Do damage and life from lifelink occur at the "same time"?
Asked by MagnorCriol 14 years ago
Let's say I have 4 health and a Vampire Nighthawk on the field. My opponent has, say, three runeclaw-bears.
He attacks with all three. Unblocked, that's 6 damage, for the kill. Obviously I'll block one with my Nighthawk. That means two get through - 4 damage, still lethal. But my Nighthawk's lifelink would give me 2 life, which would keep me alive - if it happens at the same time as damage. If damage is assigned, then life is gained, on the other hand, then I've lost because I go to zero.
So does lifelink life gain happen at the same time, game-wise? I think it does, but I'd like confirmation, just to make sure I'm getting it right.
mistergreen527 says... Accepted answer #2
To expand, Wizards actually caused a lot of confusion when they made lifelink into a static ability, so your question is a common one. Here's some history on why this confusion happened.
Before lifelink became a key word, it was written out like it is on Spirit Link : "whenever this creature deals damage, you gain that much life." This wording is a triggered ability. The damage has to be dealt before you can gain the life. Back in the day, people would give common abilities "slang" keywords. The ability found on Spirit Link was called lifelink. Border Patrol 's ability was called vigilance (and also later became an actual keyword. The same is true with domain.
Anyways, so since people were already using lifelink to stand for "whenever this creature deals damage, you gain that much life," Wizards made it an official keyword. When it first became a keyword, it had the reminder text you can see on Knight of Meadowgrain : "(Whenever this creature deals damage, you gain that much life.)"
Then M10 came around and a bunch of rules changed. Lifelink became a static ability and you may notice that all creatures that had the words "lifelink" printed on the card had there reminder text changed via oracle to "Damage dealt by this creature also causes its controller to gain that much life.)," as seen on Lifelink .
The main confusion is that the older cards that had abilities that were once called lifelink, such as Spirit Link (which, remember, once matched the reminder text for the printed lifelink), are still a triggered abilities.
So, if you would have asked the same question, but replaced the Vampire Nighthawk with a Horned Cheetah , you would be dead.
One last note: you can enchant an opponent's creature with Spirit Link and you'll gain the life. However, if you enchant an opponent's creature with Lifelink , your opponent will gain the life.
Sorry about going on and on, but for some reason I felt the need to explain this and this felt like the right place to do it.
September 16, 2010 1:07 a.m.
MagnorCriol says... #3
No, actually, that's very helpful. It coincidentally answers some other questions I had floating around in my head - for instance, why it seemed like some creatures with lifelink had their oracle text updated to say "Lifelink" and some didn't - I now know that the non-updated creatures DON'T have Lifelink. That's useful.
I'm relatively new to the game, so (simple, straightforward) explanations of some of the reasons and theories behind the mechanics are helpful to me. Appreciated!
September 16, 2010 1:21 a.m.
mistergreen527 says... #4
Glad I could help! :)
One more thing: while multiple instance of lifelink are redundant, multiple instances of the original wording are not. So, a Runeclaw Bear enchanted with four Lifelink s will gain you 2 life per combat, while a Runeclaw Bear enchanted with four Spirit Link s will gain you 8 life per combat (assuming there are no other buffs).
mistergreen527 says... #1
Lifelink was turned into a static ability. So, its effects happen simultaneously with the damage. You'll gain the two life at the same time you lose four life from damage, giving you a net loss of two life.
September 16, 2010 12:52 a.m.