Does Amalia Benavides Aguirre die in combat before her explore trigger resolves?
Asked by Grenthox 3 days ago
If Amalia Benavides Aguirre takes lethal damage in combat, but there are one or more lifegain events from lifelink, does Amalia go to the graveyard before the explore(s) resolve, meaning you will not place any +1/+1 counters?
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #1
That's correct, Amalia will die in that situation. The explore trigger will still resolve after she's put into the graveyard (no +1/+1 counters will be placed if it's a non-land card).
A creature dying from lethal damage is one of the game's "state based actions" (SBAs). The game checks for SBAs right before each time a player would get priority to take another action and it processes those SBAs immediately. In your example, the game checks right before Amalia's explore trigger is put onto the stack.
In the detailed rules for the explore action, if an effect was going to cause an object to explore but that object has left the battlefield, the game will use the last-known information about the object to resolve the explore effect and let it do as much as it can.
January 14, 2025 8:58 a.m.