Question about timings

[SpaceWizard]

I'm new to the forums, but have been playing A LOT of mage wars recently. Roughly 2-3 games a day, and while I have most everything down, a few situations came up that I'm not sure how to resolve. I tried re-reading the rules and checking the rules supplement, so apologies if these questions have already been answered.

The first thing that happened was in a druid vs. necromancer game. What happened was a thornlasher attacked a plague zombie 1 square away, and rolled enough damage to kill the zombie. The thornlasher also got his snatch effect though. My question is, would you resolve the snatch before the zombie is technically destroyed, or would the zombie be destroyed immediately upon receiving the damage and not be snatched, thus avoiding the rot on the thornlasher?

My other question regards the upkeep phase and when to resolve certain conditions. The situation that came up was a burn token was placed on a highland unicorn. During the upkeep phase, which would you resolve first, the burn condition or the regenerate? From what I gathered it goes by initiative, but I'm not sure if that's right.

[V10lentray]

welcome to the forum -

First the zombie would die where he is. The snatch is a secondary effect. anything in the zone with the zombie would be susceptible to the rot if they could be poisoned.

[sIKE]

Both the Burn and Regen are resolved by you, so you would choose the order. So what is the most advantageous or wise is the order you should choose.

[Zuberi]

I am actually not 100% certain on the Snatch thing, but I believe V10lentray is correct and that the zombie would be destroyed before changing zones. Page 25 of the English Rulebook v3 states that damage is applied before any additional effects. The only reason I'm not 100% is that I can't locate currently where it states creatures get destroyed immediately upon receiving damage equal to their life, but that is what I remember to be correct. So, unless I'm wrong and creatures don't get destroyed until the end of Step 4 of combat, the zombie would get destroyed immediately before the additional effect of Snatch could occur.

With the timing of Upkeep Effects, that is discussed on page 7. It states that the owner of a creature always gets to decide the order in which things that affect their creature occur. Since both the burn and the regenerate are on the same creature, the owner of that creature gets to decide the order they occur in. The only time Initiative comes into play is when we want to decide if the effect on my creature happens before the effect on your creature or not.

[sIKE]

I am actually not 100% certain on the Snatch thing, but I believe V10lentray is correct and that the zombie would be destroyed before changing zones. Page 25 of the English Rulebook v3 states that damage is applied before any additional effects. The only reason I'm not 100% is that I can't locate currently where it states creatures get destroyed immediately upon receiving damage equal to their life, but that is what I remember to be correct. So, unless I'm wrong and creatures don't get destroyed until the end of Step 4 of combat, the zombie would get destroyed immediately before the additional effect of Snatch could occur.

With the timing of Upkeep Effects, that is discussed on page 7. It states that the owner of a creature always gets to decide the order in which things that affect their creature occur. Since both the burn and the regenerate are on the same creature, the owner of that creature gets to decide the order they occur in. The only time Initiative comes into play is when we want to decide if the effect on my creature happens before the effect on your creature or not.

This is an interesting question. The Snatch effect occurs after the Roll Dice step and during the Damage and Effects step. I think I am leaning to the Zombie is pushed(pulled) into the target zone and damage is applied. The result of the damage exceeding the creatures life the triggers the [mwcard=DNC09]Plague Zombie[/mwcard] to pop and the effect of his destruction is then applied.

[SpaceWizard]

I'm inclined to agree wit Zuberi and V10lentray on the snatch ruling. Since damage is applied before effects, I would think that damage is being constantly checked against health, and the moment a creature has damage exceeding its total life, it pops. That seems to make the most sense, and would prevent the transition to the effects being applied so no snatch.

At least, that's how I think I'll play it until I can find/get an official ruling on what stage creatures are destroyed in during an attack. Thanks for the answers!

[Kharhaz]

I am actually not 100% certain on the Snatch thing, but I believe V10lentray is correct and that the zombie would be destroyed before changing zones. Page 25 of the English Rulebook v3 states that damage is applied before any additional effects. The only reason I'm not 100% is that I can't locate currently where it states creatures get destroyed immediately upon receiving damage equal to their life, but that is what I remember to be correct. So, unless I'm wrong and creatures don't get destroyed until the end of Step 4 of combat, the zombie would get destroyed immediately before the additional effect of Snatch could occur.

You are correct. Damage then additional effects. Target is destroyed when damage equals life, not if the round ends with damage equal life. The zombie stays in the zone it was destroyed in.

[Zuberi]

Yeah, every place I can find simply says that when the creature gets damage equal to it's life it is destroyed, ie immediately, such as simply in the codex for Destroyed. It does not wait for the end of the phase.

Similarly, step 4 of combat states that damage is applied and then additional effects are applied. They are not applied at the exact same time, so there is no choice and initiative doesn't come into play. Therefore it definitely seems proper that the zombie would be destroyed before it is snatched and thus does not ever change zones for the purposes of determining which zone suffers the on destruction effect.