Bolting the Tree
Asked by Caran_Lyg 1 year ago
How does this work? Tree of Perdition and Diminish. Can the player controlling the Tree say they have an action that they want to add like diminish while they are tapping the tree? And can I respond to that with for example a Lightning Bolt before Diminish resolves even if it was an action that they used while tapping the tree? I don’t know if anyone can even do that. I know that Diminish will resolve first before the tree when tapped so if I bolted the tree while affected by diminish then it just gets destroyed. I read the rulings for the card but it just was so confusing to me. Please let me know how that works. Thank you for your time.
So it's better to bolt after they diminish the tree. What about the effect of the tree? Does it still reduce my HP even after bolting it after the tree's controller used diminished on it? Or does the bolt stop the effect of the tree after I used bolt?
February 12, 2023 3:45 p.m.
The tree is killed instantly after Diminish resolves (aka state-based action that does not go to the stack), so when the tree's ability tries to resolve afterwards, the ability will try to check for the tree's toughness, which is unexistent as the tree is dead, therefore making the ability illegal, so it will not resolve.
Note the first ruling on Gatherer for Tree of Perdition: "If Tree of Perdition isn't on the battlefield when the ability resolves, the exchange can't happen and the ability will have no effect. Notably, activating the ability and giving Tree of Perdition -13/-13 in response won't cause your opponent to lose the game."
Jb_248 says... #1
After a player activates Tree of Perdition, the priority is passed (in the AP-nAP order: AP = Active Player, player whose turn is, nAP = non Active player, ie the rest of the players in turn order), so that anyone can respond. If the same player then uses his/her priority to cast Diminish, it goes to the stack so it resolves before the tree's activated ability. Then again priority is passed, and then if someone casts a Lightning Bolt targetting the tree as a response, it will also go to the stack to be resolved both before Diminish and the tree. When bolt resolves, it'll make 3 damage on the tree, which will initially survive as it has 13 toughness at that moment. But, when diminish resolves, the tree's toughness will decrease to 1, making the previous damage dealt to it lethal (damage does not dissappear until the turn ends), thus killing the tree.
It is important then that the Bolt is casted after the diminish, otherwise tree controller will most likely not cast the diminish, making the bolt pointless against the tree ability.
February 12, 2023 3:41 p.m.