Death-throes Raptor
Creature - Dinosaur (R)
First strike
Whenever a Dinosaur creature you control would die, ~ deals 1 damage to it.
2/1
The intent of a trigger is to get a one last use of the soon-to-be-dead dinosaur's enrage. I think it does not work as of now - since creatures are removed via state-based-actions, when a creature would die, it would trigger the above ability, but then it would be put into graveyard before the ability resolves and it could not be damaged.
Or maybe not. I know that a replacement ("instead...") effect would do the trick, but I do not know how to word it in a clean manner either.
Death trigger
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Lorn Asbord Schutta
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spacemonaut
Bauble reclaimer - Posts: 1380
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As a triggered ability, it won't work for the reasons you outlined: the dinosaur is gone and can't be damaged anymore.
However when working with replacement effects you have to consider what you're replacing: the replaced event never happens, instead the thing you replace it with happens. You don't want immortal dinosaurs!
I think this would work:
Multiple raptors layer their replacement effects and work in multiples fairly intuitively. One sees the original death and replaces it with [1 damage, then dies]. The next sees that death and replaces the event with [1 damage, then [1 damage, then dies]], and so on.
There's also potential to introduce a new class of replacement effects to CR 614, an "as [some creature] dies" replacement effect that modifies the death by interacting with the creature as it's still on the battlefield, essentially as a shorthand for the above:
Note that we avoid writing abilities as "when ... instead", because then it becomes ambiguous whether it's a triggered ability that happens after the event (which has definitely happened), or a replacement effect that happens at the time of the event and prevents and replaces it.
However when working with replacement effects you have to consider what you're replacing: the replaced event never happens, instead the thing you replace it with happens. You don't want immortal dinosaurs!
I think this would work:
This catches the die event and replaces it with something else. The something else is that the Raptor pings it—it is still there on the battlefield at this point, so its enrage ability is triggered and will be put on the stack the next time someone gets priority—and then it is ushered away to the graveyard as per the original plan, keeping its mortality an assured fact. This quite literally sneaks an extra 1 damage in as it goes.If a Dinosaur you control would die, instead ~ deals 1 damage to it and then that Dinosaur dies.
Multiple raptors layer their replacement effects and work in multiples fairly intuitively. One sees the original death and replaces it with [1 damage, then dies]. The next sees that death and replaces the event with [1 damage, then [1 damage, then dies]], and so on.
There's also potential to introduce a new class of replacement effects to CR 614, an "as [some creature] dies" replacement effect that modifies the death by interacting with the creature as it's still on the battlefield, essentially as a shorthand for the above:
----As a Dinosaur you control dies, ~ deals 1 damage to it.
Note that we avoid writing abilities as "when ... instead", because then it becomes ambiguous whether it's a triggered ability that happens after the event (which has definitely happened), or a replacement effect that happens at the time of the event and prevents and replaces it.
