Plansewalkers and the Stack

[Red_Wyrm]

Hello everybody.

I have a question about priority during the main phase, but I'm not sure how to ask it so I'll give an example instead.

I have Nicol Bolas out. It is my main phase. My opponent lightning bolt's him on my main phase. My thinking is that even though the bolt is an instant, I have priority and can therefore declare that I am using Bolas's +3 ability before my opponent has the chance to cast a bolt. Is this correct? Thank you.

[G. Moto]

 You are correct. When you are activating your planeswalker's effect on your turn you have the priority. Also placing the loyalty counters is a COST so lets say nicol bolas, planeswalker enters the field with 5 loyalty and the opponent tries to lightning bolt him, Bolas would go up to 8 Loyalty first and then receive the redirected damage going back down to 5. That's how that would play out.

[Mnemosyne]

You are correct. When you are activating your planeswalker's effect on your turn you have the priority. Also placing the loyalty counters is a COST so lets say nicol bolas, planeswalker enters the field with 5 loyalty and the opponent tries to lightning bolt him, Bolas would go up to 8 Loyalty first and then receive the redirected damage going back down to 5. That's how that would play out.

G.Moto is right! However, it's better to explain it like this

It's your turn, you haven't activated Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. (His loyalty = 3 atm)
Your opponent uses Lightning Bolt at instant speed.
You can then activate Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker in response to his instant spell. You have priority being your turn, which means that whilst a planeswalker ability is normally sorcery speed you can respond to a spell by adding his ability to the 'stack'

So he casts Lightning Bolt = 3 dmg to your Nicol Bolas on 3 loyalty, you then activate his +3 destroying a target permanent, thereby giving him 6 loyalty, your opponents spell then resolves, dealing three damage that would have killed him, causing your Nicol Bolas to return to 3 loyalty. (Remember that you cannot directly target Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker with Lightning Bolt you have to redirect the damage from a player.)

If he wanted to kill Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker he would have to cast Lightning Bolt in response to you triggering his ability, circumventing your priority.

[G. Moto]

  Or you could take the Dimir way out: Play winds of rebuke on Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, then play lay bare the heart to make him discard his planeswalker. And if you want to make sure he never gets it back just play scarab feast as a nice little follow up. It's a good way to remove threats permanently, especially with all of this embalming that's going on in this block.

[Firegriff]

http://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/planeswalker-cards
Other sources can deal damage to Planeswalkers. If a spell or ability you control would deal damage to an opponent, you may have it deal that damage to a Planeswalker that opponent controls instead.

From magic's official guide.  Redirect is no longer needed to target a planeswalker, just target "player".

[G. Moto]

   So now we know: Remove/Destroy target permanent, Deal damage using spells, or directly towards it in combat. Personally the exile or discard route is more effective in my opinion when you know what's coming. Once it hits the field then removing permanents is the ideal way to go.

[Mnemosyne]

http://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/planeswalker-cards
Other sources can deal damage to Planeswalkers. If a spell or ability you control would deal damage to an opponent, you may have it deal that damage to a Planeswalker that opponent controls instead.

From magic's official guide.  Redirect is no longer needed to target a planeswalker, just target "player".

Other sources can deal damage to Planeswalkers. If a spell or ability you control would deal damage to an opponent, you may have it deal that damage to a Planeswalker that opponent controls instead. So while you can't target a Planeswalker with a Shock, you can have a Shock that targets your opponent deal 2 damage to one of his or her Planeswalkers instead of to the player.

That is in quintessence redirecting damage... You are not targeting the planeswalker, you target the player then redirect the damage to the planeswalker, it's very subtle, but necessary. Either way,  the questioned was already answered by G. Moto. So all this is unrelated.

[Red_Wyrm]

You are correct. When you are activating your planeswalker's effect on your turn you have the priority. Also placing the loyalty counters is a COST so lets say nicol bolas, planeswalker enters the field with 5 loyalty and the opponent tries to lightning bolt him, Bolas would go up to 8 Loyalty first and then receive the redirected damage going back down to 5. That's how that would play out.

G.Moto is right! However, it's better to explain it like this

It's your turn, you haven't activated Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. (His loyalty = 3 atm)
Your opponent uses Lightning Bolt at instant speed.
You can then activate Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker in response to his instant spell. You have priority being your turn, which means that whilst a planeswalker ability is normally sorcery speed you can respond to a spell by adding his ability to the 'stack'

So he casts Lightning Bolt = 3 dmg to your Nicol Bolas on 3 loyalty, you then activate his +3 destroying a target permanent, thereby giving him 6 loyalty, your opponents spell then resolves, dealing three damage that would have killed him, causing your Nicol Bolas to return to 3 loyalty. (Remember that you cannot directly target Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker with Lightning Bolt you have to redirect the damage from a player.)

If he wanted to kill Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker he would have to cast Lightning Bolt in response to you triggering his ability, circumventing your priority.

In the last part of your response, you said that he would have to lightning bolt in response to my activating of Nicol Bolas, Plansewalker, and this would kill him. But my understanding is that adding the three loyalty counters is an activation cost and therefore cannot be responded to, just like you cannot destroy a land in response to tapping it for mana, to prevent someone gaining mana from it. So this would mean that the three loyalty is added before he has a chance to respond with lightning bolt. I do understand that the lightning bolt would resolve before the plansewalker ability though.

[Mostlynotgay]

You are correct. When you are activating your planeswalker's effect on your turn you have the priority. Also placing the loyalty counters is a COST so lets say nicol bolas, planeswalker enters the field with 5 loyalty and the opponent tries to lightning bolt him, Bolas would go up to 8 Loyalty first and then receive the redirected damage going back down to 5. That's how that would play out.

G.Moto is right! However, it's better to explain it like this

It's your turn, you haven't activated Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. (His loyalty = 3 atm)
Your opponent uses Lightning Bolt at instant speed.
You can then activate Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker in response to his instant spell. You have priority being your turn, which means that whilst a planeswalker ability is normally sorcery speed you can respond to a spell by adding his ability to the 'stack'

So he casts Lightning Bolt = 3 dmg to your Nicol Bolas on 3 loyalty, you then activate his +3 destroying a target permanent, thereby giving him 6 loyalty, your opponents spell then resolves, dealing three damage that would have killed him, causing your Nicol Bolas to return to 3 loyalty. (Remember that you cannot directly target Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker with Lightning Bolt you have to redirect the damage from a player.)

If he wanted to kill Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker he would have to cast Lightning Bolt in response to you triggering his ability, circumventing your priority.

In the last part of your response, you said that he would have to lightning bolt in response to my activating of Nicol Bolas, Plansewalker, and this would kill him. But my understanding is that adding the three loyalty counters is an activation cost and therefore cannot be responded to, just like you cannot destroy a land in response to tapping it for mana, to prevent someone gaining mana from it. So this would mean that the three loyalty is added before he has a chance to respond with lightning bolt. I do understand that the lightning bolt would resolve before the plansewalker ability though.

Ok I think there may be some confusion. First, adding loyalty counters is the activation cost which can't be responded to, so you are correct that he'd have 6 loyalty counters before your opponent has a chance to cast bolt in response.

It's important to remember that, except in AN extremely rare case, walker abilities can only be activated anytime you could cast a sorcery. This means your turn, your main phase, stack must be empty. When you activate the loyalty ability, your counters will go up before any priority is passed, without exception. He cannot circumvent your priority. "I cast bolt before you add counters" is not a valid play. Adding loyalty is akin to tapping for mana, in that it doesn't use the stack and cannot be responded to.

To your question, yes. If you tick up bolas, he is out of the range of bolt. But a tip, and this has snagged a few people I've played with: make sure ticking up your walker is the *first thing* you do on your turn if you suspect your opponent is gonna try to kill it with damage. If you don't, they can respond to whatever you do and you won't be able to tick up in response.

[Borg]

It's your turn, you haven't activated Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. (His loyalty = 3 atm)
Your opponent uses Lightning Bolt at instant speed.
You can then activate Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker in response to his instant spell. You have priority being your turn, which means that whilst a planeswalker ability is normally sorcery speed you can respond to a spell by adding his ability to the 'stack'

Just for the record : this is TOTALLY INCORRECT.
You CANNOT activate a Planeswalker in response to a spell or ability.
Planeswalker abilities have to be played as Sorceries, which means the stack has to be EMPTY.

To play this correctly :
The Nicol Bolas player has Initiative, so there's NO WAY the other player can play a Lightning Bolt BEFORE the initiative player had a chance to activate his Planeswalker and thus tick him up and put the ability on the stack.
If the initiative player played another spell or ablility though, which allows the opposing player to react to it, then he can play his Lightning Bolt alright and it's TOO LATE for the Planeswalker to activate as the stack has to empty for that.

Another way to remember this : a Planeswalker CANNOT REACT to a spell or ability, his/her ability always has to be the FIRST on the stack.

[Soren841]

Borg is correct