Doubt about copying legends

[Asura]

Hey, I'm confused now about how legal this trigger can be.

The case is: I'm trying to copy Gonti's Aether Heart with the abbility of Saheeli, Sublime Artificer (i know the copy doesn't come with counters, the problem is, time!

Question 1: Can I copy a legendary target and sacrifice one of the duplicates to activate an ability, or does the legend rule trigger immediately and force me to sacrifice one immediately, giving me no chance to activate the ability?

Question 2: Can i response the activation of a copy (on the stack) sacrifying the original card? in that case the target of the copy is still legal and trigger normally?

Have any way to do that with Sublime Artificer and Gonti's Hearth???

[Soren841]

The legend rule is a sba. If you sac the target it wouldn't be a legal target anymore but idk if she checks on resolution

[MonteTribal]

Interesting situation! I would say no to both questions because State Based Actions are checked before any players are ever given priority. So before you could activate an ability of any card: the state is checked, 2 copies of the same legendary are seen, and one must go to the graveyard. You do not gain priority until after this happens, and there will only be 1 copy of the card available once you can attempt to do anything.

To do what you are wanting to do, you need someway to ignore the Legend Rule. Mirror Gallery is the most straight forward way, and the easiest one that let's you do it with Saheeli. But, if you could turn the Gonti's Aether Heart into a creature (like with March of the Machines or Animate Artifact), you could also use Spark Double or Helm of the Host to duplicate it in a non-legendary way. Then Saheeli can make copies of the non-legendary versions!

[Judaspriester]

The legend rule is always the last on the stack, which means the first to be applied. No chance to sacrifice before this triggers.
a copy with Saheeli while the original is on the stack also wouldn't work, because everything before the colon ( is the cost. You first need to pay the cost, then the effect goes on the stack.
put the saheeli copy on the stack and then sacrifice gonti also wouldn't work, because the target doesn't exists anymore once the copy resolves.

TL;DR: unless you make your way around the legend rule this won't work.
The only card I know that could do this, without making Gonti a creature first would be the Mirror Gallery.

[BoBWiz]

I can imagine this: Copy a servo made by saheeli when you cast gonti's aether heart and sac the original aether heart. Use the ability from the copy. You needn't exile the original aether heart and bring it back from the graveyard somehow.

… or I don't understand the problem.

[Judaspriester]

I can imagine this: Copy a servo made by saheeli when you cast gonti's aether heart and sac the original aether heart. Use the ability from the copy. You needn't exile the original aether heart and bring it back from the graveyard somehow.

… or I don't understand the problem.

Okay, this would work, but doesn't exactly fit the question asked.