If I play Sabotage and my opponent responds with Defy or Wind Wall, do they have to wait until I choose which card to recycle, or can they counter it immediately? Will I see their hand if they counter it?

Question

Accepted Answer

Your opponent may play Defy or Wind Wall in response to Sabotage before it resolves. If they successfully counter Sabotage, its reveal-and-recycle instructions do not happen, so you will not see their hand.

Because Defy and Wind Wall are Reactions that can be played “any time, even before spells and abilities resolve,” an opponent can counter Sabotage on the chain before Sabotage resolves. The reveal of the opponent’s hand and the choice of a non-unit to recycle are instructions that occur as Sabotage resolves; if the spell is countered before resolution, those instructions never execute, and you will not see their hand.

You play Sabotage and begin the process of playing a spell (finalize the play, pay costs, etc.). You will make any 'as I am played' choices required by the spell now [355.1]. When Sabotage is on the chain but before it resolves, your opponent may play a Reaction such as Defy or Wind Wall because those cards explicitly say they can be played any time, even before spells and abilities resolve. If the opponent plays a Reaction that successfully counters Sabotage, Sabotage is countered and will not resolve, so its instructions to reveal the hand and choose a non-unit to recycle are never executed. Because the reveal happens on resolution, you will not see their hand if the spell is countered. If the opponent does not counter Sabotage (or their counter fails), Sabotage resolves and its instructions execute: the chosen opponent reveals their hand, you choose a non-unit card from it, and that card is recycled. If any instruction cannot be followed (e.g., no non-unit exists), that part is ignored [359.3.e.6].

If Sabotage included parts that were explicitly designated as choices 'as I am played' (which would be made at finalization per [355.1]), those choices would already be locked in and an opponent could still play a Reaction to counter before resolution. The provided card text does not mark the reveal/choose as an 'as I am played' choice, so this ruling treats them as resolution instructions. If a replacement effect or other effect changes the opponent’s hand or makes the chosen card no longer a legal object between finalization and resolution, the instruction to choose/recycle could be partially or wholly ignored per [359.3.e.6]. If a Reaction is played after you have somehow been forced to name or lock in a specific card during finalization (not the normal text for Sabotage), the timing could change; that situation is not represented by the printed Sabotage text here.

Reactions like Defy and Wind Wall explicitly allow their controller to play them "any time, even before spells and abilities resolve." That means once you have played Sabotage and it is on the chain but has not yet resolved, your opponent is permitted to play those Reactions and attempt to counter it. The reveal of the opponent’s hand and your selection of a non-unit are instructions that happen as Sabotage resolves; they are not information available to respond to unless Sabotage has already resolved. If your opponent successfully counters Sabotage, the spell never resolves and thus never causes the reveal or the recycle instruction to occur, so you will not see their hand. This follows the general timing principles for spells and reactions and how resolution and cancellation interact, and is consistent with how countering on the chain works (players can respond before resolution) and with the rule that instructions that can't be followed are ignored if the spell does resolve but some parts become impossible [359.3.e.6] [355.1]. The provided clarification about similar timing interactions around reacting to spells supports this interpretation [FAQ:unleashed#22].