Some newbie questions

[policehq]

1) How "infinite" is infinite?

Example problem:
My opponent has made a Lethal Vapors/Glacial Chasm/Sacred Ground deck. I am not playing any Powder Kegs, disks, Disenchants, land destruction, etc. He skips his next 1,000 turns to activate Lethal Vapor's ability, so obviously I want to do the same thing and play the game out. How far can he go in response? Is there a limit to the amount of mana you can produce/turns you can skip/life you can gain/life you can make your opponent lose/etc?

2) Do "comes into play" abilities have to be satisfied in order for a creature to come into play?

Example problem:
I want to play a Viridian Shaman, but there are no artifacts on the board.

3) Does Gilded Drake and Erratic Portal work as a combo that, in a sense, reads, "U11: Gain control of one of your opponents' creatures?"

4) Can Shunt redirect Last Word to itself (Shunt), essentially "countering" Last Word?

Thanks,
Barry

[Pyromaniac]

1) How "infinite" is infinite?

As there's no such thing as "infinite", you have to name some number if you have a loop you can stop yourself. This might be 2 times, or 9*10^97865 times.

2) Do "comes into play" abilities have to be satisfied in order for a creature to come into play?

No, if the ability can't find a legal target, it'll 'fizzle', aka do nothing.

3) Does Gilded Drake and Erratic Portal work as a combo that, in a sense, reads, "U11: Gain control of one of your opponents' creatures?"

No, because the Gilded Drake goes under the control of your opponent, and thus, if he can(and will) pay 1 mana, it won't be returned

[policehq]

1) How "infinite" is infinite?

As there's no such thing as "infinite", you have to name some number if you have a loop you can stop yourself. This might be 2 times, or 9*10^97865 times.

Hmm, this does not settle the problem, though. If he names a number (even the number you said), I can name the same number in response on the stack, and then in response he can name the same number once again, and so on. Does the game end up in a match because of time limit, or is there a limit to the number of times he can activate Lethal Vapors' ability?

Thanks for the other answers.

Barry

[Pyromaniac]

Text (SC): Whenever a creature comes into play, destroy it. ; : Destroy ~this~. You skip your next turn. Any player may play this ability.

As I read it, the paying of 0 mana is the activation cost, not the skipping if the turn, that's part of the effect. Problem with this loop is, that if it's allowed to be played out as you say, then there would be no end to it.

However, I think that once it's destroyed, no more turns will be skipped since the first part of the effect can no longer be carried out, so there would be no more turns to skip cause Lethal Vapors can't be destroyed anymore. At most, 1 turn would be skipped.

I'm not really sure on this, some rules guru will come walking in here sometime in the next 2 hours or so and clarify it totally.

[Squee]

Actually it depends whose turn it is.  The active player's(aka the player whose turn it is) abilities will go onto the stack first so you will always have the last say in how many times the Vapors can be activated your abilities will resolve first so you destroy the vapors and skip your next turn.  

I'm pretty sure thats how it works but i don't know all of the details.

[DEA]

Many readers commented that the combo of Glacial Chasm and Lethal Vapors doesn't work, since the opponent can just respond to the 100 activations of Lethal Vapors by activating it 100 times in response. In fact, though, if handled carefully the combo does work. After the opponent activates it 100 times, the first player can activate it another 100 times, and then the opponent can do the same, and so on. In the end somebody has to break the loop. In this case, Magic's infinite loop rules say that the nonactive player basically gets to choose what happens.

the above comes from rune horvik, saturday school 50