Karthus, Eternal
Does Karthus's ability apply if he dies from the same effect as the unit with Deathknell?
Yes, because Deathknell triggers are always queued as pending items before the dying unit leaves the board.
Whenever a unit with Deathknell is killed — whether by a Kill effect or by damage during a cleanup — its trigger is added to the chain before the card is moved to the trash.[808.1.d.2] Karthus's passive is only active while he is on the board,[365.1] but because the trigger is queued first, he is still present when it is added — even if he is dying from the same effect. In the cleanup case this ordering is enforced explicitly: step 3a queues all Deathknell triggers[323.4] before step 3b moves any of those units to the trash.[323.5]
Example
You control Karthus and a friendly unit with Deathknell. Your opponent plays The Ruination, which kills all units. Both are sent to the trash, but not before Karthus's ability doubles the Deathknell trigger.
Does a single Not So Fast counter both Deathknell triggers when Karthus is on the board?
No — Karthus places two separate trigger instances on the chain, and Not So Fast can only counter one of them at a time.
When a friendly unit with Deathknell dies while Karthus is on the board, his ability causes that Deathknell to trigger an additional time. Each trigger is added to the chain as its own independent pending item.[808.1.d.2] Not So Fast counters a single spell or ability, so one copy intercepts only one of the two triggers; the other resolves normally. Stopping both requires two copies of Not So Fast.
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Written by Christian I. (Near).
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