I think you would have to win that. the other option would be to start a new game with a first-blood rule, and ew.

If the new SBA is added to the top of the list then you would win. Otherwise I think we get razors sudden death game (Chancellor of the Dross? Respond with Simian Spirit Guide)

Actually I think list position doesn't matter and you go to sudden death either way

Yeah, you get a first-blood game.

do negative life totals count as 0 for all purposes except raising it back up

its literally been years since I read the rules

and I failed the judge test six times before giving up LOL

That's close, but not quite accurate. The actual rule is:

What that boils down to is that your actual life total is used in any necessary calculations or comparisons, even if it's negative. Then, if the result ends up being a negative number and you're trying to do something that doesn't handle negatives, you use 0. (And the only things in Magic that properly handle negatives are setting or modifying creature P/T and setting or doubling a player's life total.)

So Beacon of Immortality on a player with -10 life will actually leave them with -20 life, for example, and Repay in Kind can potentially set everyone's life total to a negative number. Going into negative life with Death's Shadow on the table will actually boost its P/T. And so on.

So when you are resolving a spell or ability, you take the actions in the order they are written down. For example, Steady Progress and Tezzeret's Gambit function slightly differently in that with progress you proliferate then draw while with gambit you draw then proliferate. Most of the time, it doesn't make too much of a difference, but then Lorescale Coatl comes along (with progress, you can only get one +1/+1 counter while Gambit allows you to get three). So my question is when you pay costs to activate a spell or ability, do you have to do them in the order they are written?
Example: I control a Novijen Sages and an Eldrazi Spawn Token with a +1/+1 counter on it. If I chump block with the Spawn token, can I remove it's +1/+1 counter and a counter from the sages, then sac it for 1 to pay for Sages ability, or do I have to sac the Spawn token then take two counters off sages?

For your lorescale coatl effect you wouldn't be able to proliferate in either case because the coatl has a triggered ability which wouldn't resolve until you'd finished resolving tezzeret's gambit. But one example where the order matters is Tooth and Nail where you can put the creatures you just searched for onto the battlefield whereas you couldn't if they were in the other order.

With costs, I believe you have to pay the mana part of the cost first but you can pay other costs in any order.

I think the easiest example of text order mattering is Serum Visions v Preordain

This sounds close to whether you can have your Eldrazi Spawn do double duty while casting a convoke spell. The problem is that you have to activate mana abilities before paying costs. So you will have to have already sacced your spawn by the time it comes to remove the counters.

So you cannot sac the spawn (for mana) and remove a counter from it to pay the same cost. In general though I think you can pay costs in any order. Otherwise cards like Suppression Field would have to specify an order.

oh whoops, that would make sense on coatl. Then why the discrepency between gambit and progress?

It's just a templating thing. On Steady Progress they wanted proliferate to be the main effect, with a cantrip as a rider. On Tezzeret's Gambit, the main effect is drawing two cards, with proliferate as a rider. The order is purely to emphasize a different part of the spell.

So, random question that's been bothering me since I hate the layers system:

Opalescence + Enchanted Evening + Scornful Egotist (or any creature, really)

Is the Egotist a 1/1 or 8/8 when it's all done?

~SE++

it actually isn't layers, it's dependency. Evening and Opalescence apply in the same layer, but Evening affects what Opalescence applies to, so Evening is applied first, making everything enchantments, then Opalescence makes them creatures. technically they don't have a P/T until layer 7b, but Opalescence is already applying to them, so when it gets there it'll give them one based on their CMC.

bottom line: 8/8 unless Zammm yells at me.

Razorborne covered the reasoning pretty well--it ends up as an 8/8.

seems obviously an 8/8.
Every permanent (other than Opalesence itself) becomes an X/X where X = CMC. Which means all lands are destroyed. And ornithoptors, etc.

In a tournament setting? No. Hell no.

Here's a simple metric for determining if you can shortcut a loop in Magic. Can you:

1. Pick a finite number of iterations after which you are absolutely guaranteed to have the outcome you want?
2. Predict what the game state will look like after you're done?

If you answer yes to both questions, then yes, you can (probably--I might have missed something since I'm writing this at two in the morning) shortcut it. If you answer no to either question, then you can't.

This loop fails that first test (and potentially the second as well, depending on how you go about it), Thumb or no Thumb, so no shortcuts for you.

What about my Frenetic Efreet + Chance Encounter deck. If state that I'm going to activate Efreet an arbitrarily large number, do I have to do the flips if my opponent asks me to?

Or rather, can I get a slow play warning for attempting to do 3 billion coin flips.

Yes, or at least the ones that actually make a meaningful difference to the game state. Once you have your ten counters plus however many extra you needed to make sure that that Hex Parasite on the other side of the table can't stop you, ignoring the rest is fine in my books, because they'll never make any practical difference.

If you insist on trying? Absolutely. If your opponent tries to insist on it, I'll be asking them some pointed questions.

On a side note, just use a hundred activations or so rather than bothering with sillily-large numbers of them.

Not that I would ever torture myself by doing that many flips... Just wondering if my opponent could force me to do all of the flips. Thanks!

Question:

I have a Prison Term on an opponent's creature, and somehow didn't move it to his Geist of Saint Traft, when the Geist attacks and generates a 4/4 angel, what happens if I move the Prison Term to the angel token?

Will the "can't over can" rule effectively remove the angel token from combat, or will the angel still be attacking?

~SE++

The token is already in play tapped and attacking. Prison Term will be ineffective as the point at which it stops a creature from being declared as an attacker has passed.