Flames of the Blood Hand vs Jitte

[RoddyVR]

http://ww2.wizards.com/Gatherer/Card...aspx?&id=74625
Flames of the Blood Hand 2R
Instant
Flames of the Blood Hand deals 4 damage to target player. The damage can't be prevented. If that player would gain life this turn, that player gains no life instead.

If i've got one of these and my opponent has a Jitte with counters on it that he's about to use to gain life... What are my options for denying him the most life possible?

If my opponent sais "remove 4 counters to gain 8 life" and i respond with Blood hand, he'll take 4 damage from FotBH, but how much of that life gain does he "not gain instead".
As i understand it, he has to remove counters 1 at a time (jitte doesnt say "remove X counters: gain X+X life") so unless he's responding to removing the first counter by removing the second counter and so on, I cant prevent him from gaining all of that life.

There was a rules change reguarding this type of shortcut relatively recently, but frankly i dont know which way it changed because i'm not sure how it worked before.

If my opponent sais "remove 1 counter, gain 2. any response?" 4 times then ofcourse i can only "ruin" one of the counters because he use up the rest of his counters in response to my spell, and gain the life while my spell is still on the stack. But if he uses the shortcut of "remove 4 to gain 8" can i be an ass about it and deny him all 8 life with the rules as they stand now?

[Ewokslayer]

As the rules stand now, no.
If they say remove 4 to gain 8 it is understood that he passed priority between each activation and you passed back and the activation resolved before the next one was put on the stack.
If that is incorrect you can back up to the point you want to put the Flames of the Blood Hand on the stack but that wouldn't change the amount of life gain you can prevent since he can respond to the Flames with the other activations.

"Whenever a player adds an object to the stack, they are assumed to be passing priority unless they explicitly announce that they intend to retain it. If they add 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."

[mujadaddy]

As the rules stand now, no.
If they say remove 4 to gain 8 it is understood that he passed priority between each activation and you passed back and the activation resolved before the next one was put on the stack.
If that is incorrect you can back up to the point you want to put the Flames of the Blood Hand on the stack but that wouldn't change the amount of life gain you can prevent since he can respond to the Flames with the other activations.

But if that's the case, can't he put FBH on the stack, preventing all life gain for the rest of the turn?

[Ewokslayer]

Yes, but FBH will only be on top of one Jitte activation.
His opponent can then respond by removing any additional counters on Jitte before FBH resolves preventing the life gain.
If you want till they remove the last Jitte Counter to cast FBH all the previous Jitte activations would have resolved.
So in this scenario the most you could prevent is 2 life.

[mujadaddy]

Yes, but FBH will only be on top of one Jitte activation.

Ah, I misread the example you provided -- didn't see the "and the activation resolved" part.

If the opponent was silly enough to attempt them all at once though, that would work :D

[Ewokslayer]

No it wouldn't.
If they attempted them all at once the codefied shortcuts assume that you are going
Activation
Pass
Activation Resolves
Activation
Pass
Activation Resolves
Activation
Pass
Activation Resolves
Activation
Pass
Activation Resolves

If at any point you want to cast FBH you back up to that point in the sequence at which point the other activations of Jitte can be put on the stack.

It would take quite the dumb opponent to get caught by FBH as you want to they would have to go.
"Remove all Counters from Jitte to gain 8 Life, without passing priority"

[mujadaddy]

No it wouldn't.

It would take quite the dumb opponent to get caught by FBH as you want to they would have to go.
"Remove all Counters from Jitte to gain 8 Life, without passing priority"

Yes, that's what I meant. That = my "silly", above.

[Nightmare]

If they were fearing Krosan Grip, they would do it that way.

[mujadaddy]

If they were fearing Krosan Grip, they would do it that way.

Riposte!