The Stack

Lol the pancake analogy was great!! My sister finally understands the stack

I have an  Evolving Wilds on the field and a  Golgari Rot Farm in hand. If I were to play the Rot Farm, target the Wilds to return to my hand, could I then tap and sac the Wilds for the fetch land and keep the Rot Farm on the field, or would it bounce itself?

Yes, rot farms ETB effect is a triggered effect. You can respond to it by tapping and sac-ing. You will be able to fetch a land and have the farm, tapped of course.

Now another question on top of this one that I am not sure of. If rot farm said, "when rot farm enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you return a land to your hand." If you were to then target evolving wilds and sac it in response would rot farm stay bc the trigger has already been placed on the stack?

Rotfarm doesnt target anything. For it to be played, a land MUST go to your hand. The only way to avoid this would be to stifle it or something, and i dont even know if that would work since rotfarm is a land.

Aahhhh my bad guys. Too much eggnog lol

I've gotten mixed answers on this problem and I want to get it figured out. I ran into a legend rule issue with Wild Pair and Phantasmal Image. I copied my opponents Intet, the Dreamer and I know that that would kill them both, but since Phantasmal Image entered as a 6/6 I wanted to bring out my Intet, the Dreamer but I wasn't sure if it would die as well or does it come into play after the first 2 die?

I've gotten mixed answers on this problem and I want to get it figured out. I ran into a legend rule issue with Wild Pair and Phantasmal Image. I copied my opponents Intet, the Dreamer and I know that that would kill them both, but since Phantasmal Image entered as a 6/6 I wanted to bring out my Intet, the Dreamer but I wasn't sure if it would die as well or does it come into play after the first 2 die?

That is a tricky one. But I believe you would get to keep your Intet, and here's why.

- you cast Phantasmal Image. It resolves.
- it enters the battlefield as a copy of your opponent's Intet. Wild Pair's trigger is added to the stack.
- Game state is checked. It sees two legendary creatures named Intet the Dreamer and legend-rules them without using the stack.
- Wild Pair resolves, using the last known state of the Phantasmal Image's being (a copy of Intet) as its guide. You may use that info to play your own Intet the Dreamer, who stays because the other Intet and his clone are both already gone from the legend rule as a state-based action before wild pair resolved.

Yup that pretty much summs it up...nice explaining gorzo.

Okay quick question for gatecrash: my opponent plays a creature that activates evolve for their Simic manipulator, I use  Thrull Parasite's ability to remove the +1/+1 counter but they use manipulator's ability to remove the counter and steal my thrull, what happens?

End result: your opponent gets our thrull.

Explanation: you use your thrull's ability after evolve resolves. You have nothing left to do until it resolves, so you pass priority. Your opponent has priority now, and he/she activates the manipulator's ability while your thrull's ability is still on the stack (in real life, your opponent would just say "in response" when you activate the thrull's ability, instead of all of this. I am just going into detail.)

As a cost to activate the manipulator's ability, the +1/+1 counter is removed. After activating the manipulator's ability, our opponent is done reaponding, so he/she passes priority back to you. You also have nothing left to do so the stack starts resolving from the top down (whatever was placed last resolves first). The stack looks like this:
---
TOP
Manipulator's ability
Thrull's ability
BOTTOM
---
So the manipulator's ability reaolves first. Now he has your guy, and there is no counter.
Next the thrull's ability tries to resolve, but it fizzles because there is no legal target anymore (the counter is gone).

Spells and abilities check for legal targets/conditions to be met before and after being activated/cast/triggered. So even though there was a counter when you activated the thrull's ability, there isn't one when it tries to resolve. So it fizzles.

If there was more than one counter on manipulator then the thrulls ability would still go through. Just noting that.

Yep it would still go through. As long as you put the ability on the stack, it doesn't matter if your opponent gains control of the thrull before his ability resolves....the counter will get removed (as long as there is still a counter to remove, of course! )!

So I have  Web of Inertia out and my friend casts two spells, I use  Stonecloaker to exile one and then return it to my hand but then he says he exiles the other one in response to me exiling and attacks. Can he do that?

So I have  Web of Inertia out and my friend casts two spells, I use  Stonecloaker to exile one and then return it to my hand but then he says he exiles the other one in response to me exiling and attacks. Can he do that?

Well, no he can't use web of inertia's exile trigger in response to anything. It's not an instead speed effect, it triggers at the beginning of the combat phase and is put on the stack at that time.

As for the rest, it really depends on when your opponent cast his spells and when you flashed in stonecloaker. If all of this happened before combat, and thus before web of inertia's trigger, he will be able to exile the 2nd card in his graveyard in order to attack if it's still in the graveyard when combat rolls around and the web effect occurs. If web of inertia's trigger has already resolved, he can't go back and un-resolve it by exiling a card after the fact and pretending the web's effect didn't already happen.

So I have  Web of Inertia out and my friend casts two spells, I use  Stonecloaker to exile one and then return it to my hand but then he says he exiles the other one in response to me exiling and attacks. Can he do that?

So...lemme get this straight. Your opponent casts 2 spells and they both resolve. So he has 2 cards in the graveyard now. I think that is what the situation is...but here is what I think you are asking:
"Can I exile the card he chooses for Web of Inertia so he can't attack?" Short answer: As long as your opponent has a card to exile in his graveyard, he can attack you. Here is what happens in your situation:

Web of Inertia's trigger goes on the stack, at the begining of the first combat phase. The stack looks like this:
1) web's ability
 While it is still on the stack, you cast Stonecloaker. The stack looks like this:
1) stonecloak (he has not entered the battlefield yet; still waiting to resolve)
2) web's ability
Now stonecloak enters the battlefield, and his 2 etb abilities trigger. The stack looks like this:
1) stonecload ability
2) stonecloak ability
3) web's ability
The first 2 abilities on the stack now reaolve. You exile a card from his graveyard so there is 1 left. You return stonecloaker to your hand with its other ability. The stack now only has the web's ability on it, once again. it looks like this:
1) Web's ability
Now you do not have enough mana to cast stonecloaker again, so the Web of Inertia trigger resolves. your opponent exiles the 1 card remaining in his graveyard and attacks you.

Your opponent choosing which card to exile is part of the web of inertia's ability resolving, so once your opponent chooses which card to exile, it is too late to prevent him from attackig. However, you can respond to the web's ability BEFORE the opponent chooses, while it is on the stack and has not resolved yet. You may use this chance to exile as many cards as you can from his graveyard. But if even 1 is left, he can still choose to exile it when the web's ability resolves, and attack you.

Does this answer your question, or did I assume wrong? I was not clear on the situation you described so forgive me.