I have Kitchen Finks in play. Opponent plays doom blade it. Creature comes back in play with -1-1 counter on it.
All good so far. Now... opponent plays doom blade again on it, but this time it doesnt comes back because it has -1-1 counter on it right ? Lets say before that 2nd doom blade i put +1+1 counter in my creature, why it survives doom blade then?? -1-1 counter is still on it. Persist checks if that -1-1 counter is on creature and if not it comes back from graveyard. By puting +1+1 counter on creature it also removes -1-1 or what am i missing here?
I dont know if there is some special rule for this or is that ability/combo totaly unlogical.
It will make sense if persist ability will goes like that: Persist (When this creature dies, if it's not on default power/toughness value return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a -1/-1 counter on it.)
+1/+1 and -1/-1 counters annihilate each other so putting a +1/+1 counter on a persisted Kitchen Finks basically removes the -1/-1 counter
704.5r If a permanent has both a +1/+1 counter and a -1/-1 counter on it, N +1/+1 and N -1/-1 counters are removed from it, where N is the smaller of the number of +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters on it.
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It will make sense if persist ability will goes like that: Persist (When this creature dies, if it's not on default power/toughness value return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a -1/-1 counter on it.)
Then persist (and presumably undying) would be a lot less useful. Any form of buffing (E.G. Giant Growth or Glorious Anthem ) would cause the creature not to come back since it was not at default power/toughness when it died.
And even if Persist worked that way, the Finks would still come back since -1/-1 and +1/+1 would effectivly cancel eachother out and leave the Finks at their default Power/Toughness. 704.5r just decided to go further than "effectivly cancel each other" and move on to "actually cancel each other" and cut down on how much you have to keep track of.
I think the rule that +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters annihilate each other is very practical. It lets you just use a single die to show how many counters a permanent has. If your creature has a bunch of +1/+1 counters on it and something gives it -1/-1 counters, you just tick down the die.
This rule was especially handy during the Scars of Mirrodin block, where there were -1/-1 counters everywhere.
I think the rule that +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters annihilate each other is very practical. It lets you just use a single die to show how many counters a permanent has. If your creature has a bunch of +1/+1 counters on it and something gives it -1/-1 counters, you just tick down the die.
And that's exactly why they made the rule: practicality.
Ignoring the first few years of the game where all sorts of counters got used, creature cards used to use almost exclusively +1/+1 counters, to keep down on the complexity of tracking the gamestate. But then Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block came around, the first of which was going to have a strong +1/+1 counter theme, and the latter of which was going to have a strong -1/-1 counter theme. Since this meant cards would frequently be subjected to both kinds of counters, the complexity of the average gamestate would have become significantly greater (a bad thing from a design perspective) if not for the then-new counter-annihilation rule.
Persist (When this creature dies, if it's not on default power/toughness value return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a -1/-1 counter on it.)
Neither Persist nor Undying care about Power nor Toughness. They only care about whether or not there are counters (matching some specific criteria) on the creature as is dies.
As for «default» power/toughness, that concept is the exception, not the rule; almost all effects care about the calculated power and toughness, not the printed numbers. (the only exception being copy effects)
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Not logical? Lord knows I'm not the one advocating logic in Magic but the +1/+1 VS -1/-1 rule of mutual anhililation is one of the very few perfectly logical rules of the whole book. I can't imagine why you'd have trouble with it.
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I dont have trouble with it, im just saying that -1-1 counter is still on that creature when it returns to play. If you "annihilated" that -1-1 counter with puting on it +1+1 counter is silly because -1-1 is still on it, it wasnt removed (practically).
but the +1/+1 VS -1/-1 rule of mutual anhililation is one of the very few perfectly logical rules of the whole book. I can't imagine why you'd have trouble with it.
