Monday, August 4, 2014

Damage replacement and redirection

Suppose you control a Force Bubble and a planeswalker (it doesn't matter which for the intents of this question; I'm putting Jace in the image just as a random example). Your opponent casts a damage spell, like Lightning Bolt, targeting you. Question: Is it possible for your opponent to redirect that damage to the planeswalker or not?


An intuitive answer would be that "of course not; the Bubble is replacing the damage with something else, so there's nothing to redirect to the planeswalker." However, it's not that simple. This is actually a bit contrived part of the game.

The Bubble's ability is a replacement effect. The redirect-damage-to-planeswalker rule is also a replacement effect (this is defined so in the rules of the game. It doesn't really matter that the replacement effect is optional, it still applies here.) Thus there are two replacement effects trying to modify the same damage. So what happens?

The rules state in this case that the affected player (ie. in this case you) decides the order in which the two replacement effects are applied. Thus you have two options:

If you decide that the Bubble's effect is applied first, then the damage is replaced with putting counters onto the Bubble. After that the planeswalker-redirection effect does nothing because there's nothing to replace anymore.

However, you could also choose to have the redirection effect apply first (in most cases this wouldn't be sensible, but in some cases it could well be.) What happens then?

The effect in question now asks your opponent whether he or she wants to redirect the damage to the planeswalker. If your opponent does, then the damage is redirected, and then Bubble's effect does nothing (because likewise there's nothing to replace anymore).

However, if your opponent does not want to redirect the damage, now the Bubble's replacement effect is applied, and in this case there is something to replace, so the damage is replaced with putting counters on the Bubble.

So this is an interestingly contrived situation. To recapitulate, these are all the options:
  1. You decide to apply Bubble's effect first. The damage is replaced with counters on the Bubble, and the other effect then does nothing.
  2. You decide to apply the redirection effect first. Now your opponent chooses whether to redirect the damage to the planeswalker or not.
    1. Your opponent decides to redirect, thus the planeswalker gets the damage and nothing else happens.
    2. Your opponent decides not to redirect. Then the Bubble's replacement effect is now applied, and it takes place.

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