When does a player leave the game when dealt lethal damage?
Asked by Nuubi 3 years ago
Me and some friends were playing a game last night in which my friend had lethal damage on the table. He had a monstrous Hydra Broodmaster with 7 7/7 tokens. He cast Overrun and declared an all out attack. I didn’thave enough to block it all, but I had Deadeye Navigator soulbonded to Resolute Archangel. So what I wanted to to do was just flicker the archangel after the damage was dealt but before it killed me. Then came the question of well when does a player actually die? Does a player leave the game at the end of combat or does a player leave the game at the end of the turn durning the clean up phase?
Tylord2894 says... Accepted answer #2
A player will leave the game shortly after being dealt lethal damage. There is not a time where you can respond to this, though.
After a spell/ability resolves or we move between steps/phase, state-based actions (SBAs) are checked and performed. In essence, these actions are how the game cleans up after us. Players don't receive priority until after SBAs are checked. Notable, SBAs are where a player loses the game if they have 0 or less life.
After combat damage is dealt or the spell that reduced your life total resolves, SBAs are immediately checked. The game will see that you should be removed from the game, and it will do so.
So after the damage from all-out attack from the player with the Hydra Broodmaster is dealt, you can not blink Resolute Archangel before you would die.
Hope this helps!!
July 29, 2020 4:03 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #4
TypicalTimmy: To be clear, Exquisite Archangel and similar effects are just replacement effects, not delayed triggers. A delayed trigger is a triggered ability that gets set up by some other resolving spell or ability using the words "when", "whenever", or "at" to wait for a certain event and trigger at some point in the future. A triggered ability that triggers "when you would lose the game" wouldn't be able to stop you from losing because the game would execute the SBA right before the trigger is actually put onto the stack.
Normally I wouldn't pick at such a small detail but the answer to this question is all about the fine details of the rules. I just wanted to be sure the point didn't get confused.
Rhadamanthus says... #1
You leave the game pretty much immediately after going to 0 life.
Losing the game for having 0 or less life is one of the game's "state based actions". SBAs are checked and executed right before each time a player would get priority to take an action. If the damage in your example would have dropped you to 0 or less life, then there's no time for you to make a response in-between the damage being dealt and you losing the game.
In very old versions of the rules (more than 20 years ago) the game would wait until the end of a phase to check for player death from 0 or less life, but that was changed as part of the big 6th Edition rules overhaul.
July 29, 2020 4 p.m.