<\/p>
<\/p>\u201cJudge, I blocked my opponent\u2019s Thragtusk with Boros Reckoner. After they kill each other, is there a way I can use Reckoner\u2019s trigger to kill the Beast token, too?\u201d<\/p>\n
Your opponent may be protesting at this point \u201cjudges can\u2019t give strategic advice!\u201d but it turns out that according to the rules, there\u2019s only one legal answer to this question. So let\u2019s walk through it.<\/p>\n
When the combat damage step begins, Thragtusk<\/a> and Boros Reckoner<\/a> deal lethal damage to each other. The Reckoner\u2019s ability triggers (but doesn\u2019t go onto the stack yet!). Then state-based actions are checked, Thragtusk and Reckoner die, and Thragtusk\u2019s ability triggers. After this check, any abilities that have triggered but are still waiting to go onto the stack finally get put onto the stack, and because abilities that are controlled by the active player (your opponent, who\u2019s attacking) take precedence, the Thragtusk\u2019s ability will be put onto the stack first (even though it triggered later), followed by your Reckoner\u2019s trigger.<\/p>\n Here comes the most important part: when a trigger that has a target is put onto the stack, you have to choose a legal target for it right away, if able. Because the Beast-creating trigger is still waiting to resolve, the Beast doesn\u2019t yet exist and isn\u2019t a legal target for the Reckoner\u2019s ability. Thus, our study of deep and comprehensive rules comes to a simple end:<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n As an aside, if you were attacking and your opponent blocked with the Thragtusk, it wouldn\u2019t change the answer, either; the Reckoner\u2019s ability would go on the stack first and have to choose a legal target at that time. It doesn\u2019t matter that the Thragtusk\u2019s ability will have resolved and created a Beast token before the Reckoner\u2019s ability actually deals damage, because it’s not there when you choose a target.<\/p>\n Today’s Rules Tip written by Jen Wong<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cJudge, I blocked my opponent\u2019s Thragtusk with Boros Reckoner. After they kill each other, is there a way I can use Reckoner\u2019s trigger to kill the Beast token, too?\u201d Your opponent may be protesting at this point \u201cjudges can\u2019t give strategic advice!\u201d but it turns out that according to the rules, there\u2019s only one legal […]<\/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":[15,8],"tags":[921,745],"language":[1196],"class_list":["post-3115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resolving-spells-and-abilities","category-triggeredabilities","tag-boros-reckoner","tag-thragtusk","language-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115","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=3115"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4626,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115\/revisions\/4626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3115"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=3115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}