MTG Salvation

I've been playing MTG since Ixalan was out , so I never played cards that had the proliferate abillity on them , but now since War of The Spark is almost there , Proliferate is a genuine thing. As this allows you ( please correct me when I'm wrong ) to choose for either myself and/or the opponent(s) I am playing against , to have any permanents with any sort of counters on them to get another counter of that kind. So talking about counters , there can be any sort of counter , right ? a silver counter with Karn, Scion of Urza , a phylactery counter with Phylactery Lich or even a landmark counter on a treasure map , a corpse counter , an aim counter a , prey counter ,etc.... and a loyalty counter on a planeswalker and ofcourse the +1/+1 Counters we all know. So If I proliferate in a two person match, and my opponent has a two creatures , both leonin vanguard , one of them has two +1/+1 counters on it and the other one none. He also has a Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants planeswalker with a loyalty counter standing on 2. On my side I have a treasure map with 2 landmark counters on it and also a Liliana, Untouched by Death planeswalker with loyalty counter on 5.
Now if I play a Banewhip punisher , and when it enters , I want it to target the Leonin with the two +1/+1 counters on it to give it the -1/-1 counter. Does one of these positive +1/+1 counters level out one negative-1/-1 counter , so it dissapears ? ( not only showing its result in strength and toughness ) and thus making it impossible to pay the price for two mana and to sacrifice the banewhip punisher which allows me to destroy a creature with a -1/-1 counter on it ?
Is a +1/+1 counter a different sort of counter than a -1/-1 counter in the same way a phylactery counter is different from a landmark counter or an energy counter ? So if you would proliferate and a creature an opponent controls that allready has a -1/-1 counter on it , would it then get an additional -1/-1 counter it ? Just as the treasure map would get an extra landmark counter ?Or would it get a +1/+1 counter balancing both the positive +1/+1 and the negative -1/-1 counter out to zero ?( because in essence a +1/+1 counter is the same sort of counter than a -1/-1 counter, just that in one case it's either on positive , negative or zero ? ) And why do the loyalty counters of a planeswalker always go up when you proliferate ? because having one planeswalker entering the field at 5 , reducing the loyalty counter in my turn to 2 by doing the -3 abbility does this in fact mean ; put 3 neative loyalty counters on it ?, will it then actually have a -3 counter , or do we just deal with the fact that the loyalty counter is reduced by 3 and now stands on 2 ?

If I have a path of discovery on the field and also a shadowed caravel and a lurking chupacabra , will it trigger the ability of the chupacabra everytime I crew the caravel ? Since it becomes a creature when you crew it and stops becoming one till end of turn, right or not ?

I declare to attack with a buffed up zombie token 3/3 by a death baron and buffed up ravenous harpy up to 2/3, my opponent only has a healer's hawk 1/1 and declares this one to be blocking the zombie token, he then plays moment of triumph , making the hawk a 3/3 and possibly killing my token,can I subsequently sacrifice the token to buff up my harpy some more ? Can my opponent reassign the blocking hawk , no more blocking the zombie token as a blocker for the harpy that has now become a 3/4 ? All instants and sacrificing were done before actual combat damage happened/was calculated

Does ashes of the abhorrent my opponent controls, restricts me from retrieving a doomed dissenter from my graveyard by playing March of the drowned ? Will it restrict me from creating a 2/2 zombie token when I sacrifice it to buff up my ravenous harpy ?

Does this work thesame way with triggered abilities that force discard too ? When I play fell specter and my opponent has only as a final card a lightning strike in hand. He can't prevent the creature from entering the battlefield, forcing him to discard a card. Can he use the lightning strike to strike upon the fell specter, not having any more cards in his hand, thus not able to discard any card ?

I have a planeswalker on the field which has a +1 ability " each opponent discards a card and loses two life ". He as only 1 card in hand so my thoughts are that he has to discard first or do something countering preventing the ability from resolving. However if the 1 card is an instant like say a lightning strike , can he play that first ? Leaving him a empty hand, not forced to discard anything and no lifeloss resulting ?

Allright thanks, two lessons learned with one card/situation.
Thanks a lot !

Double post merged. If your goal is to thank each person who answered you, replying separately isn't the best because we don't see a link to the post you've replied to. A single thank you post to thank everyone is best. -MadMage

My opponent has 21 life points, I play a torgaar,famine incarnate which states : up to one target player's life becomes half their starting life, rounded down. Is this done first ? Because 21 rounded down is 20, half of 20=10 , 21-10=11 life points still remaining. Or is this 21/2=10,5
21-10,5=10,5 rounded down to 10 ? This offcourse advantages or disadvantages you the same way when rounding up happens first or last

Thank you for clarifying

I knew he had the traxos in hand, but I only had enough mana on the field to either invoke the divine in my previous turn (which I didn't do because I had the essence scatter in hand,thinking it would deal me no damage ) or either counter his traxos in his turn. I didn't had any removal in hand so countering the traxos and therefore keeping it off the field was my biggest concern. Knowing this now, would make me play the invoke the divine first to get rid of the enchantment and then we will see what I can do against the traxos when holding no removal. The damage it did to my creatures and player was in every way worse than a tapped 7/7 on the field with trample. Wise lessons learned !

If I have a kari zev,skyship raider on the field,which I equip with the helm of the host ,how will this affect an attack with both the original Kari and the non legendary helm token, but both create a legendary token creature ragavan that's tapped and attacking. . . Will the legendary rule force me to remove one of the attacking Ragavan tokens ?

My opponent has a Sarkhan's unsealing on the field and I know he also has a traxos,scourge of kroog , when he wants to play it, I counter it with essence scatter but my opponent says that countering the traxos prevents it from entering the field but nevertheless the spell has been cast as stated on the enchantment card and I take the 4 damage to every creature, planeswalker and player. If this is true , I also had an invoke the divine that I could play but I opted to counter the traxos to keep it from the field

Thanks a lot for your reply, very helpful !

If I play a skilled animator on
a) a non creature artifact like a fountain of renewal or
b) an artifact creature like a mishra's self-replicator
What will happen in case a) will I still get the lifegain at my upkeep ?what will happen with the fountain of renewal when the 5/5 artifact creature that it has become, is destroyed with a creature destroying spell such as walk the plank ? Will the fountain be put in the graveyard ?
In case b) where the animator buffed up the self-replicator to a 5/5 , can I still use the underlying ability to pay 1 when I cast a historic to make a copy of Mishra ? Will the copy be a 5/5 ?
When I play a mirror image or pay 2 to use the ability of my mirage mirror , can I target the 5/5 artifact creature made by the skilled animator and will it also be a 5/5 creature ? Will a copy of the 5/5 (if even possible) also die if the skilled animator leaves the battlefield ?

Okay thanks, visualising it like this makes sense !