Would Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin trigger for each creature an opponent pays life for when using Killing Wave if I make X equal to 1?
Asked by MartinEMcArthur 2 months ago
I’m not entirely sure if this would work because if they’re paying the 1 life for multiple creatures, I don’t know if that’s multiple instances of losing 1 life or if it only counts as total life lost. It’d be pretty dope if I could put opponents in a situation where they’d either have to sacrifice some of their creatures or trigger Ob multiple times, that’s where the idea came from but I don’t know if it’ll work that way unfortunately. Thanks for any clarification as always
MartinEMcArthur says... #2
Rhadamanthus Ahh I figured that was the case, I appreciate the response as always!
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #1
This took some time to be confident in the answer and I went back and forth a few times. The way I read the rules about it, this won't work. This comes from the detailed rule for paying life as a cost and the detailed rule for how multiple simultaneous actions are performed during the resolution of a spell or ability:
118.3b Paying life is done by subtracting the indicated amount of life from a player’s life total. (Players can always pay 0 life.)
608.2f Some spells and abilities include actions taken on multiple players and/or objects. In most cases, each such action is processed simultaneously. If the action can’t be processed simultaneously, it’s instead processed considering each affected player or object individually. APNAP order is used to make the primary determination of the order of those actions. Secondarily, if the action is to be taken on both a player and an object they control or on multiple objects controlled by the same player, the player who controls the resolving spell or ability chooses the relative order of those actions.
Because the actions all get executed at the same time, the player will lose the life from Killing Wave all in one go, meaning Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin will only trigger if an opponent pays just 1 life total this way.
This might be the least confident I've been in an answer to a rules question in a long time but no one else seems to want to touch it and it's the best I was able to come up with.
March 8, 2024 2:43 p.m.