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Somemone in my playgroup is sending a e-mail ramble around about  Consequences of Negative Life Totals.

>>> Does Magic Use or allow negative life totals?

The e-mail ramble follows:

Consequences of Negative Life Totals:

You control Death's Shadow.

This is a case where we make a calculation whose result modifies power or toughness of a creature; in such a case, negative numbers are used.

If you are at 5, Death's Shadow gets -5/-5; if you are at -5, Death's Shadow gets -(-5)/-(-5) =
+5/+5!

An effect doubles your life points (for example Beacon of Immortality).

This is a case where we make a calculation whose result sets life totals; in such a case, negative numbers are used.

If you are at 5, you will end at 10; if you are at -5, you will end at -10. Please note that here you are gaining life (5 gained life points in the first example) or losing life (5 lost life in the second example); any triggered ability that triggers whenever you gain/lose life will trigger.

If you are at -5, you won’t be able to cast Deep Analysis using its flashback ability, (“pay 3 life”), and you won’t be able to exile cards with Necropotence.

Finally, let’s take a look at a tournament situation.

Player A is at 6 life points and controls Abyssal Persecutor; Player B is at -10. B attacks with two 6/6 creatures, A blocks with the Abyssal Persecutor (which will be destroyed). It looks like A goes to zero life points (and dies) and the Abyssal Persecutor dies (so making B die too) at the same time, but it works differently.

When combat damage resolves, the Persecutor is a 6/6 with 6 damage on it, and player A goes to zero life points; then, when state based actions are checked, two things happen:

The Abyssal Persecutor is destroyed
A loses the game
Note that B would lose the game (because he has -10 life points) when state based actions would be checked *again*; it’s not simultaneous. The final result is that B wins the game.

Aug 17, 2010 -- 11:41AM, Yarium wrote:

3. INCORRECT. State-Based Actions are checked and see that BOTH players are at or below 0 life. BOTH players would lose the game, and thus the game is a draw. One does not "lose" before the other, and there would be no re-checking of State-Based Actions. All the state-based actions occur at the exact same moment.

It's you who is INCORRECT. In the situation described in the original post, the player who controls Abyssal Persecutor loses the game at the same time as its Persecutor is destroyed, but his opponent cannot lose the game at that time. He would immediatly after if state-based actions could be checked again, except that the game is over. 

Aug 17, 2010 -- 11:44AM, Magemaster48 wrote:

The yes answer surprises me because until now I thought Negative Life totals were always defaulted back to 0 (zero).

So as an added question: Would you agreet hat such situations are rare and usaully supported by the use of a Platinum Angel or Abyssal Persecutor ie there needs to be a "keep alive" mechanism going on to support negative life totals , correct?

Yes you're right, you only see it when something stops you losing from having a negative life total. It is rare, depending on how often people use cards like Platinum Angel and such! But there's not a whole lot of cards that stop you losing this way.

I play Duels of the Planeswalkers, and since one of the decks has Platinum Angel in it, this situation occurs quite a lot