mind flayer to linvana keeper of silence defect ?
unless i'm stupid, which i'm not, i think, even if sometimes i have silly moments. i was using mind flayer to control an opponents linvana, keeper of silence (which is a, opponents activated abilities cannot be activated or cast), I was playing against the classic life point spam tank deck of soul warden cards (whenever a creature enters the battlefield you gain 1 life) .. is that not an activated ability is that passive? wait. because if my mind flayer controlled linvana which would have capped the activating ability of gaining a life point each time a creature enters the battlefield, why and how did my opponent continue to gain life points? maybe i'm mistaken. this was on historic, of course.
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[Deleted User] commented
No, Soul Warden and its ilk have TRIGGERED abilities. Linvala doesn't stop those.
An ACTIVATED ability is an ability written in the form [cost]:[effect], ALWAYS, either on the card directly, or in the rules for a keyword ability (for example, equip). A player chooses to activate an activated ability, and pays its costs, they never activate automatically.
A TRIGGERED ability always uses the words "when", "whenever", or "at" to state the triggering condition, and will go off, whenever that condition is met. Players don't get a choice in this.
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[Deleted User] commented
Soul Warden has a triggered ability, not an activated ability