Illicit Masquerade bugged?
So I think this is a bug, but someone can correct me if it's not. Sorry for no pictures, I was too confused at the time to think about taking screenshots.
Illicit Masquerade {3}{B}
Flash
When Illicit Masquerade enters the battlefield, put an impostor counter on each creature you control.
Whenever a creature you control with an impostor counter on it dies, exile it. Return up to one other target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
I would like to point out that it does not say "may," it just says to do it. And "dying equals exile" generally means it goes straight to exile and not the graveyard.
So opponent's side of the field had out Illicit Masquerade, Snarling Gorehound with an Imposter Counter, Unscrupulous Agent with an Imposter Counter, Chalk Outline, and a Detective creature token from Chalk Outline. Only thing in their graveyard was an Urgent Necropsy.
Not thinking anything of destroying their 1/1s now that they exiled their Agency Coroner, I destroyed both of their creatures with imposter counters in combat.
What I expected to happen: Since Illicit Masquerade states "whenever a creature you control with an impostor counter on it dies, exile it," I had assumed they would both be automatically exiled and they'd get nothing out of it because they had no creatures in their graveyard.
What actually happened: Both creatures went to the graveyard where then Illicit Masquerade's triggers went on the stack and they exiled their Unscrupulous Agent to get their Snarling Gorehound back on the battlefield. Then, since they had 2 creatures leave the graveyard, Chalk Outline triggered twice.
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Rezzahan#77802 commented
The Snarling Gorehound left the graveyard before the corresponding trigger resolved, by means of the other trigger returning it to the battlefield. So the trigger couldn't exile it.
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DAC169#34537 commented
I guess I'm too used to the cards exile themselves when they die.
Still seems kind of weird that Snarling Gorehound didn't get exiled from the trigger. I take it the reason it didn't had something to do with it being back on the battlefield without the imposter counter anymore. "Last known condition" or something like that.
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Rezzahan#77802 commented
"when [some creature] dies, exile it" means it goes to the graveyard (otherwise it wouldn't die, it has to hit the graveyard for a dies trigger to go off). When the trigger resolves, the card in the graveyard is exiled, and stuff happens.
You are confusing that with "if [some creature] would die, exile it instead", which is a replacement effect. In such a case, the creature never goes to the graveyard, but right intop exile, not triggering any dies triggers.
You can recognize a trigger by the use of the words "when", "whenever", or "at" in the description of the trigger condition.
You can recognize the replacement effect by the absence of those words in the condition, and the use of "if ... instead" instead.
So, no bug here, all is as it should be.