Hi,

Haphazard Bombardment has the following ruling available:

If one or more of the permanents with aim counters on them have indestructible, select the permanent destroyed at random from among the permanents with aim counters that don’t have indestructible.

Is this caused by rule 608.2d? Or some other rule?

608.2d If an effect of a spell or ability offers any choices other than choices already made as part of casting the spell, activating the ability, or otherwise putting the spell or ability on the stack, the player announces these while applying the effect. The player can’t choose an option that’s illegal or impossible, with the exception that having a library with no cards in it doesn’t make drawing a card an impossible action (see rule 120.3). If an effect divides or distributes something, such as damage or counters, as a player chooses among any number of untargeted players and/or objects, the player chooses the amount and division such that at least one player or object is chosen if able, and each chosen player or object receives at least one of whatever is being divided. (Note that if an effect divides or distributes something, such as damage or counters, as a player chooses among some number of target objects and/or players, the amount and division were determined as the spell or ability was put onto the stack rather than at this time; see rule 601.2d.)

Should the same logic as is applied for Indestructible be relevant also for other means that prevent destruction (e.g. replacement effects like Regenerate)? Albeit Indestructible works differently (it just states that the object can't be destroyed)…

Honestly, I find this interaction rather unintuitive.

Edited Milan Majerčík (April 20, 2018 08:59:52 AM)

This interaction is indeed the result of applying 608.2d. Specifically, it's this bit:

The player can’t choose an option that’s illegal or impossible(…)

Not being able to choose an impossible option happens even when that choice is being made randomly, and it's impossible to destroy something that's indestructible. As such, the random choice is made from among the permanents that can legally be destroyed.

This does not happen with destruction-replacement effects like regeneration, because destroying a permanent with a regeneration shield around it is not an impossible action.


It might help to witness the same principle in action in a more familiar context. You hit your opponent with Hypnotic Specter, so they need to discard a card at random. What cards can they potentially randomly select for discarding? A card in their hand? Your hand? In their library? Your graveyard? Exile? All of those are, after all, “cards”…

No. The random selection is made from among the cards in their hand, and *only* the cards in their hand, because those are the only cards it's legal for them to discard. The same principle applies here–the selection of what to destroy must be made from among the objects it's legal to destroy.