Wail of the Forgotten

Descend 8 — Choose one. If there are eight or more permanent cards in your graveyard as you cast this spell, choose one or more instead.
• Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand.
• Target opponent discards a card.
• Look at the top three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Promos

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan

Cards with the ability word "descend N" have abilities that care if you have at least N permanent cards in your graveyard.

If all targets for the chosen modes become illegal before Wail of the Forgotten resolves, the spell will be countered and none of its effects will happen. If at least one target is still legal, the spell will resolve but will have no effect on any illegal targets.

Some descend triggered abilities include intervening "if" clauses (i.e. "if you have [four or eight] permanent cards in your graveyard" in the middle of the ability). Each of these abilities checks your graveyard at the moment it would trigger to see if it does. If you don't have the required number of permanent cards in your graveyard at that time, the ability doesn't trigger at all. If it does trigger, it will check again as it tries to resolve. If you don't have the required number of permanent cards in your graveyard at that time, the ability won't resolve and none of its effects will happen.