Zyggy Starlight

The cost of activating Zyggy’s activated ability has 4 distinct parts: You must pay 2 resources, tap Zyggy, destroy a Lightning Flow you control, and banish another Lightning aura permanent you control that currently has no holo counters. Neither player receives priority in between any of these effects being paid.

When banishing another Lightning aura permanent you control as part of paying the cost of Zyggy’s activated ability: the Lightning aura you banish must be an object in the arena with both the Lightning supertype and the Aura subtype. You cannot choose a Lightning Flow as that has the Elemental supertype and not the Lightning supertype. You also cannot banish a defending Lightning aura you control on the combat chain nor Lightning auras on the stack waiting to resolve as they are not Lightning aura permanents in the arena.

When Zyggy’s activated ability resolves, you will return the Lightning aura that you banished as part of paying the cost back into the arena. As it enters into the arena, you will put a holo counter on it.

Tokens cease to exist when they leave the arena. If you choose to banish a Lightning aura with the token subtype to pay for Zyggy’s activation cost, that token will cease to exist instead of being moved to the banished zone. And when the activated ability resolves, nothing is returned to the arena. For example, if you controlled a Lightning Flow and a token copy of a Lightning aura, you can destroy the Lightning Flow and banish the Lightning aura token copy to pay for Zyggy’s activation cost. Both of these tokens will cease to exist when they leave the arena. In this scenario, when Zyggy’s activated ability resolves, nothing is returned to the arena.

Destroying a Lightning Flow or banishing another Lightning aura permanent you control as part of paying the cost to activate Zyggy can cause other cards and effects to meet their conditions and/or trigger (e.g. “When this leaves the arena”). These abilities will be placed above Zyggy’s ability on the stack.

When banishing another Lightning aura permanent you control as part of paying the cost of Zyggy’s activated ability, it will move to its owner’s banished zone. When the activated ability resolves, that Lightning aura will return to the arena under the control of its owner.

If the banished aura from paying Zyggy’s cost moves from the banished zone to another non-arena/non-stack zone before Zyggy’s activated ability resolves on the stack, it will not return to the arena with a holo counter on it as it is no longer the same object.

If an aura with counters on it (e.g. +1 counters) is banished, it loses those counters.

If the banished aura from paying Zyggy’s cost is moved from the banished zone directly to the arena or played from the banish zone and then enters into the arena before Zyggy’s activated ability resolves on the stack, that aura will not get a holo counter from resolving that activated ability. This is because that aura cannot return to the arena (with a holo counter) if that aura is already in the arena (the origin and destination are the same and therefore no movement event occurs).