Scapeshift and Valakut

[Christian]

When you play a Scapeshift, the combo is that you play Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and some Mountains. I guess they all come into play at the same time, so the Valakut sees them all coming in at the same time, so you get to deal 3 damage for each? I thought it was you wait till you get 6 assorted lands out, then you can scapeshift to make them all Mountains so from then on you can activate it's ability. But if they all come in at the same time, and the Valakut somehow sees that there are 6 already, even as they are coming into play, you can deal 18 on turn seven as this website seems to show (about half-way down):

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/A ... aily/td/76

Can someone explain this? Why can one come into play and see the other 5 Mountains, even though they are coming in at the same time and weren't there just then?

[Somnolence]

It's not that it 'somehow' sees them, it's the rules. Cards that come into play together, as par of the resolution of a spell or effect can see each other. Think about your Ally deck. You use Ghostway to flicker all you allies. They all see each other come into play, and all the ETB triggers fire. It's the same principle, only with land instead of creatures

[Lythand]

It is a hard concept to grasp, and to this day I still have trouble with simular situations, but yes thats how it works.

[Christian]

I guess you envision five lands all blinking into existence at the same time. Our minds want to put them in order, but if you considering them all appearing out of thin air at the same time, each of them bring with them a check as to whether anything else came in right then. That is hard to grasp, since the normal way that card works is when it's in play, every land that comes into play after it triggers the ability.

[Tosus]

I have a related question, and it refers to the interviening "if" clause.
According to the CR603.4, when an ability with an Intervening If clause would trigger, it checks to see if the clause is true, before triggering and again during resolution.
Since it is triggering during the resolution of Scapeshift, wouldn't it use Last Known Information to determine the number of mountains on the battlefield, and not trigger unless that number was 5 or more?
Or did I fundamentally misunderstand something, which is what I suspect.

[Rhadamanthus]

LKI is used when the object an effect is getting information from isn't there anymore, usually because it's changed zones as another part of the effect.

Assuming the count of Mountains getting laid out by Scapeshift is high though, the intervening if clause allows Valakut to trigger because all the lands enter the battlefield simultaneously, and the trigger is applied after they get there. That is, when they enter the battlefield, they're all on the battlefield, so the condition is true before the triggered ability would be put onto the stack, and the ability does trigger.

[Christian]

Is it one big trigger, or separate triggers for each Mountain?

[Rhadamanthus]

One for each Mountain, just like Valakut says.