ok the other day i went up against a phoenix deck and i had big burn in my zone. whe my oppontne activated phoenix from the graveyard i activated my big burn to stop it . I was wondering does that work if the card activating is itself?

zenjenji
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Like Sinister Serpent, Phoenix is not targeting anything in the graveyard so Big Burn won't work, I believe.

This brings up a question I've been thinking about for a minute. Does Big Burn only apply to a mandatory activation or an optional activation?

Big Burn
Normal Trap
You can only activate his card when your opponent activates a card that specifically designates a monster in the Graveyard as a target. Remove all monsters in both players Graveyards fom play.

I would think Big Burn doesn't apply because Sacred Phoenix has the mandatory effect of it coming back when it was destroyerd an sent to the Grave by a card effect, not an optional effect a controller chooses to activate. It's effect has to be activated by the player, as Big Burn states, not by a situation outside of a player's control, and because Phoenix activates outside of a players control, I would think Big Burn doesn't apply.

This is just a thought.