Inconsistent rulings with The Darkness Crystal
I believe [The Darkness Crystal] is coded wrong or the rulings around it are wrong. This applies to if a dying creature would gain you enough life to survive after being put to 0 life. An example would be an opponent's nontoken creature dying in combat but another creature hitting you down to 0 or -1. The question is would you survive at 1 or 2 life in this senario?
(In this situation, for ease, all creatures are vanilla 2/2s) Currently Arena says the opponent's creature would be exiled due to having 0 toughness from combat damage, you would have 0 life from being hit by the creature, but would never gain life thus losing you the game. However, the creature was already exiled, but the lifegain was part of the replacement effect. So why does Arena not take into account the 2 life gained from the creature dying?
Other people have explained this as you would lose the game, but be at 2 life from the lifegain. I believe this is also inaccurate because state-based actions such as “losing from 0 or less life” wouldn't apply, as the next time you regain priority, at the end of combat after damage is applied, you should still have 2 life, thus voiding that state-based action and continuing the game as normal.
WotC_VNDR_Jessie#07208
shared this idea
-
Rezzahan#77802
commented
All state based actions are checked and performed simultaneously. So when the check comes around after combat damage, at least two state based actions have to be performed: a nontoken creature is destroyed, and the defending player loses the game for having 0 or less life. But, there is a replacement effect to apply, so the game does that. And we get: the nontoken creature is exiled and the defending player gains 2 life, and the defending player loses the game. Then those state based actions are performed, simultaneously. Thus, the creature is exiled, the defending player gains 2 life, and loses the game.
IF the defending player would somehow still be in the game after those state based actions, THEN the game would perform another check (because some state based actions had to be done), and that check would not see the defending player at 0 or less life, so that state based action would then not be performed. Alas, the defending player has lost before that second check would be done.
Or think of it this way: state based actions are a checklist, the game ticks of anything that must be corrected, gives that list to the executive, which looks over replacement effects to revise what should be done in those state based actions, then that modified list of consequences is performed. There is no recheck on the original list of what needs to be corrected. But there will be another go around with the checklist afterwards, to see, if something else needs correcting now. And the cycle continues until the checklist comes up empty.