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Rules Answers › Targeting & Protection

Does Torpor Orb prevent triggered abilities on permanents that don't say 'when this enters the battlefield'?

Short answer
No. Torpor Orb only suppresses triggered abilities that trigger when a creature enters the battlefield. Other triggered abilities function normally.

Torpor Orb reads: 'Triggered abilities of creatures don't trigger if they would trigger from a creature entering the battlefield.' This means it only suppresses triggers whose trigger condition is a creature entering the battlefield — specifically abilities that say 'when/whenever/at' combined with a creature ETB event.

If a triggered ability on a permanent triggers from any other event — a creature attacking, dying, a spell being cast, a phase beginning, etc. — Torpor Orb has absolutely no effect on it. The ability functions completely normally (CR 603.1, 603.6).

It's also important to note that Torpor Orb only suppresses triggered abilities on creatures. Triggered abilities on non-creature permanents (artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers, lands) are never affected by Torpor Orb, even if their trigger condition happens to involve a creature entering the battlefield.

Concrete example: You control a Myr Retriever (which has 'when this dies, return another artifact card from your graveyard to your hand'). Torpor Orb is on the battlefield. When Myr Retriever dies, its triggered ability still triggers normally — Torpor Orb only cared about Myr Retriever's ETB trigger, not its death trigger. You return an artifact card as normal.

The relevant rules are CR 603.1 (what defines a triggered ability) and the Oracle text of Torpor Orb itself, which explicitly limits its effect to ETB triggers from creatures entering the battlefield.

HIGH confidence CR 603.1 CR 603.6
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