Persist and +1/+1 counters...

[Wallace]

So I was listening to a pod cast on salvation and one of the hosts was talking about a deck he wanted to build. It involves comboing Kitchen Finks or Murderous Redcap, with Nantuko Husk and Juniper Order Ranger:


http://resources.wizards.com/Magic/Cards/SHM/EN/Card141976.jpg (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=141976#) or http://resources.wizards.com/Magic/Cards/SHM/EN/Card153298.jpg (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=153298#)


With


http://resources.wizards.com/Magic/Cards/10E/EN/Card129653.jpg (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=129653#) and http://resources.wizards.com/Magic/Cards/CSP/en-us/Card121172.jpg (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=121172#)


Now I judged at the pre-release and there are no +1/+1 counters in Shadowmoor so this never came up. I know that +1/+1 and -1/-1 counter cancel each other out, but say a creature with persist is put into a graveyard, from play, and it had a -1/-1 counter on it, that was, at some point canceled out by a +1+1 counter, will the persist trigger?


I think I remember an announcement being made that persist will not trigger in this situation, I would like to know if persist doesn't trigger, then why? I would like to be 100% sure before I tell he he is wrong, I would also like to explain why...

[Sanguine Voyeur]

...and it had a -1/-1 counter on it, that was, at some point canceled out by a +1+1 counter, will the persist trigger?...When a +1/+1 counter is on the same creature as a -1/-1, they both cease to exist. Persist would trigger if the creature had no -1/-1 counters on it.

[Wallace]

When a +1/+1 counter is on the same creature as a -1/-1, they both cease to exist. Persist would trigger if the creature had no -1/-1 counters on it.


I don't know though, I am pretty sure there is some strange interaction with the +1/+1 counter and persist. I think, in this situation, not one where the counter mas just removed from the creature, persist won't trigger. Now that was a very log, yet fun day and I may just be imagining that I heard that, but I really think I am right.

[Cait_Sith]

When Persist triggers, it checks the last known gamestate. If there was a -1/-1 counter of the creature, then Persist will not bring the creature back.

Note: If the creature has both +1/+1 and -1/-1 counter on it and takes lethal damage, or its toughness goes below 0, then it will be sent to the graveyard BEFORE the +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters cancel each other out. If this happens and the creature has Persist, it will not come back.

[from Cairo]

Pretty sure it works. With Ranger in play, whenever the Persist creature returns to play with its -1/-1 counter on it, the Ranger will trigger and add a +1/+1, they will cancel each other out and then you are in the clear to sac off the Persist creature again, and Persist will trigger again as at the time of death it no longer had a -1/-1 counter on it.

Nothing comes up for Official Rulings on gatherer under any of the cards indicating that the -1/-1 counters can't be negated.

I'm not a judge though, so maybe there is some special ruling on it... as written it makes sense that it would work.

[Wallace]

Yeah I would really like to hear from Akki and on1y0ne on this, it seems str8 forward but who knows with this game...:rolleyes:

[Pinder]

You bet your sweet ass that this combo works. For proof, I point to a feature article by none other than Mark Rosewater on MTG.com:



Cauldron of Souls – This card was originally "All creatures you control gain persist." It had the following problem (among potential others—this is just the one that stuck with me). Suppose you had a Spike Feeder (a timeshifted Time Spiral card, now in Standard). You remove both +1/+1 counters to gain 4 life. The Spike Feeder goes to the graveyard but then is returned to play with a -1/-1 counter as it has persist. In addition, it comes into play with two +1/+1 counters as that's just what the card does. Once the card is in play, the -1/-1 counter and one of the +1/+1 counters negate each other according to the "matter/antimatter rule" (my name for it at least). This leaves it as a 0/0—1/1, thanks to its one +1/+1 counter. You may then remove the +1/+1 counter to gain 2 more life, and the whole thing starts over. In the end, it meant that Cauldron of Souls + Spike Feeder = infinite life (or a really, really high number for those math nerds out there). This was dubbed by the development team to be "a problem" (wimps!), so the card was changed.


So yeah. As long as you have a way to get rid of the -1/-1 counter after it comes back, it will persist next time, too.

[Wallace]

You bet your sweet ass that this combo works. For proof, I point to a feature article by none other than Mark Rosewater on MTG.com:



So yeah. As long as you have a way to get rid of the -1/-1 counter after it comes back, it will persist next time, too.

Thanx Pinder, I guess I just miss heard who ever said it, stupid counters!!!:tongue:

[Anusien]

Note: If the creature has both +1/+1 and -1/-1 counter on it and takes lethal damage, or its toughness goes below 0, then it will be sent to the graveyard BEFORE the +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters cancel each other out. If this happens and the creature has Persist, it will not come back.
Nitpick. You have an Arcbound Worker with a +1/+1 counter on it, and put a -1/-1 counter on it (Scar perhaps?). SBEs will do two things: A) Put it into the graveyard because of zero toughness, and B) negate the counters. LKI doesn't look in between SBEs, and they don't happen in any particular order. It looks back to before the entire event, sees it had a counter, and says, "No persist for you."

Persist + Nantuko Husk + Juniper Order Ranger works though, because +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters negate each other as a State Based Effect.

[quicksilver]

420.5. The state-based effects are as follows:
...
420.5n If a permanent has both a +1/+1 counter and a -1/-1 counter on it, N +1/+1 and N -1/-1 counters are removed from it, where N is the smaller of the number of +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters on it.


This shows that if the +1/+1 counters cancel out any -1/-1 counters so you can use +1/+1 counters to remove -1/-1 counters and get more persist triggers.

However both dieing from damage/0 toughness and these coutners canceling out both happen simultaneously, so say you have a 0/0 out with a +1/+1 counter on it with persist. Now if you use scar on that creature, they counters get canceled out and it dies silmultaneously. The game uses Last known information to see that when it was last in play it did have a -1/-1 counter on it, so it would not come back to with persist.



Last Known Information
The last known information about an object is the information that it had just before it left the zone it was in. Effects use last known information if a specific object they require information from isn’t in the zone it’s expected to be in (unless the effect divides damage).





Oh this is a lie:

Cauldron of Souls – This card was originally "All creatures you control gain persist." It had the following problem (among potential others—this is just the one that stuck with me). Suppose you had a Spike Feeder (a timeshifted Time Spiral card, now in Standard). You remove both +1/+1 counters to gain 4 life. The Spike Feeder goes to the graveyard but then is returned to play with a -1/-1 counter as it has persist. In addition, it comes into play with two +1/+1 counters as that's just what the card does. Once the card is in play, the -1/-1 counter and one of the +1/+1 counters negate each other according to the "matter/antimatter rule" (my name for it at least). This leaves it as a 0/0—1/1, thanks to its one +1/+1 counter. You may then remove the +1/+1 counter to gain 2 more life, and the whole thing starts over. In the end, it meant that Cauldron of Souls + Spike Feeder = infinite life (or a really, really high number for those math nerds out there). This was dubbed by the development team to be "a problem" (wimps!), so the card was changed.
Wizards would never give thought to a cards impact on legacy when designing cards.

[andreotti16]

Thanx Pinder, I guess I just miss heard who ever said it, stupid counters!!!:tongue:

I happen to be a level 1 judge who works the pre-release at IL. He is right about the trigger of persist. For a more judge like answer, when a creature with persist dies, the game will look back in time and see the last known information about the creature. So if it had a -1/-1 counter, persist will not trigger and if it does, it will trigger.