Welcome to Personal Tutor, where we discuss how to maximize our opportunities for player education. Our goal is to transcend the basic answer to create an informative answer that the player will really remember and teaches them something about the rules, rather than just resolving this ruling. You may even find this process helps you come to a better understanding of the rules yourself.

The Scenario:
Apprentice and Neophyte are playing at a PTQ. Apprentice calls you over to the table. “Hey, Judge. I just Lightning Bolted Neophyte's Tarmogoyf. Right now there is a Sorcery and a Land in the graveyard. She's saying Tarmogoyf lives. Is that right?”

The Basic Answer:
Neophyte is correct. Tarmogoyf doesn't die.

Consider, when formulating your answer, that although this interaction is somewhat technically complex, it is also extremely common. What does it say about Apprentice's experience level that he is asking you this question? How does that affect the way you should formulate your answer?

L1s and Judge Candidates, feel free to give your answers immediately. L2s, please wait a day to add your input. L3+, please wait two days.

“Yes, your opponent is correct in saying that Tarmogoyf does not die to your Lightning Bolt. As your spell deals it's damage to Tarmogoyf, 3 damage is marked on Tarmogoyf. As the final step of Lightning Bolt resolving this effect, it is placed in the graveyard. Then state-based actions are checked to see if lethal damage has been dealt to Tarmogoyf. However,” turn Tarmogoyf so Apprentice can read the text, “this card's ability is a character-defining ability, meaning it determines the characteristics of Tarmogoyf, in this case it's power and toughness. It is always looking for changes, reacting accordingly. Since your Lightning Bolt card was put in the graveyard before state-based actions checked for lethal damage, Tarmogoyf's ability sees the new card type and raises his power and toughness accordingly. State-based actions see 3 damage is not lethal damage to a creature with 4 toughness, so Tarmogoyf lives.”

Yes, Tarmogoyf lives.

Damge doesn't kill creatures, state based actions kill creatures. By the time state based actions are checked, lightning bolt will be in the graveyard, and Mr. Goyf will be a hefty 3/4 with 3 damage marked on it.

I feel my response is somewhat long-winded, especially for a Competitive REL event.

Edited James Butler (Sept. 11, 2014 02:09:09 PM)

In terms of what this tells me about Apprentice's experience level, it really only says he hasn't had a whole lot of competitive practice in the Modern format. Just a few months ago, a friend of mine who is quite knowledgeable and has been playing for a little over 10 years entered his first Modern event, and ended up in Apprentice's exact same situation. Though I would try to keep my answer straightforward and to the point, I would formulate it to address the technical details:

Being destroyed for lethal damage is one of the “State Based Actions”. Those are checked right before a player would get priority. In this case, that would be right after Lightning Bolt is finished resolving. The very last step of resolving a spell is putting it into the graveyard, so that means the Bolt counts for Tarmogoyf's power and toughness when State Based Actions are checked. It's big enough to survive.

Agreeing with you, guys. I would put emphasis on “damage does not kill creatures; state-based actions do it, after the Bolt has finished resolving and it is put into a graveyard” and also, if time allows, “notice the difference between the Bolt, which just deals damage, and for example Doom Blade, which kills the creature as part of its resolution; that means before the Blade is put into a graveyard”.

My reply would be something like this:
“Yes, it lives. The last step of resolving a spell is to put it into the graveyard, making it 3 different types and bumping Tarmogoyf up to 3/4. Then we check for lethal damage (with STBs), which it doesn't have.”

Edited Christian Fagerheim (Sept. 12, 2014 05:40:13 AM)

I've answered this one often already.

“Tarmogoyf is Wile E. Coyote. He just ran off the top of a cliff, but he doesn't know it yet. In a moment, he'll realize he's running on air, and then he'll fall. But by then the Bolt has already given him a big bouncy butt to land on.”

Why? Because I can. And the lesson tends to stick because of the funny mental image.

In a situation where the snark would be inappropriate, I go with something more boring but also more accurate.

“Lethal damage doesn't cause a creature to die immediately. That happens the next time state-based actions are checked, just before you get priority again. But by then the Bolt has finished resolving and gone to the graveyard. And that means the Bolt grew the Goyf to 3/4 just in time, and the damage isn't lethal anymore.”

I've found that the question doesn't tell me much about Apprentice's experience level, by the way. I've seen rather experienced players be completely surprised by the interaction. In general, the fact that instants and sorceries go to the graveyard as part of their resolution and before SBAs are checked or priority is given, seems to be unknown to a lot of players I'd expect to already know.

So, as usual I try to read body language to see if the players need more details like what SBAs are. But I don't volunteer that unless I think they need it.

I would be trying to avoid mentioning SBA, it isn't a term players need to
know. They just need to know that we check for lethal damage after the
spell is finished resolving:

“We don't check to see if damage has killed a creature till after the spell
has finished resolving. By that time the Tarmogoyf is a 3/4 and the 3
damage is has received is not enough to kill it”

“In a nutshell, damage doesn't kill creatures, state based actions do. When your spell resolves, it marks three damage on tarmogoyf. As part of the spell resolution, lightning bolt goes to your graveyard, so when state based actions are checked after lightning bolt resolves, tarmogoyf sees instant/sorcery/land and lives with 3 damage marked on its 4 toughness. Anything else I can help with?”.

Originally posted by John Brian McCarthy:

Welcome to Personal Tutor, where we discuss how to maximize our opportunities for player education. Our goal is to transcend the basic answer to create an informative answer that the player will really remember and teaches them something about the rules, rather than just resolving this ruling. You may even find this process helps you come to a better understanding of the rules yourself.

The Scenario:
Apprentice and Neophyte are playing at a PTQ. Apprentice calls you over to the table. “Hey, Judge. I just Lightning Bolted Neophyte's Tarmogoyf. Right now there is a Sorcery and a Land in the graveyard. She's saying Tarmogoyf lives. Is that right?”

The Basic Answer:
Neophyte is correct. Tarmogoyf doesn't die.

Consider, when formulating your answer, that although this interaction is somewhat technically complex, it is also extremely common. What does it say about Apprentice's experience level that he is asking you this question? How does that affect the way you should formulate your answer?

L1s and Judge Candidates, feel free to give your answers immediately. L2s, please wait a day to add your input. L3+, please wait two days.

“Yes your opponent is correct. Tarmogoyf does live. Each time a player gets ”priority“, or the chance to play cards from their hand, activate an effect, or various other things, the game checks for certain conditions, one of which is damage on creatures. Since Tarmogoyf is constantly checking for new card types, he grows to a 3/4 before the game can catch the 3 damage that you've dealt to him and remove him from the battlefield. This means that he gets to keep on living, now as a 3/4 with 3 damage marked on him. Does that make sense?”

I would be very carful to be not to complex with my answer here and avoid judge-technical terms:

'The Tarmogoyf lives. The game doesn't check whether a creature is dead or not by damage during the resolution of a spell. Because the last thing done during the resolution of a spell is putting the spell card in the graveyard, the Tarmogoyfs toughness is already 4 when the game checks whether the Tarmogoyf has to much damage on it.'

If I know whether the players are experienced enough to know words like ‘priority’ I would use those as well, but that depends on the situation.

We'll be closing this one shortly - for those who haven't yet responded, please do so tonight or tomorrow morning.

I would add one thing to this that hasn't been mentioned, in order to
preempt possible confusion with effects that destroy creatures with certain
characteristics (such as Reprisal or Dimir Charm):

“Your opponent is correct. Damage doesn't kill creatures immediately. When
resolving a spell or ability, we do what it says, put the spell card (if
any) into the graveyard, and then see what lives and dies. By the time we
get to that check, the Lightning Bolt is in the graveyard and changes the
Tarmagoyf's toughness so it lives.

”If the spell had been a Dimir Charm, doing what the spell says would
involve checking the power immediately, before it went to the graveyard, so
it destroys the Tarmagoyf before factoring in the increase that spell's
presence in the graveyard would eventually impart."