Stifle and Ertai's Meddling

[LotusHead]

I cast Ertai's Meddling on a Swords to Plowshares to spare my Mox Monkey.  When the last counter was removed from Swords, I wanted to Stifle the "if it has no counters, the spell resolves" triggered effect.

Does the Swords simply resolve next turn, or does the Swords stay forever in Ertai's Limbo?

[Limbo]

A triggered ability begins with the word "when," "whenever," or "at." The phrase containing one of these words is the trigger condition, which defines the trigger event.

If the card has no delay counters on it, he or she puts it onto the stack as a copy of the original spell.

As you can see, the effect of ertai's meddling isn't a triggered ability, nor is it an activated ability, so stifle will be of no use to save your monkey.

[AngryPheldagrif]

If the card has no delay counters on it, he or she puts it onto the stack as a copy of the original spell.

This is not a triggered ability. Therefore you cannot Stifle it. It is state-based, IE even if you could Stifle it, it would automatically re-check to see if the counters were gone and re-enter the stack.

-Dan

[edit]: Grr, Sarnath'd.

[LotusHead]

Thanks for clearing that up.  I for some reason thought that At, If or When were the magic words, and that Whenever was included with when.  In the game at stake, we assumed that Sifle would at most delay the "trigger" for one turn once.

Normally, Ertai's is fairly straightforward.

[Matt]

No, the keywords are 'at', 'when', and 'whenever'. Not 'if.

[Bram]

Indeed. If 'if' was a trigger keyword, it would actually work

[Matt]

Well the word 'if' is already used in more than one way - it's used in condtional statements ("If...otherwise") and also for replacement effects ("If...instead"). It's probably used in at least one other way, making it a poor keyword.