If I summon Exemplar of Strength while I have, say, Simic Initiate in play, with one counter on it, can I stack the triggers and choose targets such that the Initiate puts its one counter on the Exemplar and the Exemplar dumps its negative counters on the Initiate? My first thought is yes, all I have to do is declare, when the Exemplar hits the table, that I'm putting the triggers on the stack and at that time I choose tsrgets, then when the abilities resolve, FIRST the Graft ability happens, thus causing the Initiate to die anyway, THEN the Exemplar's trigger tries to resolve, sees that its target is no longer there, and whiffs.
For that matter, I could choose to target the Exemplar's counters onto, say, Tatterkite and the target would be legal, but the ability would resolve and do nothing, right? Or if I gave the target of the counters Shroud in response to the ability somehow, etc.
Yes you seem to be doing everything right here, and it works how you think and want it to.
Exemplar of Strength's ability and the Graft ability on Simic Initiate both trigger at the same time, namely when the Exemplar enters the battlefield. So if you stack the triggers so the Graft ability resolves first and you target the Simic Initaite with the Exemplar's ability, then the Exemplar will get a +1/+1 from the graft (killing the Initiate if it only had the one counter), then when the Exemplar's ability tries to resolve it will be countered by having no legal targets, so you will end up with a 5/5 Exemplar of Strength.
Tatterkite works as well, just target it with the Exemplar's ability. When the ability resolves it will try to put three -1/-1 counters on the Tatterkite, but as Tatterkite can't have any counters put on it, nothing happens.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
For that matter, I could choose to target the Exemplar's counters onto, say, Tatterkite and the target would be legal, but the ability would resolve and do nothing, right? Or if I gave the target of the counters Shroud in response to the ability somehow, etc.
Am I doing this right?
Exemplar of Strength's ability and the Graft ability on Simic Initiate both trigger at the same time, namely when the Exemplar enters the battlefield. So if you stack the triggers so the Graft ability resolves first and you target the Simic Initaite with the Exemplar's ability, then the Exemplar will get a +1/+1 from the graft (killing the Initiate if it only had the one counter), then when the Exemplar's ability tries to resolve it will be countered by having no legal targets, so you will end up with a 5/5 Exemplar of Strength.
Tatterkite works as well, just target it with the Exemplar's ability. When the ability resolves it will try to put three -1/-1 counters on the Tatterkite, but as Tatterkite can't have any counters put on it, nothing happens.