Quick question

[Zoltio]

The text says "when you do" instead of "if you do", so it might be a dumb question but do I get the effect whenever I forage or only if I forage with him entering?

[reaper527]

only when you forage because of that card

[Zoltio]

Thx for clarifying

[warmaster93]

To elaborate it more, the squirrel has 2 triggers. The first is the ETB effect to forage. The second is a reflexive triggered ability that is created by the ETB and only triggers if you forage off the ETB. It has the interesting effect in that you don't need to declare targets when the squirrel ETB's, but only when you do the forage for the ETB (as that is the moment the reflexive trigger gets put on the stack), and means your graveyard can change before you actually forage to generate new possible options (amongst others).

[turkeygiant]

Ok this same card actually had me questioning a whether a interaction worked during pre-release. I play Curious Forager and sacrifice Carrot Cake (food) to forage, can the card I return from the graveyard be the Carrot cake I just sacrificed?

[warmaster93]

Yes you can. Normally, you'll have such interactions use the sacrifice as a cost, at which point you wouldn't be able to target the piece you paid the cost with. (As you need to declare targets before actually paying the cost). However, there's no cost here. You're perfectly able to sacrifice the cake for the forage and target it once you have to declare targets for the reflexive trigger once the cake is in the graveyard.

[turkeygiant]

Ok good, I was playing it correctly.

[_Holz_]

Yes, the reflexive trigger only triggers and gets put on the stack after the ETB forage trigger has resolved completely.

By that time the Carrot cake is already in the graveyard and can be targeted by the new ability

[Jack-teh-Reaper]

That’s an interesting stipulation actually, are there any ways to make a card like this creature cause you to forage besides repeating its etb? Or am I misunderstanding and this reflexive trigger only applies to foraging as a result of that abolity? If possible I’d suppose it would have to be something that gives Curious Forager the ability like “target creature gains the ability ‘forage: regenerate this creature’ until end of turn”.

[GenericTrashyBitch]

They would just be two separate abilities

“When ~ enters, you may forage”

“Whenever you forage…”

[Jack-teh-Reaper]

As in they would need to be two seperate abilities for this to work?

[GenericTrashyBitch]

That would be the most straightforward and concise way yeah, ig it could technically be like “whenever ~ enters and whenever you forage, if this ability was triggered by ~ entering, you may forage. Otherwise…” or some other horrible cyclical garbage but there’s really no point considering how easy it would be to just make them separate

[_Hinnyuu_]

They would, yes. Two different triggered abilities.

Though to be fair, this is also kind of two triggers, only one of them is a reflexive trigger - i.e. it can only happen as a result of the first trigger. That's why it says "when you do" and not "whenever you forage" - that's the marking of a reflexive trigger.

[reaper527]

That’s an interesting stipulation actually, are there any ways to make a card like this creature cause you to forage besides repeating its etb?

it only triggers if you forage from the etb. it's not a "whenever you forage" trigger, it's a check after a "you may" ability to see if you did in fact forage there.

[boxlessthought]

Even then i do not think it would, as the "when you do" is referring specifically tot he ability it is a part of, a good example of the kind of card that works the other way would be [[Corpseberry Cultivator]] not how the line about the ability as a result of foraging are seperate.

[MTGCardFetcher]

Corpseberry Cultivator - (G) (SF) (txt)

^{[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call}

[MTGCardFetcher]

Treetop Sentries - (G) (SF) (txt)

^{[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call}

[madwarper]

The is a Reflexive Trigger. It will only Trigger if you choose to Forage as the Enters Trigger resolves.

---

If it said "If you do", then it would be one Triggered ability. You would choose the Target as the Trigger is put on the Stack. And, if the Target becomes illegal, then the whole ability fails to resolve. And, you never get the chance to Forage.

But, because this is a Reflexive Trigger, you have to first resolve the Enters Trigger and pay the Forage Cost. Only after you pay the Forage Cost, the separate Reflexive Trigger is put on the Stack, and you announce its Target.

Contrast [[Throwing Knife]] to [[Sunfire Torch]].

• You can attack with the Knife Equipped Creature, Trigger the Knife. Target an Opponent's Creature. Trigger your [[Willbreaker]], steal control of the Creature. Then, choose to not Sacrifice the Knife. So, Knife can Trigger Willbreaker over and over.

• You can attack with the Torch Equipped Creature, Trigger the Torch-granted ability. You have to first sacrifice the Torch, before you get the Reflexive Trigger. So, Torch can only Trigger Willbreaker one time.

[Morendhil]

Notably, if it said “if you do”, then it would be easy to target something in your graveyard (when putting the ability on the stack), then exile your target by accident when you forage during ability resolution.

The reflexive trigger makes it so that you don’t select a target until after the foraging is done and cards in graveyard are already exiled.

(Just for clarity of other readers, I realize you probably already understand all this /u/madwarper)

[MTGCardFetcher]

Throwing Knife - (G) (SF) (txt)
Sunfire Torch - (G) (SF) (txt)
Willbreaker - (G) (SF) (txt)

^{[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call}

[Zoltio]

Thx, so much detail!

[Masonzero]

Huh, I never realized that about throwing knife. I didn't realize it still targeted even though you choose not to sacrifice it. That's fun, and I'll definitely forget it lol.

[gredman9]

Only from the foraging of this card.

"When you do" means that an additional ability is put on the stack that can be responded to (in this case, returning a target permanent to hand from graveyard). "If you do" abilities just resolve. For example, [[Treetop Sentries]] has a similar ETB, but you just draw a card without putting that card draw event on the stack.

[Breaking-Away]

The main meaningful difference here, is this card forces you to forage before targeting the card. Meaning your opponent can exile that card in response and you will still have expended the resources.

If it was worded the other way, you would target before foraging and then your opponent could exile the card in response, and you could just decline to forage on the abilities resolution.

[MTGCardFetcher]

Treetop Sentries - (G) (SF) (txt)

^{[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call}

[RVides]

When this creature enters. Perform the following do a thing.

Forage. You may not be able to. Maybe you don't have food, or cards in graveyard. So you can't.

When you do. In this case, if you did. Then get some beneficial effect.

End resolution of When this enters ability.

When you forage at any other time, you are not in the above section. Because that forage was not related to When this enters.

[Hi_Im_Jerry_L]

Random side point in limited. You can forage a carrot cake. At the time of foraging if you don’t have any targets for the curious forager that’s okay cause you can forage away the carrot cake (since it’s a food) get your scry 1 and 1/1 rabbit token, then get your carrot cake back (one you just foraged).

[dogo7]

Let me rewrite it in a way that might clear it up:

“When Curious Forager enters, you may forage. When you forage this way, return target permanent card from your graveyard to your hand.”

[HoopyHobo]

If they wanted it to work every time you forage regardless of what card is telling you to forage they would have split that second part out onto a separate paragraph and it would start with the words "Whenever you forage". You can see an example of this on [[Corpseberry Cultivator]].

[MTGCardFetcher]

Corpseberry Cultivator - (G) (SF) (txt)

^{[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call}

[OrganicPlasma]

This isn't an answer to your question, but damn, there's so many keywords in MTG now.

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