Commander Death Triggers

[ISBPathfinder]

Lets say my opponent has a Fool's Demise on my commander given the new rule 7 in commander:

If a commander is in a graveyard or in exile and that card was put into that zone since the last time state-based actions were checked, its owner may put it into the command zone. If a commander would be put into its owner's hand or library from anywhere, its owner may put it into the command zone instead. This replacement effect may apply more than once to the same event.

So....... how exactly do you process the new commanders die? I am not really sure how to handle triggers and state based effects. I feel like the death triggers would go on the stack and then state based actions would go over them but I could be wrong and state based resolve before. Given that it looks like you only get one state based action to trigger when a commander dies to push them out of grave to command zone, when does that happen and how do death triggers work with this new state based movement? I get that if you move to command zone its done but I don't know when the state based kicks in and resolves in comparison to when the triggers happen.

I guess I have a second question.... can you respond to a state based action? Could I stifle someone's commander moving from grave to command zone? (I don't think I can)

[WizardMN]

First, the easy one: no, you cannot respond to State Based Actions. They are things the game does to clean things up. Usually this is just putting creatures in the graveyard if they have enough damage on them or their toughness is 0 or less. Or doing the same with Planeswalkers with 0 loyalty. Or just making a player lose to a few different things.

But, for you main question: triggers that attempt to do something to the card do not work. That is the gist of the new rules which means it basically mirrors the old rules. Anything that does anything to a commander when it dies or is exiled and is a trigger works the exact same as it used to: either the commander is left in the zone so the trigger can find it or it is moved and the trigger loses track. The only real difference is that things like Fool's Demise actually trigger now, but the end result is the same.

Compare that to something like Necromantic Selection. Notice that it destroys things and then pulls something out of the graveyard as part of the same effect. Since State Based Actions are not checked in the middle of a spell or ability resolving, the commander is still in the graveyard before the owner gets a chance to move it. This is why triggers don't work; there is always a check for state based actions prior to that trigger resolving (and prior to it going on the stack technically).