<p>The Expert makes your opponent reveal cards equal to the amount of creatures in your party, you then choose one of the revealed cards to discard. What often happens when you play the expert on turn 2, is that you have no other creatures in your party.</p>
<p>What then happens is if your opponent is savvy is that he kills the expert in response to its trigger. This leaves your party empty when the ability resolves, meaning you reveal 0 cards and making it impossible to choose a card to discard.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-30T17:13:38.000Z
2020-12-30T17:13:38.000Z
Neil Meyer
<p>It should have resolved. But a crucial part of that would be knowing how many creatures were in your party when it resolved. If the Acquisitions Expert was the only one and was dead when the ability resolved, the ability won't do anything useful (reveal 0 cards and discard 1 out of 0 cards means discard nothing).</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-29T16:13:24.920Z
2020-12-29T16:13:24.920Z
Becuzz
<p>I played <a href="https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=491722" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Acquisitions Expert</a> in MTG Arena. My opponent reacted with Stomp adventure of <a href="https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=473077" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Bonecrusher Giant</a> and killed the <a href="https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=491722" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Acquisitions Expert</a>. Even though I saw my <a href="https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=491722" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Acquisitions Expert</a>'s ability still being on the stack after Stomp resolved, <a href="https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=491722" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Acquisitions Expert</a>'s ability did not resolve and opponent did not have to discard a card. Why did this happen? I just can't figure it out.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-29T14:37:17.727Z
It should have resolved.  But a crucial part of that would be knowing how many creatures were in your party when it resolved.  If the Acquisitions Expert was the only one and was dead when the ability resolved, the ability won't do anything useful (reveal 0 cards and discard 1/0 cards = discard nothing).
Becuzz
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-29T14:41:04.260Z
@Becuzz That it is! I did not consider that when the ability came to be resolved, the Acquisition Expert was no longer in play so the party was indeed 0 in size and thus empty trigger was skipped instead of showing me 0 cards to choose from. Thanks!
eXPRESS
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-29T15:39:41.293Z
@Becuzz That would be good to post as an answer.
doppelgreener
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-29T17:02:45.300Z
@eXPRESS technically the trigger did resolve (would matter for anything that cares about that, can't think of anything) but MTGa auto chooses target opponent since there's only one, and because it asked to reveal 0 cards and discard 1 out of those 0 the game auto handles things where no actual choices need to be made - but for purposes of anything that might care about triggered abilities resolving, it didn't actually fizzle or skip the trigger, it just resolved behind the scenes doing nothing.
Andrew
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-29T17:20:39.723Z
@Andrew Yeah, you are right I did not word it properly, by skipped I meant auto resolve.
eXPRESS
<magic-the-gathering><mtg-arena>
MTG Arena: Enter battlefield ability denied by killing the creature causing it?
eXPRESS
# MTG Arena: Enter battlefield ability denied by killing the creature causing it?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-12-29)

I played [Acquisitions Expert](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=491722) in MTG Arena. My opponent reacted with Stomp adventure of [Bonecrusher Giant](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=473077) and killed the [Acquisitions Expert](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=491722). Even though I saw my [Acquisitions Expert](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=491722)'s ability still being on the stack after Stomp resolved, [Acquisitions Expert](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=491722)'s ability did not resolve and opponent did not have to discard a card. Why did this happen? I just can't figure it out.

**Tags:** magic-the-gathering, mtg-arena

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: It should have resolved.  But a crucial part of that would be knowing how many creatures were in your party when it resolved.  If the Acquisitions Expert was the only one and was dead when the ability resolved, the ability won't do anything useful (reveal 0 cards and discard 1/0 cards = discard nothing).  
> **username_0**: @username_1 That it is! I did not consider that when the ability came to be resolved, the Acquisition Expert was no longer in play so the party was indeed 0 in size and thus empty trigger was skipped instead of showing me 0 cards to choose from. Thanks!  
> **username_2**: @username_1 That would be good to post as an answer.  
> **username_3**: @username_0 technically the trigger did resolve (would matter for anything that cares about that, can't think of anything) but MTGa auto chooses target opponent since there's only one, and because it asked to reveal 0 cards and discard 1 out of those 0 the game auto handles things where no actual choices need to be made - but for purposes of anything that might care about triggered abilities resolving, it didn't actually fizzle or skip the trigger, it just resolved behind the scenes doing nothing.  
> **username_0**: @username_3 Yeah, you are right I did not word it properly, by skipped I meant auto resolve.  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2020-12-29. Score: 6 | Accepted answer

It should have resolved. But a crucial part of that would be knowing how many creatures were in your party when it resolved. If the Acquisitions Expert was the only one and was dead when the ability resolved, the ability won't do anything useful (reveal 0 cards and discard 1 out of 0 cards means discard nothing).


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### Answer by username_4 on 2020-12-30. Score: 3

The Expert makes your opponent reveal cards equal to the amount of creatures in your party, you then choose one of the revealed cards to discard. What often happens when you play the expert on turn 2, is that you have no other creatures in your party.

What then happens is if your opponent is savvy is that he kills the expert in response to its trigger. This leaves your party empty when the ability resolves, meaning you reveal 0 cards and making it impossible to choose a card to discard.


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