what would the result be if player 1 has astral barrier, spirit barrier, and des counter blow active when player 2 declares an attack on player 1's only monster. player one activating astral barrier's effect.

A: player 2's monster would be destroyed with no battle damage to player 1 due to spirit barrier.

B: the condition of spirit barrier would not apply when astral barrier is active

C:????

Well, taking a peek at the text. This is what would happen...

Your opponent attacks. Since Astral Barrier is active, you elect to have the monster attack you directly (this is still considered battle damage). Spirit Barrier now reduces the damage from the direct attack to 0.

However, since the damage dealt to you is 0, Des Counterblow's effect will not activate, since no damage was done. As I read elsewhere, at least 1 point of damage must be inflicted to you for it to be considered battle damage.

Damage is still damage therefore I am pretty sure that the monster dies and you remain unharmed.

0 damage is not considered damage. If I give you 0 dollars, have I given you anything?

I have to go with Dillie-O on this one. Des Counterblow states: "Destroy any monster that inflicts Battle Damage to a player's Life Points by attacking directly." As the card states, when damage is dealt, and like Dillie-O stated, 0 damage is considered no damage in this game. So, no damage was delt, no monster is destroyed by Spirit Barrier.

As a referance to where the ruling came from, DMknight, was the original arguement a long time ago if a relinquished without a monster, attacking directly, would trigger robbin gobblin.

Ah the PSV days... how I long for them again.

Yeah, this sort of discussion was disputed, even before PSV. Back in the days of MRD with stuff like

White Magical Hat + Waboku

Masked Sorcerer + Waboku

and such, asking that even though Waboku reduced damage to 0, it's still considered "damage" which is wrong of course since 0 = nothing. So cards that require damage to activate won't activate unless any damage greater than 0 is dealt to them.

This same dillema happened back when "The Bird" was legal. If he attacked and didn't do any damage by say....... waboku, than your opponent doesn't skip their Draw Phase.

so the effects of the three trap cards are not resolved in the order atral barrier>>des counter blow>>spirit barrier?

not to dragon this on and no one need reply only concider gravekeepers vassal.

Correct, the first two traps resolve successfully, but since no battle damage was done, Des Counterblow would not destroy the attacking monster.

Gravekeeper's Vassal is unaffected by these traps. His damage is considered effect damage (it says so on the card). These traps only affect battle damge done to yourself. You could use Astral Barrier to make GV attack your lifepoints directly, but when the damage was inflicted, it would be effect damage, and not battle damage, so both Spirit Barrier and Des Counterblow do not apply.