when is the best time to swords a creature? like if it is attacking with jitte? can i do it after counters are removed to give more p/t? when is the best time for them to remove counters?
Your question seems to have multiple parts to it.
If you are not the creature's controller, Swords in response to a Jitte's removal of counters means they don't get the P/T boost, and lose counters. This is probably the best time. If there are no counters, Swords before damage goes on the stack, so it won't resolve and put counters on it.
If you are the controller, you would wait until the triggers from Jitte resolve. Though this case I'm really unsure why you would ever cast Swords in the first place.
The best time to remove counters is after blockers, but before the damage is placed on the stack. This is the optimal time to hit with Swords, as they either gain no counters (if it has none), or lose counters if they remove them, with no benefit.
i mean if a creature with jitte (jitte has 2 counters) when will the controller remove them? i then sword after he removes them right?
so he attack. i dont block. he uses counters. i sword. right? this means no counters or any more life gain. right?
This may be an overcomplicated explanation, but here it is:Originally Posted by Magician
Your opponent declares attackers, and you declare no blockers. Then your opponent receives priority. This is where he must use Jitte counters, or pass priority. If he passes priority without pumping, you can now Swords the creature, and pumping it would gain him no more life than removing counters for life would. If he pumps it, he has to pass priority before the pump effect resolves. If he's a bad player, he'll pump several times at once, and you can respond to all of them with Swords. If he's a good player, he'll pump once, pass priority, pump again, pass priority, etc. in which case you've got to weigh the life he'll gain if you wait to Swords it (if you Swords it with a pump effect on the stack, the creature will be removed before it gains +2/+2) versus the number of counters on Jitte (hoping that if you don't Swords it, he'll remove more counters.) At some point, regardless of whether or not he pumps with Jitte, he has to pass priority on an empty stack, at which point you can Swords the creature before damage is placed on the stack.
Incidentally, even if you allow damage to be placed on the stack, if you Swords the creature before damage resolves, Jitte will receive no counters.
Good explanation, Lego_Army_Man. Could use some linebreaks.
One point of difference, though - with the recently introduced shortcut policy, you can never respond to more than one activation.
51. Shortcuts
... If a player adds a group of objects to the stack without explicitly retaining priority and a player wishes to take an action at a point in the middle, the actions should be reversed up to that point.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
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What i am wondering is when would be the optimal time to swords the creature if your opponent is playing counterspells ? Are you guys risk-friendly or would you swords the creature immediately ?
(Of course one could add another dimension if we assume that you are racing the jitte player. Do you swords now or wait if until he/she is tapped out? )
Oh right. I had read that and just forgot about it. Thanks!
This is a really difficult question to answer outside of context. There are so many things to take into account, and it really depends on what is your most important goal at any given point. When you want to cast the Swords will depend on whether you really need to kill the creature, or if it's more important to deplete the Jitte, or more important to draw out the Counterspell, etc. You'd need really specific context, and even then it would still depend a lot on the opponent.
The answer to this question is a strategical one. How much do you prize your life total vs. the counters on your opponent's Jitte? If you're at two life, you can't take any risks; if you're at twenty and you have a Dark Confidant you want to drop, your play will likely be the opposite.
That said, there's a useful consideration to be made: when the Declare Blockers step (the one immediately before combat damage goes on the stack) begins, your opponent gets priority first. That means the first choice is his to make, whether to pump or pass priority. If he passes priority, he is forsaking the chance to pump for good: he is allowing you to just pass priority and force un-pumped combat damage to go on the stack.
Now, because of the new shortcut rules, you'll never be able to deny your opponent more than two points of lifegain (unless he makes a big brain fart), since there will never be more than one Jitte activation on the stack at one time.
Therefore, unless you specifically care about that 2 points of your opponent's life total, the best bet is just to let his activations resolve until he passes priority without adding any more activations; when he does so, that's the signal that you've milked him for counters as much as possible.
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Well, the rule you quoted says if you wanted to do something in response to one of those activations, you could back up. But if you're okay with assuming he responded to each activation with another, and kept priority, then you could still respond to them all if it was to your benefit, right?
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I think that's impossible because the wording assumes that if he's not explicitly keeping priority to continue multiple activations, you still have to pass priority as normally required, and it is assumed you would until you choose to no longer do so, in which it stops as is with the stack.
Though I'm really not sure how that works (if my interpretation is correct), because it seems to me that it only benefits the idiot who continuously activates stuff without allowing for a response, but never saying they wanted to keep priority. Basically making a bad player not learn WHY they shouldn't do that, but to enforce they can't.
Pinder: No. I might have quoted the wrong part, but there's now an implicit default of resolving each activation when you put multiple on the stack.
Deathwing: Keep in mind that's just one opinion; maybe you learned it as "bad players do this", so you repeat it.
The policy makers thought (and I agree) that it's a silly gotcha that makes games less fun.
There's absolutely no reason it has to be handled the way it was. There's no inherit reason why someone doing a bunch of activations at the same time has to be a bad player, other than he didn't know the trick.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
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