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Rules Q&A » Post: Tawnos's Coffin and Karn, Silver Golem

Tawnos's Coffin and Karn, Silver Golem

Nov. 11, 2013 07:08:15 PM

Cris Plyler
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

USA - Great Lakes

Tawnos's Coffin and Karn, Silver Golem

Tawnos's Coffin
Karn, Silver Golem

If Townos's Coffin is animated by Karn, Silver Golem's ability, and the player activates the Townos's Coffin ability to exile itself, does it's delayed trigger bring it back or does it stay exiled? Thanks.

Edited Mark Brown (Nov. 11, 2013 08:45:44 PM)

Nov. 25, 2013 05:09:54 PM

Daniel Kitachewsky
Judge (Uncertified)

France

Tawnos's Coffin and Karn, Silver Golem

It will stay exiled.

You apply Tawnos's Coffin's effect part by part. When you have finished applying the first part (“Exile target creature and all Auras attached to it. Note the number and kind of counters that were on that creature”), Tawnos's Coffin is already in exile, but the delayed triggered ability that's meant to bring it back doesn't exist yet. Since that trigger is created later, it will just never have an opportunity to trigger.

Now, you will say, “but I've learned to read the whole of a spell or ability before applying it!” You're right, this rule exists, but it's meant to cover specifically those cases where the spell or ability doesn't make sense when applied sentence by sentence. There's two typical cases for this:
1) The second part replaces what the first part does. These are called self-replacement effects; the canonical example is Brimstone Volley. Applying the second part on its own doesn't make sense, you need to know the second part at the moment you apply the first.
2) The second part specifies something about the first part, for example Terror. The second part, “it can't be regenerated” doesn't make sense if you destroy the creature first; so you have to know the second part in order to apply the first part correctly.
Tawnos's Coffin doesn't fall into this since both parts make sense independently of each other (other than the fact that the two parts are linked and the delayed trigger will know what the first part exiled), so you just apply the first part and then proceed to the second.

Daniel Kitachewsky
L3, Paris, France
Rules NetRep