Confusing damage timing
Asked by FatFreddiesCat 3 months ago
I am playing Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph as my Commander. I have Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might Flip in play. I tap Lightning-Rig Crew to do one damage to each opponent. In what order do things happen? Does Lightning-Rig Crew's one damage trigger Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph, who would then do two damage to all opponents, except that Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might Flip would turn that two into four? Or would Lightning-Rig Crew immediately deal four damage to the opponents, thereby negating the Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph ability? Who gets to choose when these triggers happen? I know you all have answered other questions regarding Ghyrson, but I couldn't find anything that would answer this for me.
FatFreddiesCat says... #2
Thank you. None of my playing friends have been able to adequately describe the different kinds of abilities. You have made the difference between triggered abilities and static abilities with replacement effects perfectly clear. Thanks again.
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #1
Lightning-Rig Crew deals 4 damage to each opponent and Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph doesn't get to do anything.
In this situation, no one has a choice of the order to apply things. That's because Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might Flip and Ghyrson Starn use different kinds of abilities that are handled by the rules in separate, specific ways. Ghyrson Starn has a triggered ability, which you can tell by it starting with one of the words "when", "whenever" or "at". Ojer Axonil has a static ability with a replacement effect, which you can tell by the use of one or more of the words "as", "with" or "instead"
A replacement effect modifies an event as it happens and triggered abilities trigger after an event happens. In this example Ojer Axonil sees your Crew is about to deal less than 4 damage to an opponent and replaces the result with 4 damage instead. Ghyrson Starn's triggered ability watches for an event where exactly 1 damage is dealt, but that's not what happened here, so it doesn't trigger.
December 10, 2024 9:04 a.m.