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Counterflux Pyromancer Ascension

In his write-up of Pro Tour BTG in Valencia, pro player Gaudenis Vidugiris described this game, the last one he played to get to the top 16 (emphasis added):

Round 14 I battled against RWU Twin. Both games I got active Ascensions reasonably quickly and killed him. Though in the second game he had a Grafdigger's Cage on turn one which slowed me down enough that I couldn’t kill him for a while and even gave him a draw phase where a Splinter Twin would have been lethal. I actually got two active [Pyromancer Ascensions] rather quickly, but couldn't find a blue card to copy for a turn or two. Eventually, I found one which dug me into an Echoing Truth and after I explained to my opponent why his overloaded Counterflux couldn't counter all of the Echoing Truth copies he conceded.

What's the rules trick here? How come an overloaded Counterflux can't counter several copies of Echoing Truth?

1 Answer 1

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Counterflux works against a singleton Pyromancer Ascension. With multiple active Ascensions, the copied spells don't go on the stack all at once, so Counterflux can't hit all of them.

I found the answer in the comments section of that article:

Play echoing truth target something, both ascensions trigger. First ascension trigger resolves, puts an echoing truth copy on top of the stack, so this copy will resolve before the other ascension trigger resolves.

So to show the stack, since it's hard to think about from the wording:

First, cast Echoing Truth. Both Pyromancer Ascensions trigger.

Stack:

PA#1 trigger
PA#2 trigger
Echoing Truth

PA#1 trigger resolves. Stack is now:

Echoing Truth Copy
PA#2 trigger
Echoing Truth

If you cast Counterflux with overload now, it will counter the two spells, but NOT the trigger, because it doesn't counter abilities. So after it resolves, the PA#2 trigger will resolve and create another copy of Echoing Truth. And if you wait until PA#2 trigger resolves, the first Echoing Truth copy has already resolved. No matter what you do, one Echoing Truth will get through.

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    So, just so we're clear, it would be possible with only one Ascension, right? He can still counterflux one copy+the original but the second copy still happens and resolves? Mar 8, 2014 at 3:14
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    That's correct.
    – GendoIkari
    Mar 8, 2014 at 3:17

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