Cleanup and Death Triggers

Changes such as adding or removing a Chain item, entering or leaving the board, changing status or completing a Move require a Cleanup. If a Chain item is resolving, that check waits as an outstanding task until the item has finished. During Cleanup, items cannot complete their play steps (finalization) or carry out their instructions (resolution) and players do not receive priority or Focus. New triggered abilities can still be added as pending items, waiting for those play steps.

Suppose an abstract spell deals lethal damage, then heals that same legal unit. There is no ordinary lethal check between those instructions: complete the whole spell, then check the resulting damage. Compare an explicit Kill instruction: it sends the unit to the Trash during the instruction itself. A later Heal instruction does not bring it back. Damage awaiting a lethal check and an immediate Kill are different routes.

When lethal damage will kill a unit, Cleanup first captures its Deathknell and other abilities that trigger on its own death as pending Chain items. Note the unit’s current location, characteristics and other information needed by those abilities before putting it in its owner’s Trash. An explicit Kill instruction makes the same pre-departure record for such abilities.

Watchful Sentry demonstrates the simple case. Lethal damage is present when the check occurs → its own death ability becomes pending → the unit actually dies → after the current checks and tasks finish, the ability is finalized and can resolve to draw 1. The ability’s existence on the Chain does not keep Sentry alive, and its draw does not happen before death merely because the ability was recorded first.

Recording a death ability is provisional bookkeeping. If a replacement effect changes the death into healing, exhausting and recalling, the permanent (a unit or gear that remains on the board after being played) was not killed and sent to the Trash. Its own-death ability is removed from the Chain. Do not award both the save and the Deathknell result.

For example, Sentry is about to die after an effect has already established a qualifying death replacement. Capture the pending ability, apply the replacement, and follow its alternative result. Because Sentry never completes the death event, its draw ability does not survive this check. A token that really dies is different: it reaches the relevant zone and then stops existing, without canceling an already-created legal death ability simply because it is a token.

A permanent that watches another unit die normally needs its triggered ability to be active in the game area where it is evaluated after the event, usually the board. If the observer leaves that active zone in the same event, it cannot normally trigger for the other death. Its own Deathknell uses the special capture described above instead.

If two different death abilities trigger simultaneously, their controller orders them on the Chain; different players normally add theirs in turn order, starting with the turn player. Each instance of Deathknell triggers separately. They are then finalized in addition order, while ordinary waiting abilities resolve newest first after the required passes. Note any pre-death information separately for each ability rather than replacing it with the unit’s later Trash state.

The winning check is first: at the Victory Score and strictly ahead of every opponent, the qualifying player wins before later board corrections. Cleanup also updates attacker and defender designations, checks loss of battlefield control where allowed, recalls misplaced unattached non-unit gear and non-unit runes, and corrects objects in a Base other than their controller’s. Hidden cards at battlefields not controlled by their player go to their owners’ Trash. Attachment has its own exceptions; do not Recall attached gear just because its controller differs from that of the unit it is attached to.

A unit with lethal damage at a battlefield dies, leaving its Equipment unattached. The corrective Recall can send that gear to its controller’s Base. If the battlefield also becomes uncontrolled at the permitted control check, its hidden card is removed. These corrections can themselves change the board and require another Cleanup. Keep checking until a Cleanup produces no new state change; do not offer a Reaction between these automatic corrections.

Combat Cleanup adds healing after the lethal checks, then recalls attackers if defenders remain. End-of-turn expiration adds healing, simultaneous expiration of “this turn” effects and emptying every Rune Pool. A follow-up Cleanup caused by a special Cleanup is ordinary; it does not automatically repeat all the special insertions. End-of-turn has a separate instruction to restart its expiration step if items were handled on the Chain.

Finally, recording Deathknell is not an opportunity to use a different activated ability on the dying unit. Normal activated abilities need their permitted timing, normally your turn in an Open State; Reaction or another explicit permission can alter that. Once lethal Cleanup is underway, you cannot pause it to activate a healing or sacrifice ability. Use a legal earlier window, or an automatic replacement already applicable to the death.