This weekend at the prerelease there was a disagreement about how palisade giant worked. I think i have found in the comprehensive rules that I was correct however i am looking for confirmation on how this works for future problems.
Game State NAP 4X 1/1 bird token 1x Palisade Giant
AP 4x 3/3 creatures
AP plays Rakdos Charm chosing to have each of opponents creatures deal 1 damage to him. all damage redirects to giant he is now 2/7 (with 5 dmg assigned) then AP attacks with 4x 3/3's. NAP choses not to block and claims that all damage dealt goes to the giant. AP claims that not to be the case as the giant can only take 2 more damage and would only be able to assign the damage of 1 of the 3/3's to it.
Tonight i decided to pull up the comprehensive rules and after reading the lawyerese, this is my current understanding of what happens. the attack happens and resolves. 4x 3 points of combat damage are assigned to the NAP. This triggers Palisade Giant's ability and places 4 packets of 3 damage on the stack. the first will resolve. when it resolves it checks conditions that placed it on the stack and resolves. Dealing 3 damage to the giant. at that point the giant dies. the next packet goes to resolve, checks conditions and they no longer apply because the giant is dead. at that point the damage would revert to original target do to an invalid condition of the damage being placed on the stack. the same would happen with the 2 additional sets of combat damage.
This seems to be the way the rules read in combat damage, activated abilities, and resoving activated abilities in the comprehensive rules. the result would not be an infinate combat damage shield but 9 damage being delt to player. can someone, preferably a judge verify my understanding of the rules?
That is not correct. The palisade giant does not have a triggered ability, it has a replacement effect that redirectes damage to itself. All damage done in combat (save first strike or double strike) is dealt at the same time so all 12 would be redirected to the palisade giant, it doesn't matter that it far exceeds the giants toughness. After the damage is dealt state based actions are performed before a player would receive priority and destroy the palisade giant. A replacement effect does not use the stack like a triggered ability does, all the damage is simply redirected instead of dealing the damage to the player.
Did wizards intend to give U/W an infinite combat shield? Palisade Giant + Cackling Counterpart + populate that was just the first combo i found like that. with populate unless you have some direct removal you can only kill 1 giant a turn. i could have 40 creatures attacking and never get through if they have Growing Ranks
seems a little crazy to be able to do this even if it would be a little difficult to start.
That's far from being remotely a viable combo, considering the cost of everything involved. If you manage to get it to happen for even a short time, congratulations are in order.
If it ever did become a problem, Detention Sphere or any sweeper would make short work of it.
510.1b An unblocked creature assigns its combat damage to the player or planeswalker it’s attacking. [...]
510.2. Second, all combat damage that’s been assigned is dealt simultaneously. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack. [...]
"Four sources simultaneously deal 3 damage each to the NAP" becomes "four sources simultaneously deal 3 damage each to the Pallisade Giant".
As for your new question, I'm sure that repeatable populate leads to many powerful engines, but keep in mind that yours is shut down by either a creature removal or an enchantment removal.
ok found the major confusion for me. i was treating it as a triggered ability. instead it's a static ability just didn't seem right and way overpowered for the cost to work that way.
Triggered abilities are identified by the use of the words "when", "whenever", or "at". Replacement effects are usually identified by the word "instead", as in "If [something would happen], [something else happens] instead."
Rules Advisor as of 03/01/2013 Zammm = Batman "Ability words are flavor text for Melvins." -- Fallingman
If Palisade Giant dies during the first strike damage step, any attacking creatures that did not deal combat damage during first strike damage will deal their damage to the defending player or planeswalker.
Cause then the damage won't be simultaneous, but across two steps. Any seven damage that's done before the combat damage would do it, not just First Strike.
