Stifle And Maddess

[Petey4335]

I'm almost complete positive I can stifle a Basking Rootwalla being played via Madness with Stifle, but as of yet I have not seen a decent explanation for why it works, or what happens to the Rootwalla once the Madness thrigger is stifled.

My thought is that it would go something like this:

a) (per some discard effect) discard Rootwalla
b) Player A removes Rootwalla from the game
c) Player A Plays Madness Cost of 0 and Rootwalla is put on the Stack
d) Player A passes priority, rootwalla does not get put into graveyard since the Madness cost was played.
e) Player B Plays Stifle targeting the Activated Madness Ability.
f)  Stifle resolves, Countering the Rootwalla, leaving the rootwalla in the Removed From Game Zone.

Can someone please confirm (or disprove) my thoughts?

[Jebus]

You CAN stifle madness, but you have a few things wrong.  For one thing, Madness has no activated abilities.  It has a replacement effect and some triggered abilities.

The scenario goes more like this.

Opponent Discards Rootwalla and choses to remove it from the game instead of putting it into the graveyard.  This triggers the Madness trigger.

Madness trigger goes on the stack.  When it resolves, they have until they next pass priority to play the spell.

What you need to do is counter the Madness trigger before it resolves.  This leaves the Rootwalla in the removed from game zone and they are unable to play it.

They never actually play the Madness spell if you Stifle the Madness trigger, so if the Madness cost was greater than 0, they would not be paying it.

[Lockdown]

Jebus is correct.  Here is the CrystalKeep text for madness which can be found in my Rules FAQ thread up top:

#  502.24a - Madness is a keyword that represents two abilities. The first is a static ability that functions while the card with madness is in a player's hand. The second is a triggered ability that functions when the first ability is applied. The phrase "Madness [cost]" means "If a player would discard this card from his or her hand, that player discards it, but may remove it from the game instead of putting it into his or her graveyard" and "When this card is removed from the game this way, until that player passes next, the player may play it any time he or she could play an instant as though it were in his or her hand by paying [cost]  rather than paying its mana cost. When the player passes next, he or she puts this card into his or her graveyard." [CompRules 2003/10/01]
# 502.24.Ruling.1 - The fine grain timing around this ability can be a bit difficult to follow. What happens is that if you discard the card (it does not matter why you are discarding), then you get the choice of whether or not you want a chance to play the card. If you don't want to, simply put it in your graveyard as normal. If you might want to, you do not pay at this time. Instead you remove the card from the game and put a triggered ability on the stack (as per those rules, see Rule 404). What this means is that players may respond to this trigger with other spells and abilities. Once any responses are resolved and both players pass, the triggered ability resolves. You can now play that spell just like you would as if it were in your hand (but it is not in your hand) by paying the Madness cost instead of the mana cost. And this spell can be played any time an instant is legal, regardless of its type. As normal, you can only play a spell or ability when it is your opportunity to do so. The text saying "until he or she passes next" means that you can choose to put other spells or abilities on the stack prior to playing the Madness spell. [D'Angelo 2002/02/23]

Also, there was some minor discussion of this topic a few threads down and I've linked it here as an additional reference.