can a creature use activated abilities the turn it enters the battlefield, Guul Draz Assassin vs. Royal Assassin, and how many level counters does guul draz assassin enter play with?
Asked by zigkid3 14 years ago
1) summoning sickness:
can you use creature abilities during summon sickness as long as it doesn't tap the creature? like Izzet Guildmage because it just costs mana and that's it.
2) Royal Assassin vs. Guul Draz Assassin :
say i use guul draz assassin's tap ability to put -2/-2 on royal assassin. my opponent taps their royal assassin to kill guul draz assassin. do they both die? or does the royal assassin kill my guul draz assassin before he can give the royal guy a -2/-2?
also what would happen if say i have a guul draz assassin, and a royal assassin myself. and my opponent has a royal assassin. if i tap guul draz to kill his royal, and he taps his royal to kill my guul draz, then can i tap my royal to kill his royal before he ends up killing my guul draz in the first place?
3) level counters:
for Guul Draz Assassin his level up counters start by saying levels 2-3. so does he start at level 0 or level 1?
1) yes its unaffected 2) the stack is the key. guul draz goes off, royal responds. kills guul draz. guul draz cant put on the neg 2 cuz hes dead. like when your mom tells you to drive safe but your already out the door, so wat she says is like it never happened. 2.2) same thing, guul taps, targets royal, ur royal targets theirs. rewind: your royal kills theirs, their royal is gone so it cant do it, ur guul draz has no target so he fizzles but still taps. 3) level ups are like hobos. they seem like nobodies, but give them time and a chance and they csan become something useful (no offense to any hobos visiting the site).
new senario: 4 players. red burn, green tramplers, black kill, and blue control.
green swings at burn with a (insert big creature). blue stole blacks other royal. blues royal and kills green before damage is dealt. after that resolves, black kills blues assassin. after that resolves, red bolts blacks assassin. everyone has a good laugh and everything is dead. funniest day of my life in magic. other than officially hitting my friend for over 9000 wirth a green deck
November 14, 2010 9:50 p.m.
supernick: your answers to part 2 of the question are incorrect. once the abilities are on the stack the only thing that can prevent the targeted creatures from dying are a) Stifle or something that can counter activated abilities or b) making the target an illegal target (bouncing it, giving it shroud/protection from the relevant colour, etc.).
November 14, 2010 10:46 p.m.
FallenAngel says... #5
ya sporkife is right when the green creature attacks it resolves before the assassin can kill it witch is sad, I wish you were right becuase royal assassin is my favorite card but my friends made me look up the rules about twenty times to make me understand what sporkife just said.
November 14, 2010 11:13 p.m.
wait, so a creature's attacks resolves before royal assassin can kill it? i thought royal assassins can kill attacking creatures in response since it's like an instant.
November 15, 2010 1:14 a.m.
now there are a couple of different things going on on this thread.
sporkife's first post correctly answered all the original poster's questions. A comment on part 2 of the original post: the metaphor that finally drove this through my head is this: the card is a gun. the effect on the stack is a bullet. blowing up the gun after it's already been fired doesn't stop the bullet.
FallenAngel and zigkid3: attacks don't 'resolve'. attacking isn't an ability and doesn't use the stack. Royal Assassin absolutely can be used to stop an attacking creature before damage is dealt:
begin combat phase:
declare attackers step:
tap creature and declare it as an attacker. Active player gets priority. Non-Active player gets priority, and uses Royal Assassin's ability to destroy attacking creature.declare blockers step:
combat damage step: no damage is dealt, 'cause the attacker is dead.
November 15, 2010 3:55 a.m.
KrazyCaley says... #8
sporkife's original answer is correct in all respects.
Activated abilities use the stack, which is why BOTH creatures die.
You activate Guul Draz and an effect goes on the stack that says "Royal Assassin gets -2/-2." It does not resolve yet; players get a chance to respond.
In this case, Royal Assassin's controller responds by activating it targeting Guul Draz. Then an effect goes on the stack that says "Destroy target tapped Guul Draz Assassin." If the players have no more responses, then you resolve the effects on the stack according to the last in, first out rule.
First, Royal Assassin's ability resolves and Guul Draz dies. However, the fact that Guul Draz is dead does not prevent his previously activated ability from resolving, which it does, killing Royal Assassin.
November 15, 2010 11:48 a.m.
brianguymtg says... #9
I play Giant Growth on the assassin, and make him live after the vamp activation. Ha.
sporkife says... Accepted answer #1
1) yes. 2) both die, either way. once the abilities are on the stack, everything is going to die. 3) zero. all levelers start at 0. you just have to get him to level 2 for him to have the ability.
November 14, 2010 9:36 p.m.