Clarifying Stifle

[Mr Wiggl3s]

A good rule of Stifle to remember is that you can only Stifle "When," "Whenever," "At," and ":". "If" does not represent a triggered or activated ability.
Hi, kind of a new player here.

I have a few questions about stifle, so i searched and found this statement, it seem's to be pretty solid, so i was wondering if i could use it in these instances.

Akroma in graveyard, Playing animate dead

"Enchant creature card in a graveyard
When Animate Dead comes into play, if it's in play, it loses "enchant creature card in a graveyard" and gains "enchant creature put into play with Animate Dead."
Return enchanted creature card to play under your control and attach Animate Dead to it.
When Animate Dead leaves play, that creature's controller sacrifices it.
Enchanted creature gets -1/-0."

Chalice for :1:

Chalice of the Void comes into play with X charge counters on it.
Whenever a player plays a spell with converted mana cost equal to the number of charge counters on Chalice of the Void, counter that spell.
Play Repeal for U
Stifle for U
Would it be bounced back?

Thanks

[Nihil Credo]

Akroma in graveyard, Playing animate dead
Unless there's been yet another errata on Animate Dead, Akroma's protection from black will make Animate Dead go to the graveyard, which triggers the enchantment's leaves-play ability. If you Stifle that, then Akroma will remain in play indefinitely.


Chalice for :1:

Play Repeal for U
Stifle for U
Would it be bounced back?
Chalice will trigger again for Stifle, so the Stifle will be countered and then Repeal will also be countered.

If the Chalice was set at 2 and you used Echoing Truth instead of Repeal, you could then successfully Stifle the Chalice trigger and so bounce the Chalice.

[ACME_Myst]

Actually, the Akroma example is very useless. Here's what happens:

- Animate Dead comes into play, and becomes an aura with "enchant creature put into play with Animate Dead".

- You return Akroma to play

- Animate Dead wants to attach to Akroma, but since the angel has pro: black, it cannot. Since it is now an aura without creature, it goes to the grave.

- This then causes the leaves play trigger from Animate Dead to trigger, which then kills the creature it was attached to: none.

- Akroma stays in play, even without Stifle.

Hope thats clear.

[cdr]

Not quite, Pinder. You might want to double-check next time.

Old Akroma thread: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5583

[Mr Wiggl3s]

Not quite, Pinder. You might want to double-check next time.

Old Akroma thread: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5583

The wording i used up top was from the mtg web site, and the most current i would assume


Unless there's been yet another errata on Animate Dead, Akroma's protection from black will make Animate Dead go to the graveyard, which triggers the enchantment's leaves-play ability. If you Stifle that, then Akroma will remain in play indefinitely.


Chalice will trigger again for Stifle, so the Stifle will be countered and then Repeal will also be countered.

If the Chalice was set at 2 and you used Echoing Truth instead of Repeal, you could then successfully Stifle the Chalice trigger and so bounce the Chalice.

Dur, forgot that stifle was 1

[Pinder]

The wording I used up top was from the mtg web site, and the most current I would assume


It is, but I was still wrong. I thought that the Aura attached itself, and then fell off due to protection, but looking into the rules a bit further yeilds:



212.4k If an effect attempts to attach an Aura in play to an object or player, that object or player must be able to be enchanted by it. If the object or player can't be, the Aura doesn't move.


My mistake was the fact that the Aura never actually attaches, rather than being attached and falling off.

So I guess it still works. Yipee.

[Mr Wiggl3s]

So what yall are saying is akroma comes into play without the -1/0 counter?

[quicksilver]

So what yall are saying is akroma comes into play without the -1/0 counter?

Yes Animate dead + Akroma gives you an akroma in play, with no enchantment, no -1/-0, and no drawbacks. It's funny cause pro-black was origionally given to creatrures to prevent them from being reanimated with animate dead, but now it makes them even easier to reanimate.

[Bovinious]

I thought they recently errated Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, and Necromancy so that the free Akroma thing didnt work anymore, am I mistaken?

[Pinder]

I thought they recently errated Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, and Necromancy so that the free Akroma thing didnt work anymore, am I mistaken?

In short: Look up.

In shorter: Yes.

edit - Fuck! I was right the first time. From Gatherer (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=48):



9/16/2007 If the creature card you target has protection from black, Animate Dead will return it to play, but won't be able to become attached to it. Animate Dead will be put into your graveyard because it will be an unattached Aura. Then the creature will be sacrificed because Animate Dead left play. This is a change from recent functionality.


I knew I was right the first time. So, Animate Dead kills Akroma. Unless it's changed again since September.

Confusing, though, is that the same ruling doesn't appear on Necromancy, even though it has been updated to work the same way. It even has the old ruling, which says the Akroma trick works:


10/4/2004 If the creature card put into play has Protection from Black (or anything that prevents this from legally being attached), this won’t attach to the creature. Then this will go to the graveyard as a State-Based Effect. This will not destroy the creature because it is not enchanting the creature at the time it leaves play.

I think the new functionality stems from a particular part of the new wording:



When Animate Dead leaves play, that creature's controller sacrifices it.


I think the change from 'enchanted creature' to 'that creature' makes all the difference, because even if Animate Dead isn't enchanting Akroma, she's still the creature it returned to play, so she still get sacced because Animate Dead no longer needs to be enchanting the creature when it leaves play in order for the creature to be sacced.

[TrialByFire]

you cannot reanimate Akroma with Animate Dead or Dance of the Dead or Necromancy. It has errata as far as I know.

Edit:
9/16/2007 If the creature card you target has protection from black, Animate Dead will return it to play, but won't be able to become attached to it. Animate Dead will be put into your graveyard because it will be an unattached Aura. Then the creature will be sacrificed because Animate Dead left play. This is a change from recent functionality.

[Banelich]

F&@K Animate Dead, why don't they just ban that card, it was never as playable as Worldgorger Dragon was in my sneak attack deck anyway, now that crap is sexy........

Question: How do you distract a magic player?
Answer: Now that we have the most recent rulings on the whole Akroma / Animate....Lets get back to Stifle.

Just a few generalization to anyone coming here for an answer to a question that involves stifle.....

Generally Triggered abilities are on permenants that state "whenever" or "when" as a precursor to the triggered abilty.

Generally activated abilities are on permenants that have a semi-colon ( : ) seperating the activation cost, and the activated abilities in game effect.

If the card in question falls into one of the previous two categories....then yes stifle can probably F it up. If not then its probably a static effect. Stifle is good, but not that good.

If this doesn't answer your question directly, then you were probably right, your opponent was probably wrong.

[Taurelin]

Generally Triggered abilities are on permenants that state "whenever" or "when" as a precursor to the triggered abilty...

... and also the word "At", for example in Dark Confidant:
"At the beginning of your upkeep, reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. You lose life equal to its converted mana cost."

[ninjabear]

I would also like to add that mana abilities do not use the stack (even if they have to be played when you could play an instant, like Lion's Eye Diamond), and thus cannot be stifled - as clarified in the parenthesis of the "stifle" and "trickbind" cards.

Also, as a rule of thump, "As xxxx comes into play" (Like Pithing Needle and Meddling Mage) and "If" conditions (like, say, Dredge) are in many cases static replacement effects and thus cannot be Stifled.

Also, as weird as it might sound (at least to me), Morph is not an activated ability, do not uses the stack, and thus cannot be stifled.

[tivadar]

So just to clarify:

You can use stifle to "counter" an animate dead by targetting the "when animate dead comes into play" trigger with stifle, animate dead remains in play as an enchantment card (not enchant creature) attached to nothing.

You can use stifle to keep your creature in play by targetting the "when animate dead leaves play" trigger with stifle, animate dead goes to the graveyard and the creature in question says in play.