Let’s say I have Promise of Tomorrow and a couple creatures exiled with it. I cast Eerie Interlude during my main phase and exile all my creatures.
Now, what I want to know is if Promise of Tomorrow’s ability will be triggered since technically, going into my end step, I don’t control creatures, even though the ones I exiled with Eerie Interlude should come back at the same time as Promise of Tomorrow is supposed to trigger. Any ideas?
You will have two triggered abilities that trigger at your end step. The Promise of Tomorrow checks for creatures when it triggers and when it tries to resolve.
Seeing as there are two triggered abilities that you control that are trying to go on the stack at the same time. You can choose their order. Remember mtg is still a turned based game. Things can trigger at the same time, but they still resolve one at a time.
If you put Promise of Tomorrow ability on the stack and the Eerie Interlude on top of it. The Eerie Interlude will resolve first and when the Promise of Tomorrow tries to resolve it will see creatures and nothing will happen.
If you put the Eerie Interlude on the stack with the Promise of Tomorrow on top of it. The Promise of Tomorrow will see no creatures and resolve and then the Eerie Interlude will return creatures from exile as normal.
The stack in mtg just like the stack in computer science is a first-in-last-out concept.
Rule 603.4 from the Magic Comp Rules - source
A triggered ability may read “When/Whenever/At [trigger event], if [condition], [effect].” When the trigger event occurs, the ability checks whether the stated condition is true. The ability triggers only if it is; otherwise it does nothing. If the ability triggers, it checks the stated condition again as it resolves. If the condition isn’t true at that time, the ability is removed from the stack and does nothing. Note that this mirrors the check for legal targets. This rule is referred to as the “intervening ‘if’ clause” rule. (The word “if” has only its normal English meaning anywhere else in the text of a card; this rule only applies to an “if” that immediately follows a trigger condition.)
