Hi,

Pretty new to the game and haven't played a lot so apologies if I missed something obvious.

How does Shadow Self work in combination with destroying one of it's neighbours?

I found some references to questions in regards to shadow self and they all seem to fall back to the damage principle to explain it's effects. I also haven't found a real defintion of what game technically happens when you destroy a creature. From what I read if you deal enoug damage to a creature equal to it's power it is destroyed and in that logic I would assume that if you have a card that says 'destroy' a creature you would deal damage until the damage done to it equals its power.

So following that logic would 'destroying' a neigbour from Shadow Self first destroy Shadow Self and then the neighbour?

Based on how I read/interpret the rules the below happens:

- To 'destroy' the neghbour I need to deal it damage equal to its power

- The first 9 damage I would try to deal it in this process (if you apply it step by step) would go to Shadow Self

- Shadow Self is detroyed

- The neighbour still lives so I haven't completed my part of the card that states that I am going to 'destroy' it

- I keep dealing damage until it has received damage equal to it's power and it is destroyed

It is pretty clear in the rules what happens when a card is detroyed, but not what the action 'destroy' actually does game technically (or I missed it)

If 'destroy' (the action, not the effect destroyed) means you immediately trigger the effect 'destroyed' skipping all other steps I guess you would just destroy the neighbour, but if you actually need to go through the steps in my head both would be destroyed as you would keep dealing damage until there is enough equal to it's power, but due to Shadow Self that won't happen until that is destroyed as that would first soak as much damage as it can.

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction if I missed the obvious answer to this.

Can you give us the card or affect you are referring to in this example? A card can directly kill a neighbor of shadow self without destroying shadow self.

For example, Hand of Dis could destroy a neighbor of shadow self without destroying shadow self since it is destroying the card and not dealing damage.

Gaining damage equal to power causes a creature to be destroyed. Being destroyed can be caused other ways, like if a card just says "destroy creature". No implied damage is dealt (you generally don't imply things, you just do what cards say)

Shadow self wouldn't be destroyed, it only redirects damage, not other effects.

Destroy means simply to place a card in the discard pile, resolving any "destroyed" effects before the card leaves play if the creature has them.

2 hours ago, saluk64007 said:

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Destroy means simply to place a card in the discard pile  , resolving any "destroyed" effects before the card leaves play if the creature has them.

Ok, thank you.

It's this part that I couldn't really find in the rules, hence my original question. The only real rule I found was the one linked to damage in regards to destroying and that is why I wondered.

I understand things aren't implied, but generally speaking you also shouldn't assume that steps are skipped (in this case dealing damage to reach the destroyed state).

So far I've played the 'destroy a creature' effects as you describe (simply place in discard pile, resolving any destroyed effects), but as I saw a few rulings I didn't expect I thought it couldn't hurt to ask as I couldn't see a black and white answer in the rules.

54 minutes ago, Ikweethetniet said:

Ok, thank you.

It's this part that I couldn't really find in the rules, hence my original question. The only real rule I found was the one linked to damage in regards to destroying and that is why I wondered.

I understand things aren't implied, but generally speaking you also shouldn't assume that steps are skipped (in this case dealing damage to reach the destroyed state).

So far I've played the 'destroy a creature' effects as you describe (simply place in discard pile, resolving any destroyed effects), but as I saw a few rulings I didn't expect I thought it couldn't hurt to ask as I couldn't see a black and white answer in the rules.

Most of the info (including an entry for destroyed) can be found in the glossary - and yeah, there are a lot of gotchas, and some concepts where you need to correlate info from multiple parts of the rules. But it's almost all in there since the last rules update.