{"id":2533,"date":"2012-10-25T10:00:39","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T15:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/?p=2533"},"modified":"2015-02-05T16:03:16","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T00:03:16","slug":"wild-beastmaster-can-kill-your-other-creatures-if-it-has-negative-power-when-its-ability-resolves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/2012\/10\/wild-beastmaster-can-kill-your-other-creatures-if-it-has-negative-power-when-its-ability-resolves\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Beastmaster can kill your other creatures if it has negative power when its ability resolves."},"content":{"rendered":"

This question has come up a few times recently, because the answer doesn’t seem to make sense to everyone. What happens when you attack with a Wild Beastmaster<\/a> and your opponent responds to the trigger by casting Downsize<\/a> or Tragic Slip<\/a> targeting the Beastmaster?<\/p>\n

Well the first thing to realize is that the Beastmaster’s power is only checked as its triggered ability resolves.<\/p>\n

The next thing to point out is that it is definitely possible for a creature to have negative power or toughness. While most numbers in Magic only use positive values or zero, a few things allow negative values to be used, including anything that: sets a player\u2019s life total to a specific value, doubles a player\u2019s life total, sets a creature\u2019s power or toughness to a specific value, or otherwise modifies a creature\u2019s power or toughness.<\/p>\n

So, if the Beastmaster is a -3\/1 creature when its triggered ability resolves because of Downsize, the ability will give +X\/+X to each other creature. Since X = -3, you just use simple math to figure out that adding a negative is the same as subtracting. Therefore, +(-3)\/+(-3) is the same as -3\/-3. All your other creatures get -3\/-3 when the ability resolves.<\/p>\n

Consider now if Tragic Slip<\/a> with Morbid was used instead! The Beastmaster becomes -12\/-12 and dies, and the ability will resolve using last-known information about the Beastmaster as it last existed on the battlefield. All your other creatures get -12\/-12 and almost certainly will be dead. That’s what we call “a blowout.”<\/p>\n

Today’s Rules Tip written by
\nJosh Stansfield<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This question has come up a few times recently, because the answer doesn’t seem to make sense to everyone. What happens when you attack with a and your opponent responds to the trigger by casting or targeting the Beastmaster? Well the first thing to realize is that the Beastmaster’s power is only checked as its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[38,15,8],"tags":[827,829,828,826],"language":[1196],"class_list":["post-2533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-characteristics","category-resolving-spells-and-abilities","category-triggeredabilities","tag-downsize","tag-hydrosurge","tag-hysterical-blindness","tag-wild-beastmaster","language-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2533"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4683,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions\/4683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2533"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=2533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}