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I'm building a Solemnity deck. What will happen if, with solemnity in play, I cast a Chronozoa?

Vanishing 3 (This creature enters the battlefield with three time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter from it. When the last is removed, sacrifice it.)

When Chronozoa dies, if it had no time counters on it, create two tokens that are copies of it.

Is the game a draw?

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    When you have a question about a keyword ability, always start by checking the actual definition of the keyword ability in the rules. The reminder text is sufficiently clear in this particular case, but that's not always the case.
    – ikegami
    Dec 24, 2017 at 18:41
  • You could use such an engine to get infinite creatures if you used something like Ashnod's Altar for a sacrifice outlet, killing off the original and all the tokens to make more until you have enough, but since there are no counters to remove, the last counter never gets removed, so the delayed sacrifice of vanishing never happens.
    – Andrew
    Dec 27, 2017 at 16:58

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The exact rule for vanishing, very similar to what's in the reminder text, says:

When the last time counter is removed from this permanent, sacrifice it.

If you have a Solemnity in play, no time counters are ever put on Chronozoa. You don't put some on then remove them, you just never put any on. So you never trigger that ability.

If you wanted to create an infinite loop here, you just need to add a way to repeatedly destroy/sacrifice the Chronozoas. If you wanted a voluntary loop that you could stop at any time, so that you can just make a zillion Chronozoas without forcing a draw, any free sacrifice outlet would work. If you for some reason want the game to be a draw, you'd need something forced, like a few copies of Curse of Death's Hold or Heartless Summoning so that your Chronozoas are 0/0 and die immediately.

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  • I just started playing Magic, so correct me if I am wrong, but the vanishing ability does not apply to the "create copies" text does it? So then the ability was not triggered and the infinite loop is then avoided, but as soon as the creature dies it comes back with a copy and each are then ready to die and create more endlessly... Yes? Each turn that one or more of the creatures dies you would create more and more to replace it...
    – Odin1806
    Dec 24, 2017 at 23:04
  • @odin1806 What do you think would cause the creatures to die?
    – GendoIkari
    Dec 24, 2017 at 23:08
  • just someone or something killing them. I don't mean they repeatedly die in the same turn, just as the game progresses. Assuming your first creature was not countered there would be no end to the copies that are made... correct? As the game continues and more of those creatures dies you would gain more and more of those creatures that are all ready to create more of themselves...
    – Odin1806
    Dec 24, 2017 at 23:10
  • @Odin1806 Ah ok. But the vanishing ability would be copied; it's an ability just its other triggered ability.
    – GendoIkari
    Dec 25, 2017 at 1:04
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    @Odin1806 Yes, Vanishing is a separate ability from the "When Chronozoa dies..." triggered ability. Seems clear enough from the wording (it doesn't connect the two in any way) but just in case, rule 112.2c says "...each paragraph break in a card’s text marks a separate ability."
    – Cascabel
    Dec 25, 2017 at 2:24

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