Pay No Heed to Goblin Cannon?

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

This is a rather complicated situation.

My opponent has lots of mana available. He casts Goblin Cannon, gets
a googol mana in his mana pool and puts that many activations onto
the stack. There's nothing I can do about that right then. (Bummer.)

For some reason I control a Lich's Tomb. (Yes, its a wacky fun deck.)
So when the first shot hits me, my opponent sacrifices the cannon and
I have to sacrifice a permanent (due to having lost one life from
Goblin Cannon's first shot).

I sacrifice a Riptide Crab. (Fun deck. Yeah.) Thus I get to draw a
card, which turns out to be a Pay No Heed. Yay.

So here's my question: Can I even use it? The Goblin Cannon has
already been sacrificed and is in the graveyard. All the rockets
are already in the air. (I wonder why my opponent keeps calling
them "rockets", but anyway.)

-> Is the artifact card in the graveyard still a legal choice for
Pay No Heed?

-> And if it is, will choosing it actually stop ALL the googol
other activations on the stack from damaging me?

-> Am I lucky or what? (We weren't sure whether this works, but
since my opponent enjoyed the game he agreed that I could
prevent all the damage.)

Thanks.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

Reinhard Schilmöller <schilmo@uni-muenster.de> writes:
> This is a rather complicated situation.

The really fun questions usually are.

> My opponent has lots of mana available. He casts Goblin Cannon, gets
> a googol mana in his mana pool and puts that many activations onto
> the stack.

Well, he either put a googol mana in his mana pool and made half a
googol activations, or he put two googol mana in his mana pool and
made a googol activations. (Each activation costs {2}.) Not that the
difference is likely to matter.

> There's nothing I can do about that right then. (Bummer.)

(Yeah.)

> For some reason I control a Lich's Tomb. (Yes, its a wacky fun
> deck.) So when the first shot hits me, my opponent sacrifices the
> cannon and I have to sacrifice a permanent (due to having lost one
> life from Goblin Cannon's first shot).

To be a little more technical, you take a damage and your opponent
sacrifices the cannon, and Lich's Tomb triggers. A short time later,
its triggered ability goes on the stack, and then later it resolves,
and when it resolves you have to sacrifice a permanent.

> I sacrifice a Riptide Crab. (Fun deck. Yeah.) Thus I get to draw a
> card, which turns out to be a Pay No Heed. Yay.
>
> So here's my question: Can I even use it? The Goblin Cannon has
> already been sacrificed and is in the graveyard. All the rockets
> are already in the air. (I wonder why my opponent keeps calling
> them "rockets", but anyway.)

Sure, assuming that you can pay {W}.

> -> Is the artifact card in the graveyard still a legal choice for
> Pay No Heed?

No, but the Goblin Cannon permanent-that-used-to-be-in-play is. See
the following excerpt from the Comprehensive Rules:

,----[ Magic Comp. Rules (http://www.wizards.com/magic/comprules) ]
| 419.8a. [...] If an effect requires a player to choose a source, he
| or she may choose either a permanent, a spell on the stack
| (including an artifact, creature, or enchantment spell), or any card
| or permanent referred to by a spell or ability on the stack. [...]
`----

The Goblin Cannon permanent-that-used-to-be-in-play is being referred
to by several abilities on the stack, so you can choose it. Yes, even
though it isn't in play anymore.

> -> And if it is, will choosing it actually stop ALL the googol
> other activations on the stack from damaging me?

Well, let's take a closer look at the card in question:

,----[ Oracle ]
| Pay No Heed {W} Instant
| Prevent all damage a source of your choice would deal this turn.
`----

Since the source that you picked is going to be the source of the
damage, and the prevention shield that Pay No Heed creates will
prevent *all* damage from that source this turn, then yes. All that
damage will be prevented.

> -> Am I lucky or what?

Sure looks like it, although sacrificing the Riptide Crab first was
probably a good strategy, especially if you knew that the Pay No Heed
was in there.

> (We weren't sure whether this works, but since my opponent enjoyed
> the game he agreed that I could prevent all the damage.)

In casual play when you're not sure, it's always nice to just make a
ruling and move on, and not worry too much at the moment if it's
right. But it looks like you happened to make the right call.

They in general try to word the cards and rules such that the
"intuitive" way most players think things work is in fact how they
actually work. (And that I suspect is a large part of the point of
most of Rune's surveys on the Saturday School column... Not so much to
see if people know how things work already, but to see what people
think is right, to see if it might make sense to change some of the
corner-case rules.)

> Thanks.

You're welcome. Please post again if you have more questions.

--
Peter C.
"In the event of a water landing, I have been designed to function as
a flotation device."
-- Data, Star Trek: Insurrection

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 20:27:08 +0200, Reinhard Schilmöller
<schilmo@uni-muenster.de> wrote:

>My opponent has lots of mana available. He casts Goblin Cannon, gets
>a googol mana in his mana pool and puts that many activations onto
>the stack. There's nothing I can do about that right then. (Bummer.)
>
>For some reason I control a Lich's Tomb. (Yes, its a wacky fun deck.)
>So when the first shot hits me, my opponent sacrifices the cannon and
>I have to sacrifice a permanent (due to having lost one life from
>Goblin Cannon's first shot).
>
>I sacrifice a Riptide Crab. (Fun deck. Yeah.) Thus I get to draw a
>card, which turns out to be a Pay No Heed. Yay.
>
>So here's my question: Can I even use it? The Goblin Cannon has
>already been sacrificed and is in the graveyard. All the rockets
>are already in the air. (I wonder why my opponent keeps calling
>them "rockets", but anyway.)

May be because of Rocket Launcher, which Goblin Cannon is a remake of.

Rocket Launcher
{4}
Artifact
{2}: ~this~ deals 1 damage to target creature or player. Sacrifice
~this~ at end of turn. Play this ability only if you've controlled
~this~ continuously since the most recent beginning of your turn.

>-> Is the artifact card in the graveyard still a legal choice for
> Pay No Heed?

Pay No Heed
{W}
Instant
Prevent all damage a source of your choice would deal this turn.

419.8a Some effects apply to damage from a source-for example, "The
next time a red source of your choice would deal damage to you this
turn, prevent that damage." If an effect requires a player to choose a
source, he or she may choose either a permanent, a spell on the stack
(including an artifact, creature, or enchantment spell), or any card
or permanent referred to by a spell or ability on the stack. The
source is chosen when the effect is created. If the player chooses a
permanent, the prevention will apply to the next damage from that
permanent, regardless of whether it's from one of that permanent's
abilities or combat damage dealt by it. If the player chooses an
artifact, creature, or enchantment spell, the prevention will apply to
any damage from that spell and from the permanent that it becomes when
it resolves.

Judging by: "If an effect requires a player to choose a source, he or
she may choose ... or any card or permanent referred to by a spell or
ability on the stack."
I would say: Yes.

>-> And if it is, will choosing it actually stop ALL the googol
> other activations on the stack from damaging me?

Yes, all damage is prevented since it prevents _all_ damage from that
source. If it had been for example Story Circle instead, then only the
next 1 damage would have been prevented (per activation).

Story Circle
{1}{W}{W}
Enchantment
As ~this~ comes into play, choose a color.
{W}: The next time a source of your choice of the chosen color would
deal damage to you this turn, prevent that damage.

--
Regards
Simon Nejmann

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

Reinhard Schilmöller, worshipped by llamas the world over, wrote...
> This is a rather complicated situation.
>
> My opponent has lots of mana available. He casts Goblin Cannon, gets
> a googol mana in his mana pool and puts that many activations onto
> the stack. There's nothing I can do about that right then. (Bummer.)

Well, he'll only get to put half a googol activations on the stack,
since each costs 2 mana. Still not happy-making, as that's likely to be
roughly seven bajillion times your current life total.

> For some reason I control a Lich's Tomb. (Yes, its a wacky fun deck.)
> So when the first shot hits me, my opponent sacrifices the cannon and
> I have to sacrifice a permanent (due to having lost one life from
> Goblin Cannon's first shot).
>
> I sacrifice a Riptide Crab. (Fun deck. Yeah.) Thus I get to draw a
> card, which turns out to be a Pay No Heed. Yay.

Pay No Heed
{W}
Instant
Prevent all damage a source of your choice would deal this turn.

Things are looking up!

> So here's my question: Can I even use it? The Goblin Cannon has
> already been sacrificed and is in the graveyard. All the rockets
> are already in the air. (I wonder why my opponent keeps calling
> them "rockets", but anyway.)

Probably because Goblin Cannon is very similar to a really old card
called Rocket Launcher.

> -> Is the artifact card in the graveyard still a legal choice for
> Pay No Heed?

Yes. From the CompRules:

Source of Damage
The source of damage is the object that dealt it. If an effect requires
a player to choose a source of damage, he or she may choose either a
permanent or a spell on the stack (including one that creates a
permanent) or any object referred to by a spell or ability on the stack.
A source doesn't need to be capable of dealing damage to be a legal
choice. See rule 419.8, "Sources of Damage."

See that "or any object referred to..." clause? That's where the
already-sacrificed Goblin Cannon fits in. It's still a valid source,
and thus you can still play Pay No Heed naming the Goblin Cannon.

> -> And if it is, will choosing it actually stop ALL the googol
> other activations on the stack from damaging me?

Yes. They all have the same source, the Goblin Cannon.

> -> Am I lucky or what? (We weren't sure whether this works, but
> since my opponent enjoyed the game he agreed that I could
> prevent all the damage.)

Very gracious of him - and, as it turns out, also correct by the rules.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

Reinhard Schilmöller <schilmo@uni-muenster.de> wrote:
>This is a rather complicated situation.
>
>My opponent has lots of mana available. He casts Goblin Cannon, gets
>a googol mana in his mana pool and puts that many activations onto
>the stack. There's nothing I can do about that right then. (Bummer.)

Right. You haven't gotten priority in between any pair of activations of
Goblin Cannon.

>For some reason I control a Lich's Tomb. (Yes, its a wacky fun deck.)
>So when the first shot hits me, my opponent sacrifices the cannon and
>I have to sacrifice a permanent (due to having lost one life from
>Goblin Cannon's first shot).

Okay. (And the life loss is due to having been dealt 1 damage; Urza's Armor
would have been nice, here.)

>I sacrifice a Riptide Crab. (Fun deck. Yeah.) Thus I get to draw a
>card, which turns out to be a Pay No Heed. Yay.

You may choose the Goblin Cannon as the source of your choice. It's no longer
a permanent in play, and is not a spell on the stack - but DOES match the
third set of choosable stuff, "any card or permanent referred to by a spell
or ability on the stack". (For much the same reason, you could choose a
Pyrite Spellbomb as the source and prevent its damage, in response, though the
Spellbomb itself is gone.)

After the Pay No Heed resolves, all damage from "that source" for the rest of
this turn gets prevented. Further resolutions of that GC's ability use Last
Known Information to find out what their source looked like... and then find
the damage gets prevented by the Pay No Heed shield. So your Lich's Tomb does
not make you sacrifice any more permanents, AND since the GC is already gone
its controller can't use it again -in response to- the Pay No Heed, either.

>So here's my question: Can I even use it? The Goblin Cannon has
>already been sacrificed and is in the graveyard. All the rockets
>are already in the air. (I wonder why my opponent keeps calling
>them "rockets", but anyway.)

Yes. The rules - 419.8a in particular - specify what you can choose when told
to choose "a <foo> source of your choice". You can pick any applicable
permanent in play; any applicable spell on the stack; OR any card or permanent
_referred to_ by a spell or ability on the stack. [You can't choose an
ability on the stack... because abilities NEVER deal any damage themselves,
they always specify that something else deals the damage. Tricky, no?]

>-> Is the artifact card in the graveyard still a legal choice for
> Pay No Heed?

Yes. More precisely, since there's an ability on the stack that says "Goblin
Cannon deals 1 damage to...", the Goblin Cannon in question can be picked as
the source, regardless of where it's gotten to by now.

>-> And if it is, will choosing it actually stop ALL the googol
> other activations on the stack from damaging me?

Yes. Any that already resolved will already have damaged you; any that have
yet to resolve will be trying to deal damage from the same source as that
one, and will get the damage prevented.

(If he'd had TWO Goblin Cannons out and had gotten a gazillion uses of one on
the stack intermingled however he liked with a googol uses from the other,
one Pay No Heed at the right time could prevent all the damage from only
one of them - it can't get both. They're different sources, even after both
are gone.)

>-> Am I lucky or what? (We weren't sure whether this works, but
> since my opponent enjoyed the game he agreed that I could
> prevent all the damage.)

Yes, that's definitely a top-deck to remember.

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from dbd@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

Peter Cooper Jr. <pete@cooper.homedns.org> wrote:
>They in general try to word the cards and rules such that the
>"intuitive" way most players think things work is in fact how they
>actually work. (And that I suspect is a large part of the point of
>most of Rune's surveys on the Saturday School column... Not so much to
>see if people know how things work already, but to see what people
>think is right, to see if it might make sense to change some of the
>corner-case rules.)

Bingo. It turned out to be a much more widely-read forum than, for example,
this newsgroup, and in addition they can automate gathering the responses
(rather than having everyone who wants to respond email Rune, for example,
who then goes insane after dealing with 17,223 emails in a week). AND the
people reading it, for the most part, are people who -aren't- entirely sure
about one or another rules situation, and are reading it to bone up on their
rules knowledge. So it's pretty much tailor-made to be a place where the
general current knowledge of The Magic-Playing Public can be assessed, if
needed, on a given topic ... so we can maybe figure out how people think
things work _now_.

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from dbd@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

Reinhard Schilmöller wrote:
> This is a rather complicated situation.
>
> My opponent has lots of mana available. He casts Goblin Cannon, gets
> a googol mana in his mana pool and puts that many activations onto
> the stack. There's nothing I can do about that right then. (Bummer.)

I'm sorry, but can someone tell what what a googol mana is ? I'm kinda
at a loss here...







>
> For some reason I control a Lich's Tomb. (Yes, its a wacky fun deck.)
> So when the first shot hits me, my opponent sacrifices the cannon and
> I have to sacrifice a permanent (due to having lost one life from
> Goblin Cannon's first shot).
>
> I sacrifice a Riptide Crab. (Fun deck. Yeah.) Thus I get to draw a
> card, which turns out to be a Pay No Heed. Yay.
>
> So here's my question: Can I even use it? The Goblin Cannon has
> already been sacrificed and is in the graveyard. All the rockets
> are already in the air. (I wonder why my opponent keeps calling
> them "rockets", but anyway.)
>
> -> Is the artifact card in the graveyard still a legal choice for
> Pay No Heed?
>
> -> And if it is, will choosing it actually stop ALL the googol
> other activations on the stack from damaging me?
>
> -> Am I lucky or what? (We weren't sure whether this works, but
> since my opponent enjoyed the game he agreed that I could
> prevent all the damage.)
>
> Thanks.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

"M.G.Palmer" <SatoshiUrotsukidoji@gmx.de> wrote in message
news:cb62aj$pi5$01$1@news.t-online.com...
> Reinhard Schilmöller wrote:
> > This is a rather complicated situation.
> >
> > My opponent has lots of mana available. He casts Goblin Cannon, gets
> > a googol mana in his mana pool and puts that many activations onto
> > the stack. There's nothing I can do about that right then. (Bummer.)
>
> I'm sorry, but can someone tell what what a googol mana is ? I'm kinda
> at a loss here...
>
It's an arbitririly large number, IIRC, it's 10^100 or so.

Jasper Overman

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

M.G.Palmer <SatoshiUrotsukidoji@gmx.de> wrote:

> I'm sorry, but can someone tell what what a googol mana is ? I'm kinda
> at a loss here...

100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000

See http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Googol.html
--
Daniel W. Johnson
panoptes@iquest.net
http://members.iquest.net/~panoptes/
039 53 36 N / 086 11 55 W

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 09:29:34 +0200, "Jasper Overman"
<NOSPAM@overman.org> wrote:

>
>"M.G.Palmer" <SatoshiUrotsukidoji@gmx.de> wrote in message
>news:cb62aj$pi5$01$1@news.t-online.com...
>> Reinhard Schilmöller wrote:
>> > This is a rather complicated situation.
>> >
>> > My opponent has lots of mana available. He casts Goblin Cannon, gets
>> > a googol mana in his mana pool and puts that many activations onto
>> > the stack. There's nothing I can do about that right then. (Bummer.)
>>
>> I'm sorry, but can someone tell what what a googol mana is ? I'm kinda
>> at a loss here...
>>
>It's an arbitririly large number, IIRC, it's 10^100 or so.

From http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci213798,00.html

googol and googolplex

A googol is 10 to the 100th power (which is 1 followed by 100 zeros).
The term was invented by Milton Sirotta, the 9-year nephew of
mathematician Edward Kasner, who had asked his nephew what he thought
such a large number should be called. Such a number, Milton apparently
replied after a short thought, could only be called something as silly
as...a googol! A googol is larger than the number of elementary
particles in the universe, which amount to only 10 to the 80th power.

Later, another mathematician devised the term googolplex for 10 to the
power of googol - that is, 1 followed by 10 to the power of 100 zeros.
Frank Pilhofer has determined that, given Moore's Law (which is that
computer processor power doubles about every 1 to 2 years), it would
make no sense to try to print out a googolplex for another 524 years -
since all earlier attempts to print a googolplex out would be
overtaken by the faster processor.

--
Regards
Simon Nejmann

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

M.G.Palmer <SatoshiUrotsukidoji@gmx.de> wrote:
>Reinhard Schilmöller wrote:
>> This is a rather complicated situation.
>>
>> My opponent has lots of mana available. He casts Goblin Cannon, gets
>> a googol mana in his mana pool and puts that many activations onto
>> the stack. There's nothing I can do about that right then. (Bummer.)
>
>I'm sorry, but can someone tell what what a googol mana is ? I'm kinda
>at a loss here...

10^100, a 1 with a hundred zeroes after it.

There's also a number named "googolplex", which is 10^(1 googol), and is
unimaginably larger...

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from dbd@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules (More info?)

Thanks everyone...I guess you never stop learning