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This situation came up at yesterday's Regionals with another player and I:

I had these two lost souls in my LoB: 

Luke 13.25 (Disciples) - "If an opponent plays a good Dominant, you may place this Lost Soul beneath owner's deck"

Hebrews 5:11 (Cloud) - The one that searches for an EC or EE (this one isn't really relevant to my question)

My opponent played the non-negating SoG from G/H deck and NJ to rescue the two lost souls.  The question was once my opponent played the SoG/NJ combo, would the Dominant LS's ability trigger, causing it to go under my deck and therefore not be available for rescue, or would the SoG be able to rescue it first before this could happen?  My argument was that once he put that SoG into play, the LS gets under-decked.  The judge's ruling was that my opponent could withdraw the SoG and NJ.  He, too, believed that the Dominant LS would be resolved first, but since there was no consensus and erred on the side of the Dominant LS's ability resolving first, he gave my opponent the option to withdraw SoG/NJ and try again a different time since there was no point in trying to rescue with NJ if only one of the LSs could be rescued (if my opponent wanted to use NJ at the same time, that is, and not just SoG).  My opponent agreed to the withdraw.

Right after this, a similar situation occurred when I drew the Beggar LS Luke 16:20-21 (Disciples) LS: "When this Lost Soul is rescued, you may shuffle a NT Lost Soul into deck."  I now had the two aforementioned LSs still in play, as well as this last one.  My opponent was faced with yet another interesting scenario concerning SoG and NJ:  If he attempted to rescue any of these in a certain order, all but one of them could potentially not be rescued.  My argument was that once he played the SoG/NJ, the Dominant LS would get under-decked, the Beggar would be rescued but the Cloud LS would be shuffled into my deck, causing only one LS (the Beggar) to be rescued.  We ruled this situation the same as the last one, so he chose not to use SoG and NJ.  The agreement/judgment we all reached was that my opponent needed the negating SoG in his deck for future games.   And I believe these kind of scenarios is why the negating SoG was created in the first place.

What would the ruling be for these scenarios if it were to come up again?  The Dominant LS gets under-decked or the SoG rescues it?  I assume it gets under-decked.  And concerning the second scenario, I'm assuming the Beggar gets rescued but the other two LSs get under-decked and shuffled.

Thanks,

Derek

Thanks, Dayne.  So what's the point of having a "Negate and Rescue a Lost Soul" SoG if SoG's ability resolves first and the LS's ability has no chance to trigger?  What examples are there as to why the negate ability was added to SoG?

The "Dominant" (or Shut Door) LS works when your opponent plays Angel of the Lord/Grapes/etc or uses Son of God to rescue a different soul. However, if your opponent plays Son of God and New Jerusalem (which are played simultaneously), you cannot underdeck the "Dominant LS" before either Son of God or New Jerusalem complete. If your opponent rescues the "Dominant LS" with either SoG/NJ, it cannot be underdecked because those dominants completes first (as Dayne explained).

The old SoG cannot rescue the */4 or other protected LSs. That's why the new one has the negate.

I can't read Aramaic, so I couldn't say for sure, but Daniel 9:21 calls Gabriel a man in all of the translations I looked at.

Thanks again guys for all of the input.  As was the agreement when we played the game, this discussion confirms it: just use the negating SoG

Derek

No, the old SoG does have its strategic uses...