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Here is a question that arose on a different thread, but I want to give it its own spot because it has major game play repercussions...

You make a rescue with some White dude and I block with Black. You have initiative and play Blessings. Initiative passes to me and I play Wrath of Satan.  I still have initiative and play Bringing Fear. Are all the heroes in play wiped out?

According to your logic above... When Bringing Fear was played, it Negated the Good Negate, and now Wrath of Satan, not having been negated, takes effect.

That is correct from my understanding.

My understanding is that (since Wrath of Satan was prevented when it was played) it would not activate at some later time when the card preventing it is negated.

The explanation I've heard is that cards only activate once.  If they're prevented (i.e. stopped before they activate) they can't activate again.

The best example I've seen is Tower of Thebez.  If it's occupied, and my EC's are Cannanite, my opponent's hero will be negated upon rescuing.  If I then block with a non-Cannanite, Tower no longer works, but the rescuing hero does not have it's ability activate.  If another hero is then banded into battle, their ability will activate.

It's a fine example.  Tower's no longer negating heroes, but the original hero does not activate.

/Though I'd certainly rule against one banding with an un-gathered Matthew.

Can I get an example where that would make a difference?  (Tired right now, could be missing something)

Right, one can't re-target after targets have been selected.  But that's targeting, not negating.

So you would rule that if I then played Bringing Fear, Zeb would be discarded?

That is not correct. In the situation above, playing Bringing Fear after Wrath of Satan would not cause Zeb to be discarded. Wrath of Satan is an instant ability (discard), therefore it cannot discard anything further after it resolves, and when it resolves Zeb is in a state of ignoring it.

The only way playing Bringing Fear after WoS could possibly discard an ignoring Zeb is if Zeb (for whatever reason) interrupted Wrath and then you played a black interrupt/play next and played Bringing Fear.

As far as I know, MJB is correct in saying that abilities activate once and if they are negated/prevented at that point then they don't activate or reactivate later.

I know I'm right about the Zeb/WoS/BF question. Zeb's ignore is active when WoS resolves, so he cannot be discarded by it even if you negate his ability later (unless, as I said, you interrupt WoS before negating Zeb).

And I've always played it the way I'm describing, and I know I'm right. See a pattern here? This will take an elder ruling.

Actually, it's not a targeting matter, it's an instant ability matter. WoS is instant, it can only discard heroes when it resolves, no other time. Zeb is ignoring when it resolves, therefore he is not discarded. That's it for WoS, it's done. It doesn't care how the battle progresses from there unless someone interrupts or negates it. It has nothing to do with targeting in this case.

And I've always played it the way I'm describing, and I know I'm right. See a pattern here? This will take an elder ruling.

WoS is an instant ability. It is not ongoing, it does not have a delayed trigger, it's just a plain discard. What possible reason do you have to justify that an instant ability with no other conditions can discard twice at two different points in a battle?

Wrath doesn't discard Zeb if you play Bringing Fear afterwards.

There's your Elder ruling for you.

I don't believe the issue is about time of activation and re-activation, but rather targeting. I believe Wrath CAN reactivate (I could be wrong), but it won't re-assess targets. It targets characters once, and that's it. So if it is then NOT negated and activates later, it will activate (once again, I'm not 100% positive) but only destroy the characters it would have already discarded if it had activated the first time.

If it enters play already negated, I'm not sure how that'd work as I'm not sure if it technically chose targets, since it was negated.

I agree. When the discard happens, it happens. It doesn't re-happen just because something new happened. You can look "discard" up in the REG and it will tell you that it's an instant ability.

This kind of stuff really irks me.  It's my understanding that a negate allows you to go back in time, thus, if the enhancement doing the discard cannot complete because the target is protected, you would have to negate the protect BEFORE playing the discard enhancement (In this case WoS).  The enhancement process serves as a time-line of how the battle is going to progress, so, here's the simplified scenario: Hero ignores EC, EC plays discard enhancement targeting the ignored Hero (Thus it can't complete), Bringing Fear is played to negate Hero, from that point on, Hero's SA is negated unless BF is somehow interrupted or negated.  However, BF does NOT go back in time beyond WoS to make the Hero a successful target. 

So here is the time-line: Zeb activates and ignores, WoS activates, BF activates, Zeb no longer ignores.

What people are thinking is happening: Zeb activates and ignores, BF negates and Zeb no longer ignores, WoS activates and succeeds, BF activates and goes back in time to make the previous possible.  <- Not logical in any way.

Other version:  Zeb activates and ignores, WoS activates and fails, BF activates and Zeb no longer ignores, WoS is then successful and Zeb is discarded.  <- Also not logical.

BF is not interrupting WoS, so WoS will activate before BF, thus, making WoS useless except for numbers.

In order to make WoS successful, you would have to play BF before WoS.  The problem is, in that case, Zeb is no longer ignoring the EC, so his "player" is subject to gain initiative. 

Solution 2: Play an interrupt the battle (after WoS) and play an enhancement (BF).  This would then interrupt WoS before it completes and thus make Zeb a successful target without his "player" being subject to initiative.

If my logic here is way off here, then I really have no idea how to play this game anymore because it's become more complex than necessary.  You have to look at what BF is interrupting and preventing (Negating), and it's NOT WoS.

Ha, well then, you would need an enhancement that states: "Regardless of protection, etc..."

Since Zeb isn't a valid target, no matter what you do in battle, you will not succeed in harming/effecting Zebulun.  I don't understand what this argument is even about then.  Zeb would have to be negated by an ability outside of battle or an enhancement that includes my above statement. 

There really isn't any way for an ignored character to affect the one doing the ignoring, so please clarify what this argument is about.

Thats not quite true C_S if the character is already in battle and an enhancement is played that makes it ignored, then you have special initiative to play an interrupt. It doesn't need to be regardless of protection as long as you are interrupting that enhancement

As mentioned, CBP abilities CBN i.e. No matter what, you cannot prevent the ability.  You can interrupt and discard, and you can interrupt via a negate or standard interrupt, you just have to realize that unless you discard the CBP card, it will still activate.

Unfortunatly this is not true, you can interrupt and prevent a CBP prevented card.  We had a discussion on this too long ago when I argued that you should not be able to interrupt and prevent a CBP card but I was wrong.  Let me go find that thread for all.  The ultimate questions that needs to be answered is how does negate really work in the stack.  If a Play WoS and it prevented and the battle moves on, and later in that battle the prevent that stopped WoS is negated, why shouldn't it now activate?  I know that this a different scenario than the targeting issue but I believe it still has merit. 

***UPDATE*** here is the thread I was talking about CBP cards can be interrupted and prevented.

The only time one can "rewind" with a negate is when has initiative by removal.

Fixed that for you, you can negate any time you have initiative.  What you can negate is slightly different.

Ah I misundersttod, I was under the impression that when you have intiative by removal that your negates takes place after the ability removing you, I don't think it is considered played before it.  Hrmm now I have to think.

Quote

As mentioned, CBP abilities CBN i.e. No matter what, you cannot prevent the ability.  You can interrupt and discard, and you can interrupt via a negate or standard interrupt, you just have to realize that unless you discard the CBP card, it will still activate.

The ultimate questions that needs to be answered is how does negate really work in the stack.  If a Play WoS and it prevented and the battle moves on, and later in that battle the prevent that stopped WoS is negated, why shouldn't it now activate? 

My thought would be that if the prevent is specifically targeted, then the negate is going to go back in time all the way to that enhancement and "erase" it.  Thus meaning, the abilities work as if the prevent was never played.  Most other games do not seem to have abilities that activate completely mid-battle.  They prefer a "Move-Counter-move" system where at the end of the battle, the abilities then activate according to the cards played.  I.e. If you played a negate on a certain enhancement (No matter when), that negate will mean when you finally do go through the abilities, it will be as if the negated card had not ability from the beginning. 

I can see the argument a bit more clearly now, but I still believe that if you are negating a certain card played way previously in the battle, you are doing a bit "time-travel." 

Hey,

Cards activate when they hit the table. If something is negated when it hits the table, it stays negated even if the prevent was negated later on in battle because cards can only activate once.

It would be like recuing with Benaiah while I block with Lying spirit. If someone played a card that "Negate all special abilities except banding. Can not be negated." Lying spirit would not get to activate his ability because his ability was already activated, but it was prevented at the time of activation.

Then Negates are rather pointless don't you think?  The way negates have been explained to me, you are in essence re-writing the way the battle occurred.  From the interpretation you are giving, then, a negate only affects the card played immediately before it, and all cards played after it because by that time, the abilities previous have all activated already, thus, there isn't anything to interrupt and prevent.  It's already been done. 

I don't know about you, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  If a negate all special abilities card is played, it goes back in time to before any of those enhancements were played in the battle, and before the character abilities activated, and re-writes the game from there.

You can't have one and not the other if you are going to remain logical, either the "negate all" travels back in time and renders the affected cards useless (Except BTN), or it only affects the card played immediately before it and all on-going special abilities + the cards played after it. 

I am prepared to clarify.