Contagion

[Cancerman]

My opponent has 2 creatures: mogg fanatic and jackal pup. I cast contagion targeting both creatures. In response, sacrifices his fanatic to deal 1 damage on me. Does contagion fizzle or do i get to put 2 -2/-1 counters on the pup even though he has only one life?

Thx

 

[Anonymous]

The spell is already on the stack and targeted.  You take 1 damage from the fanatic and one counter is put on the pup killing him.  The other counter no longer has a legal target and is irrelevant.  (Pretty sure thats what happens but I am not gonna claim to be a judge or anything like that)

[Puschkin]

Fist off, spells do not fizzle anymore, they are countered instead. And they only fizzle/get countered this way, if all legal targets are gone. Important here: If the card would have additional effects, those effects do not take place!

Example: Instead of Contagion lets say you used Ashes to Ashes on those two creatures. Ashes to Ashes reads:

Remove two target non-artifact creatures from the game. Ashes to Ashes deals 5 damage to you.

If your opponent responses with saccing the Fanatic in resonse, Ashes to Ashes would still remove the Pup and would still deal 5 damage to the caster of Ashes to Ashes.
If the red player also manages to get rid of the Pup, say, by saccing it to a Goblin Bombardment, then Ashes to Shes would be countered upon resolution and thus would deal no damage to the caster.