "winning" and multiple meanings for "losing." The takeaway of this discussion for me is that language is quite sloppy, and words have multiple meanings at the same time. A "house," to Europeans and Americans, is usually a rectangular wooden or brick structure, but it can also be an igloo, a tee pee, or a round thatched hut. In "game terms," winning and losing have very rigorously-defined meanings, but those meanings don't replace or eradicate the colloquial real-world meanings which have a parallel existence and exist alongside the technical meanings-- at least for non-tournament players.
Clearly, my assertion that the terms "winning" and "losing" can't be re-defined by the rules of a card game was mistaken. They obviously can, as you've all pointed out. I understand now that the formal, official technical meanings of the words can be very different from colloquially understood meanings. I very much appreciate the time you've taken to explain this for me. Thanks!
Thanks for responding, peteroupc. Again, though, I can't accept the answer that I'm being given.
I read the thread that you included. I play commander, and the "limited range of influence" option doesn't apply to my play group. That being the case, you're making the claim that "nothing in the rules explicitly states that a player who would win the game makes all other players lose the game." Well, nothing in the rules of poker explicitly states that two diamonds plus two diamonds makes four diamonds. That's defined by mathematics and the English language. Nothing in the rules of chess states that "white" is the color that reflects visible light and "black" is the color that absorbs it. That's defined by the laws of physics and the English language. It isn't necessary for the game rules to explicitly state that one person winning a game of magic makes the other players lose the game-- that's what WINNING and LOSING mean in the English language.
If, during a game of Commander, I were to "win" the game in the manner that you suggest-- casting Laboratory Maniac, attempting to draw a card, and being unable to draw-- you claim that the other players will not have "lost" the game, even though I "won" the game. THIS MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. The rules of Magic can't override the definition of the word "win" in the English language or the binary logic represented in the concepts of "winning" and "losing" in American societal culture. To "win" is to "not lose" and to "not win" is to "lose." Can you imagine a Superbowl game ending the way you suggest? The New England Patriots win the Superbowl but, fortunately, the Miami Dolphins didn't lose the game, so they're just as happy.
I cannot accept the assertion that the rules of an intrinsically zero-sum card game have the power to redefine what WINNING A GAME and what LOSING A GAME mean, in practical terms, in the real world.
I very much appreciate your efforts to answer the question, but I just can't accept the answer that you've given.
Winning with Laboratory Maniac WOULD cause the other players to lose the game. One player can't win the game without the other players LOSING the game. The critical question for me is how Magic rules deal with contradictory factors. A card with a +1/+1 counter on it that also gets a -1/-1 counter will eventually have no counters when those two cancel each other out. We don't say that the creature is both a 4/4 and a 2/2 at the same time: we say that it's a 3/3.
Tom's "You can't win the game" + Jane's "Your opponent (ie. Tom) can't lose the game" = Tom can't win the game" + "Tom can't lose the game." Do those cancel each other out? If they don't, we would seem to have a problem. The only conventional game outcome where nobody wins or loses that I know of is a draw. Could no one being able to win and simultaneously no one being able to lose mean that the game ends in a draw. It very well could IF all of the players control an Abyssal Persecutor, but they don't.
One of the players has no win or lose contraints placed on them. Would this fact prevent a "draw" outcome? A draw can only result if NOBODY can win and NOBODY can lose, yet one of the players IS free to win and to lose. Again we hit the instrinsic mutually-exclusive binary nature of winning/losing. Even though the player who isn't controling a Persecutor is free to win or lose, they can't win without the other players losing, and they can't lose without the other players winning. This would seem to me to mean that NOBODY can win this game and NOBODY can lose it.
My sense is that there are only two possible outcomes. Either Magic's rules define this situation to be a draw, in which nobody can win and nobody can lose... OR.... Magic's rules don't take this situation into account and the combo SIMPLY BREAKS THE GAME.
Does this target those permanents?
Does that make sense?
Is this possible and, if so, how does the activation of the ability have to be timed?
Can I use a wrath or board wipe to kill my or my opponent's Grothama and draw cards? My guess is that cards like Hurricane and Crypt Rats would work, but cards like Wrath of God which "destroy" instead of inflicting damage won't. Is this correct? Does "destroying" a creature just send it to the graveyard (without inflicting damage)?
I take it that what MadMageQc wrote earlier about ordering the Persist triggers is accurate. In the scenario described in the original post, if I choose to order the Persist triggers so that Melira, Sylvok Outcast's persist is on top of the stack, she will come in with a -1/-1 counter but will prevent the other creatures which were destroyed at the same time from coming in with any counters. If we're talking about a wrath, Solemnity will definitely prevent all the creatures from coming back with -1/-1 counters because it, itself, will not be destroyed. Am I understanding correctly?
It would be tremendously helpful if someone could briefly summarize the final conclusions of the discussion above.
I know that if a creature has one or more +1/+1 counters on it, then receives enough -1/-1 counters on it to send its toughness to zero, it will go to the graveyard and can not be brought back with persist. That's because it still had a -1/-1 counter on it when it was last on the battlefield.
Suppose that a creature has some combination of +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters on it, but more +1/+1 counters (such that after they cancel out there will be no -1/-1 counters on the creature). If it dies for some reason other than these counters-- how soon, or at what point, would Cauldron of Souls be able to grant it persist and bring it back from the graveyard? At what point, or how quickly, do the +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters cancel each other out?
What about the same situation with Solemnity instead of Melira? Does it work the same way?
The original question concerned the outcome of targeting Abyssal Persecutor with Fractured Identity in a multiplayer game. Since there's one player who wouldn't simultaneously win and lose the game (because their Abyssal Persecutor has been exiled), and everyone else WOULD simultaneously win and lose, it appears that (according to C.R.104.3f) the person who didn't cast Fractured Identity and Abyssal Persecutor wins the game by default, according to the rules. Am I understanding this correctly?
I was arguing the point that, outside of tournament settings, Magic is commonly understood to be a zero-sum game in which winning is the opposite of losing. I believe that this is an objective fact-- that's what everyone I know take the words to mean-- in the realm of casual play such as Commander. In my play group, when one person wins, everyone else has lost the game. I can't imagine that this is an uncommon or atypical understanding among casual players of how the game of Magic works. These meanings are fundamentally different from the meanings rigourously spelled out in the game's official rules.
This means that, at the end of a Magic game, there are multiple meanings for "winning" and multiple meanings for "losing." The takeaway of this discussion for me is that language is quite sloppy, and words have multiple meanings at the same time. A "house," to Europeans and Americans, is usually a rectangular wooden or brick structure, but it can also be an igloo, a tee pee, or a round thatched hut. In "game terms," winning and losing have very rigorously-defined meanings, but those meanings don't replace or eradicate the colloquial real-world meanings which have a parallel existence and exist alongside the technical meanings-- at least for non-tournament players.
Clearly, my assertion that the terms "winning" and "losing" can't be re-defined by the rules of a card game was mistaken. They obviously can, as you've all pointed out. I understand now that the formal, official technical meanings of the words can be very different from colloquially understood meanings. I very much appreciate the time you've taken to explain this for me. Thanks!
I read the thread that you included. I play commander, and the "limited range of influence" option doesn't apply to my play group. That being the case, you're making the claim that "nothing in the rules explicitly states that a player who would win the game makes all other players lose the game." Well, nothing in the rules of poker explicitly states that two diamonds plus two diamonds makes four diamonds. That's defined by mathematics and the English language. Nothing in the rules of chess states that "white" is the color that reflects visible light and "black" is the color that absorbs it. That's defined by the laws of physics and the English language. It isn't necessary for the game rules to explicitly state that one person winning a game of magic makes the other players lose the game-- that's what WINNING and LOSING mean in the English language.
If, during a game of Commander, I were to "win" the game in the manner that you suggest-- casting Laboratory Maniac, attempting to draw a card, and being unable to draw-- you claim that the other players will not have "lost" the game, even though I "won" the game. THIS MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. The rules of Magic can't override the definition of the word "win" in the English language or the binary logic represented in the concepts of "winning" and "losing" in American societal culture. To "win" is to "not lose" and to "not win" is to "lose." Can you imagine a Superbowl game ending the way you suggest? The New England Patriots win the Superbowl but, fortunately, the Miami Dolphins didn't lose the game, so they're just as happy.
I cannot accept the assertion that the rules of an intrinsically zero-sum card game have the power to redefine what WINNING A GAME and what LOSING A GAME mean, in practical terms, in the real world.
Winning with Laboratory Maniac WOULD cause the other players to lose the game. One player can't win the game without the other players LOSING the game. The critical question for me is how Magic rules deal with contradictory factors. A card with a +1/+1 counter on it that also gets a -1/-1 counter will eventually have no counters when those two cancel each other out. We don't say that the creature is both a 4/4 and a 2/2 at the same time: we say that it's a 3/3.
Tom's "You can't win the game" + Jane's "Your opponent (ie. Tom) can't lose the game" = Tom can't win the game" + "Tom can't lose the game." Do those cancel each other out? If they don't, we would seem to have a problem. The only conventional game outcome where nobody wins or loses that I know of is a draw. Could no one being able to win and simultaneously no one being able to lose mean that the game ends in a draw. It very well could IF all of the players control an Abyssal Persecutor, but they don't.
One of the players has no win or lose contraints placed on them. Would this fact prevent a "draw" outcome? A draw can only result if NOBODY can win and NOBODY can lose, yet one of the players IS free to win and to lose. Again we hit the instrinsic mutually-exclusive binary nature of winning/losing. Even though the player who isn't controling a Persecutor is free to win or lose, they can't win without the other players losing, and they can't lose without the other players winning. This would seem to me to mean that NOBODY can win this game and NOBODY can lose it.
My sense is that there are only two possible outcomes. Either Magic's rules define this situation to be a draw, in which nobody can win and nobody can lose... OR.... Magic's rules don't take this situation into account and the combo SIMPLY BREAKS THE GAME.