dark depths and moon interactions

[TheRogue]

i wanted to double check what happens to dark depths (land) when blood moon or magus of the moon are in the battlefield.

dark depths-

legendary snow land

Oracle text: Dark Depths enters the battlefield with ten ice counters on it.
3: Remove an ice counter from Dark Depths.
When Dark Depths has no ice counters on it, sacrifice it. If you do, put an indestructible legendary 20/20 black Avatar creature token with flying named Marit Lage onto the battlefield.

(both blood and magus make non basics lands into mountains as almost everyone knows them by name.)

questions.

i'm sure that if i play dark depths with either magus or blood in play its enter the battlefield ability with the counters will go off. (i really hope i'm wrong! : ) ) so you would have a mountain with 10 ice counters on it correct?

the legendary and snow types on the card are confusing me some what. I know both magus and blood make artifact lands into artifact mountains. would dark depths be a legendary mountain and to boot a snow mountain?

if say i found some trickery and was able to prevent dark depths from entering the battlefield with those ice counters would the triggered ability automatically go off or would i have to use that remove ice counters ability to cause the trigger to go off? what i'm saying is does the marit lage ability only go off after the process of attempting to remove the counters thru what ever counter removing "means" are employed"

[Clariax]

With Blood Moon (or Magus of the) on the battlefield, Dark Depths will still enter with 10 counters.  Blood Moon does not affect supertypes at all, so it's still both Legendary and Snow.

The triggered ability Dark Depths has (when not removed by Blood Moon's ability) triggers at any time Dark Depths is in play with no ice counters on it.

[TheRogue]

I gotta necro this thread as I got questions about dark depths triggered ability.

What i've heard through word of mouth (these mouths aren't 100% reliable) that the 20/20 trigger ability on Dark depths is sudo immune to stifle. That the trigger ability automatically triggers again after being stifled because all the counters are removed. Is this true it sort of unstiflable?

Second question is the triggered ability and wasteland. can you respond to the trigger and wasteland it before the sacrifice would occur? (my guts telling me no as it sacrifices to trigger thus nothing for wastland to target.) Though it sacrifices doesn't the trigger check the counters before the sacrifice leaving a window of oppportunity to wasteland it?

[Rico Suave]

When Dark Depths has 0 ice counters, its ability will trigger and then go on the stack.  The sacrifice is a part of resolution of the triggered ability however.

Notice how it says:

"When there are no ice counters on Dark Depths, sacrifice it.  If you do...."

Thus when you Stifle the ability you are actually only countering the sacrifice.  The rest of the ability will fail, because the conditions after "if you do" are not met, however Dark Depths will still be in play with 0 ice counters and a second triggered ability will be immediately placed on the stack afterwords.  The Dark Depths will still be in play and without further interference it will go through the whole trigger and its controller will end up with a token.

Wasteland will be able to prevent Dark Depths from making a token however.  When the Dark Depths has 0 ice counters, its triggered ability will be put on the stack.  During that period you can Wasteland the Dark Depths, and then when the triggered ability resolves it will look to see if its controller sacrificed Dark Depths which is not true.  As a result the rest of the ability will fail and since Dark Depths is no longer in play there is no chance for a second trigger.

The key part is that the sacrifice is in the resolution of the triggered ability.  It is not a cost. 

[SiegeX]

Thus when you Stifle the ability you are actually only countering the sacrifice.  The rest of the ability will fail, because the conditions after "if you do" are not met

I'm fairly sure this is wrong, the 'If you do' part is still part of the triggered ability and thus gets countered along with everything else.  However this minor correction does not change the validity of the rest of your post.

[TheRogue]

So its impossible for stifle cause it to be sacrificed in the process of countering the ability? If i'm reading this correctly.

[Rico Suave]

Thus when you Stifle the ability you are actually only countering the sacrifice.  The rest of the ability will fail, because the conditions after "if you do" are not met

I'm fairly sure this is wrong, the 'If you do' part is still part of the triggered ability and thus gets countered along with everything else.  However this minor correction does not change the validity of the rest of your post.

Yes, this is correct.  I suppose I made it sound like a trigger that triggers off a trigger. =D

So its impossible for stifle cause it to be sacrificed in the process of countering the ability? If i'm reading this correctly.

The Stifle will counter the trigger, however Dark Depths is *only* sacrificed when its trigger resolves.  If you counter the ability and stop it from resolving, the Dark Depths will not be sacrificed and remain in play.

After Stifle is in the graveyard, the Dark Depths will still be in play with 0 ice counters on it.  It will then immediately trigger the ability (a second time), which will then put the token into play.

[Clariax]

Dark Depths has what is called a State Trigger.  This is a special category of triggered ability that triggers based only on a condition being true rather than on an event happening (or both).  Most triggered abilities trigger when an event happens, a creature enters the battlefield, a player plays a spell, a creature attacks, a phase or step begins.  Such an ability triggers once whenever the event occurs.  State triggers are a bit different because while the ability is on the stack, the condition that caused it to trigger will (likely) still be true.  Were it to then trigger again immediately, this would cause a problem as it would keep triggering infinitely.  As such, there is a rule to prevent this.  A state trigger only triggers if the condition is true AND such a trigger isn't already on the stack.  This prevents the infinite triggers problem, and means that as soon as the stifle resolves countering the trigger, since the trigger condition is still (likely) true, and it's now no longer on the stack, it will trigger again.