What if Nahiris‘s Lithoforming is on the stack but not enough lands?
Asked by Quickspell 3 months ago
I have nine lands on the battlefield and Krark, the Thumbless. I cast Nahiri's Lithoforming for X=7. Krark‘s trigger comes out heads and NL gets copied. For that copy, I sacrifice seven lands and draw seven cards, and I put two lands into play. I now have four lands and the original NL on the stack.
Does it whiff because I cannot sacrifice seven lands?
A correction to your question: you don't put two lands into play as part of Nahiri's Lithoforming's resolution, rather you have 7 more land drops available this turn. Since playing a land is done at sorcery speed, you'll need to wait for the original Lithoforming to resolve before you get to play any of those lands. So you'll only have 2 lands to sacrifice and draw 2 cards. You'll be able to play 14 additional lands this turn, though as you originally only had 9 lands in play, you may want to choose x=5 as you'll sacrifice the same 9 lands either way, and likely won't be using all of the land drops.
February 9, 2024 6:35 p.m.
Quickspell says... #3
Oh wow, this turned out much different from what I thought. I marked Rhadamanthus‘s as the answer to my question, but I much appreciate that correction, Neotrup. That completely slipped my mind. Thank you both!
February 9, 2024 6:59 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #4
Thanks for the assist, Neotrup, I didn't stop and think about every piece as closely as I should have.
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #1
You will sacrifice your 4 lands, draw 4 cards and be allowed to play another 7 lands this turn on top of the extra drops you already got.
Sacrificing the lands is part of the spell's effect. When you perform that part of the effect as the spell resolves, you do as much as possible and then move on to the next part. The next part of the effect will see you sacrificed 4 lands so that's what your card draws will be based on ("For each land sacrificed this way..."). The next part of the effect after that is based on the original value of X, so that's why you get 7 more land drops to work with.
February 9, 2024 8:58 a.m. Edited.