During this week’s Tavern Brawl, playing a magnetic minion will trigger Underbelly Angler’s power, even though it says it triggers AFTER playing a Murloc. Magnetizing usually does not trigger the “after playing” effects, since the minion no longer exists after it is magnetized (Mirror Entity, for example).
This is unique to this Tavern Brawl, no long-term ill-effect yet, unless somehow Magnetic Murlocs start to be printed! Or a new minion which reacts “after playing a Mech” is printed.
https://imgur.com/a/aKrXG7t
The good news is that it made this infinite combo very slow to play, so it took 3 more turns before my opponent killed me!
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The issue can be recreated without Magnetic if the minion dies in the Whenever or Battlecry phases. Reproduced this by having Blowgill Sniper kill an Explosive Sheep, causing itself to blow up.
What’s odd is that the Rumbling Elemental (After you play a Battlecry minion…) I had set up as an easy comparison triggered as well. To double check I wasn’t crazy and that the rule hadn’t quietly changed, I retested Magnetic vs Darkshire Councilman and Unlicensed Apothecary. Neither triggered. So I got curious if maybe it was the extra condition (Murloc, Battlecry minion) that the discrepancy hinged on, but no. I tried N’zoth’s First Mate + Ship’s Cannon with a Death’s Bite equipped. The First Mate destroyed the weapon, the weapon killed the First Mate, and the Ship’s Cannon didn’t trigger. This also means it doesn’t somehow hinge on dying naturally vs being removed by Magnetic.
So we got 2 cards behaving inconsistently here.
Images:
https://imgur.com/a/EzVZQBU
Edit: Upon further consideration it’s possible I missed something obvious. Underbelly Angler and Rumbling Elemental are “after you play”. The others I tested are “after you summon”. I didn’t imagine that distinction might apply to the rule. I believe Patches is also “after you play” but as of a few weeks ago, he wouldn’t trigger if the Pirate was removed (see this clip - it primarily demonstrates the Dominant Player Bug, but you can see in the case where Potion of Polymorph resolves first, he doesn’t get summoned). Might need to retest him though. Ixlid would also be good to verify.
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I had only checked the wording of Mirror Entity when writing my report, which says “after … play” (opponent in this case), not summon. I believe the difference in wording between summon and play is only meant to say it can trigger or not when a minion enters the board otherwise than by being played.
Things are definitely weird.
I think there’s some other subtle differences as well though. I vaguely recall testing and finding that “after you play” seems to trigger after “after you summon”, regardless of play order. I usually think of them as a single phase because I don’t believe there’s a death phase between them, and I didn’t check thoroughly enough to say it holds up universally, but it’s possible that the distinction is meant to be more meaningful.
As for Secrets, they generally have a rule to not trigger if they’d do nothing. Hidden Cache would probably be a better one to check. Patches is the only other “after you play” effect I can see that doesn’t actually involve the minion in its own effect, but it’s possible that some of them try anyway. I think a Hearthstone Mythbusters clip showed Mortuary Machine attempting to apply Reborn to a dead minion (to no practical effect).
It’s a lot of things to test, usually requiring two people, and it’s not the most exciting rule to study.
You are playing a murloc, and underbelly angler is still alive, so to me it seems all is behaving as expected. Mirror entity doesn’t trigger on magnetic because the minion “disappears” and is thus unable to be copied. And as already noted, “after summoning” is not the same as “after playing” since playing a minion as a magnetic attachment doesn’t summon a minion.