When Forge of the Future recycles 4 cards at once, does Karma trigger 4 times (buffing 4 units) or only once?

Question

Accepted Answer

Most defensible ruling: Only one Recycle action happens when Forge of the Future's “Kill this: Recycle up to 4 cards from trashes.” resolves, so a generic "when you recycle a card" trigger will see a single Recycle event and will only go on the chain once unless the triggered ability's text explicitly says it triggers once per card or "for each card." See [416.6] [416.5].

Because Forge of the Future's Kill this instruction performs a single Recycle X action that takes up to 4 cards and recycles them simultaneously, it is one Recycle action. Per the Core Rules, that simultaneous Recycle is handled as a single action of moving multiple cards [416.6] [416.5]. Therefore, Karma will trigger once from that single Recycle action unless Karma's text explicitly says it triggers once per card or "for each card recycled." If Karma's ability is written to trigger for each individual card moved, then it would trigger once per card; otherwise treat it as a single trigger.

You kill Forge of the Future and its Kill this instruction resolves. As part of that instruction, you choose up to 4 cards from the specified trashes to be Recycled; those chosen cards are recycled as part of a single Recycle X action [416.6]. The chosen cards are moved simultaneously to the bottoms of their owners' respective decks (Main or Rune as appropriate) and placed in the order required by the rule for simultaneous Recycles [416.5] [416.1.c]. Triggered abilities that look at the Recycle event will see that single Recycle action. Unless the triggered ability's text specifically says it triggers per card (e.g., "for each card Recycled"), treat it as a single trigger.

If Karma's text explicitly says "for each card recycled" or similar, then it will trigger once per card and would trigger up to four times in this instance. The Core Rules don't change explicit per-card wording. If some other effect replaces or splits the Recycle action into multiple Recycle actions (for example a replacement or layered effect that forces each card to be recycled separately), then each separate Recycle action would be seen separately. This ruling assumes no such replacement is present (see [375] for replacement-effect inheritance guidance). Because Forge of the Future can recycle cards from "trashes" (both players' trashes), the recycled cards may be split between owners; triggers on a specific player's recycled cards only apply to that player's recycled cards, and recycled cards return to their owner's decks [416.1.c]. If the triggered ability cares about "cards moved" to a specific deck (Main vs Rune) or cares about order, consult the exact wording; simultaneous recycling to different decks is handled per [416.5] and [416.5.a].

When you Kill Forge of the Future and pay its "Kill this: Recycle up to 4 cards from trashes," the game performs a single Recycle X action that moves up to four chosen cards from the specified trashes and places them on the bottom(s) of their owners' decks. The Core Rules treat "Recycle X from [Zone]" as one action of taking X cards and recycling them as that single action [416.6]. When multiple cards are Recycled simultaneously by that single action, the rules explain how those cards are placed on the bottom of decks (simultaneously, random order for Main Deck, owner-chosen order for Rune Deck) [416.5]. Because these cards are moved as part of one Recycle action, triggered abilities that merely say "When you Recycle a card" will generally see the Recycle instruction as one event and therefore will be placed on the chain once, not once per card. The key exception is if the triggered ability's text explicitly changes the behavior (for example, saying "for each card recycled" or having language that clearly intends per-card triggers). Also note that if the 4 recycled cards include cards from both players' trashes, each card is Recycled to its owner's appropriate deck [416.1.c], which may matter for abilities that care only about your own recycled cards. In short: default, single trigger (one Recycle action) — unless Karma explicitly states it should trigger per card, in which case it would trigger up to four times.