5

The situation is this:

I control a Shaman en-Kor and a Nomads en-Kor and a Mogg Maniac. During my opponent's turn, I cast Inferno, dealing 6 damage to all creatures and all players.

Is it possible for me to redirect the 6 damage done to the shaman and the Nomads to the Mogg Maniac AND have the Mogg deal a total of 18 damage to my opponent before the Mogg Maniac dies?

or...

Will the Inferno kill the Maniac before I can redirect any damage to it from my en-Kor creatures?

I'm confused about the timing of this combo since the shamans and the nomads en-Kor ability is an activated ability that allows me to redirect 1 damage for 0 mana.

Can someone help me understand this? (Is the combo even possible?)

1
  • Rulings on gatherer for both Shamen en-kor and Nomads en-kor state: "It is possible to redirect more damage to a creature than that creature's toughness." so my guess is yes, this is possible.
    – Colin D
    Jun 3, 2014 at 20:05

2 Answers 2

7

Mogg will deal 18 damage, but it will deal it after dying.


The en-Kor's redirection only works if you activate it before they take damage. When you activate their redirection ability, it creates a shield that will redirect the next point of damage it would take.

The redirection shield is a replacement effect. It causes Inferno to deal damage to Mogg instead of the en-Kor. Inferno still deals all of its damage simultaneously.

This is how the game progresses:

  1. You cast Inferno (and retain priority).
  2. Six times,
    1. You activate Shaman en-Kor's first ability targeting Mogg.
    2. Shaman en-Kor's first ability resolves, creating a shield that will redirect damage later.
  3. Six times,
    1. You activate Nomads en-Kor's ability targeting Mogg.
    2. Nomads en-Kor's ability resolves, creating a shield that will redirect damage later.
  4. Inferno resolves.
    1. It will simultaneously deal 18 damage to Mogg and 6 damage to each player. Simultaneously, life is subtracted from players' totals, damage is marked on Mogg and Mogg's ability triggers.
  5. State-based actions are performed simultaneously.
    • Any player with non-positive life lose the game. (I'm going to assume noone loses here.)
    • Mogg is destroyed for having marked damage exceeding its toughness.
      1. Mogg is put in the graveyard from the battlefield.
  6. Mogg's triggered ability is placed on the stack targeting your opponent.
  7. Mogg's triggered ability resolves.
    1. It deals 18 damage to the targeted opponent.

Note that Mogg only takes damage once in this scenario (even though some of it was originally intended for the en-Kor), so its ability only triggers once for the entire 18 damage.

4
  • So if I attacked my opponent in my turn with both the en-Kor creatures and the Maniac, and they all got blocked, I could still play the Inferno and direct both the eventual combat damage from the blocking creatures AND the damage from the Inferno to the Maniac?
    – Lund
    Jun 3, 2014 at 21:02
  • No. That would be like trying to do more damage to Mogg after step 7 in the above. The damage from the Inferno will kill the Mogg long before combat damage is dealt. Mogg won't be around to receive (redirected) combat damage.
    – ikegami
    Jun 3, 2014 at 21:13
  • Okay, I kind of expected that. But if Mogg had Indestructible, and I used the shamans ability "to redirect damage from another creature to himself" on my opponents creatures and redirected that damage to Mogg too, then Mogg (and my opponents creatures) would be around to deal and recieve combat damage too right?
    – Lund
    Jun 3, 2014 at 21:46
  • Right. Indestructible creatures still take damage as normal. SBAs (in step 5) just won't destroy it. So yeah, dealing more damage to it after step 7 is perfectly fine.
    – ikegami
    Jun 4, 2014 at 0:41
2

Yes, you can do this. All damage will be done simultaneously; you would need to activate each en-Kor's ability 6 times before the Inferno resolves. When you do, Mogg Maniac will take 18 damage. The toughness of the Mogg Maniac is not relevant here; it is taking 18 damage.

119.5. Damage dealt to a creature or planeswalker doesn't destroy it. Likewise, the source of that damage doesn't destroy it. Rather, state-based actions may destroy a creature or planeswalker, or otherwise put it into its owner's graveyard, due to the results of the damage dealt to that permanent. See rule 704.

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