Orcish Captain (and Chance Encounter and Krark's Thumb)

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Hello all. I'll skip the pleasantires and jump right into it...

Player A has an Orcish Captain in play:

Orcish Captain
{R}
Creature -- Orc
1/1
{1}: Flip a coin. If you win the flip, target Orc gets +2/+0 until end
of turn. If you lose the flip, it gets -0/-2 until end of turn.

He's also got a Chance Encounter in play:

Chance Encounter
{2}{R}{R}
Enchantment
Whenever you win a coin flip, put a luck counter on Chance Encounter.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if Chance Encounter has ten or more
luck counters on it, you win the game.

(As you may have guessed he's also got a Krark's Thumb in play, but's
pretty irrelevant I think).

Player B Shocks the OC.

With the Shock on the stack, Player puts the OC's ability on the stack
and pays 1. He still has priority, so he does it again. And again,
etc., until he's got 6 or so stacked up.

Originally, this created a disagreement about whether or not the OC
could die somewhere in the middle of the stack. As far as I know,
because of state-based effects, that IS throughly possible if a coin
flip is lost. However, the argument then changed direction and the
question became: So what if he dies? His effect, which contains the
coin flip, is on the stack, and the aim here is simply to flip coins.

Does this sound correct?

Initially, I was pretty sure it did, but then I got to thinking about
targetting, and realized that, with the Orcish Captain being the only
Orc in play, he'd have to pick the Orcish Captain as the target every
time. If, after having stacked all those abilities, the first coin
flip results in the Captain getting a -0/-2, the Captain will go to
the graveyard as a state-based effect as soon as someone receives
priority. Thereafter, all the other Captain's abilities underneath
that one have no valid target and are countered, which means Player A
doesn't get to flip his coin?

Or does THAT evaluation sound right?

Thanks,

Rick Kunkel

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

Rick Kunkel <NOSPAM-kunkel@w-link.net> wrote:

> Hello all. I'll skip the pleasantires and jump right into it...
>
> Player A has an Orcish Captain in play:
>
> Orcish Captain
> {R}
> Creature -- Orc
> 1/1
> {1}: Flip a coin. If you win the flip, target Orc gets +2/+0 until end
> of turn. If you lose the flip, it gets -0/-2 until end of turn.
>
> He's also got a Chance Encounter in play:
>
> Chance Encounter
> {2}{R}{R}
> Enchantment
> Whenever you win a coin flip, put a luck counter on Chance Encounter.
> At the beginning of your upkeep, if Chance Encounter has ten or more
> luck counters on it, you win the game.
>
> (As you may have guessed he's also got a Krark's Thumb in play, but's
> pretty irrelevant I think).
>
> Player B Shocks the OC.
>
> With the Shock on the stack, Player puts the OC's ability on the stack
> and pays 1. He still has priority, so he does it again. And again,
> etc., until he's got 6 or so stacked up.

Remember that choosing a target for that ability is part of putting it
on the stack.

> Originally, this created a disagreement about whether or not the OC
> could die somewhere in the middle of the stack. As far as I know,
> because of state-based effects, that IS throughly possible if a coin
> flip is lost. However, the argument then changed direction and the
> question became: So what if he dies? His effect, which contains the
> coin flip, is on the stack, and the aim here is simply to flip coins.

Between resolutions, each player will get priority at least once, and
state-based effects will be checked at least once for each time a player
gets priority.

> Does this sound correct?

Except for the point that you realized next.

> Initially, I was pretty sure it did, but then I got to thinking about
> targetting, and realized that, with the Orcish Captain being the only
> Orc in play, he'd have to pick the Orcish Captain as the target every
> time. If, after having stacked all those abilities, the first coin
> flip results in the Captain getting a -0/-2, the Captain will go to
> the graveyard as a state-based effect as soon as someone receives
> priority. Thereafter, all the other Captain's abilities underneath
> that one have no valid target and are countered, which means Player A
> doesn't get to flip his coin?
>
> Or does THAT evaluation sound right?

Yes.
--
Daniel W. Johnson
panoptes@iquest.net
http://members.iquest.net/~panoptes/
039 53 36 N / 086 11 55 W

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

Rick Kunkel <NOSPAM-kunkel@w-link.net> wrote:
>Player A has an Orcish Captain in play:

Oh good, haven't heard questions about him in a LONG time.

>Orcish Captain R Creature -- Orc
>1/1 1: Flip a coin. If you win the flip, target Orc gets +2/+0 until end
> of turn. If you lose the flip, it gets -0/-2 until end of turn.

You can use the ability several times on the same Orc, though any of
them that try to resolve after that Orc has died because its toughness got
-0/-2ed below 1 will get countered.

>He's also got a Chance Encounter in play:
>
>Chance Encounter 2RR Enchantment
> Whenever you win a coin flip, put a luck counter on ~. / At the beginning of
> your upkeep, if ~ has ten or more luck counters on it, you win the game.

Ah. Only -uncountered- uses of the Captain's ability make (or allow) you to
flip a coin; any that try to resolve with a missing target get countered, and
get no coinflip because of this (and none of the rest of the effect either).

>(As you may have guessed he's also got a Krark's Thumb in play, but's
>pretty irrelevant I think).

Mmmm, no; that means he has a 75% chance to win each flip, rather than a 50%
chance...

>Player B Shocks the OC.
>
>With the Shock on the stack, Player puts the OC's ability on the stack
>and pays 1. He still has priority, so he does it again. And again,
>etc., until he's got 6 or so stacked up.
>
>Originally, this created a disagreement about whether or not the OC
>could die somewhere in the middle of the stack. As far as I know,
>because of state-based effects, that IS throughly possible if a coin
>flip is lost.

Yes. He'll become (2N+1)/-1, where N is the number of flips won so far, and
will get put into the graveyard right after that particular use of his ability
finishes resolving.

> However, the argument then changed direction and the
>question became: So what if he dies? His effect, which contains the
>coin flip, is on the stack, and the aim here is simply to flip coins.

Yes ... but this is a -targetted- ability. And a targetted ability, all of
whose targets are missing/illegal on resolution? Gets what? ...Countered,
that's right. So no counter for the Chance Encounter from that countered
ability: a counter-example, so to speak.

>Initially, I was pretty sure it did, but then I got to thinking about
>targetting, and realized that, with the Orcish Captain being the only
>Orc in play, he'd have to pick the Orcish Captain as the target every
>time.

Bingo.

> If, after having stacked all those abilities, the first coin
>flip results in the Captain getting a -0/-2, the Captain will go to
>the graveyard as a state-based effect as soon as someone receives
>priority. Thereafter, all the other Captain's abilities underneath
>that one have no valid target and are countered, which means Player A
>doesn't get to flip his coin?

Right, exactly. Good job. Once the Captain dies, in this example, A gets no
more coinflips _after_ that.

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from dbd@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.