Can someone point me to the section of the rules where I can fully understand the times in which priority is passed during phases? I ran into an awkward situation at a tournament and want to make sure I did everything correctly.
From the great testset himself!
"A lot of casual players don't know this subject thoroughly, I think it could be still unclear to some users here, and I know not every reads up on it, so I want to give a refresher...
A player cannot activate abilities or cast instants any time they want, not even during a Main Phase. You must have priority. Priority is given at the ending of most steps and phases, at the beginning of the Main Phase, and whenever something is added to the Stack. It provides a rhyme and reason to actions.
With "Sorcery-Speed" spells and abilities (Creature Spells, Artifacts, Enchantments, Sorceries, Planeswalkers, Loyalty Abilities and abilities that say "play this ability only any time you could play a sorcery"), the requirement is an empty Stack during the Main Phase of the Active Player. It would seem like during your Main Phase, an opponent could say "Wait! Before you cast a creature, I'm going to cast Silence." They can't. Their last chance to do this was at the end of the Draw Step, which allows players to use I&AA (Instants and Activated Abilities).
Until a player with priority passes it, the other players cannot do anything. Once the creature spell is on the Stack, I&AA can be cast/activated, but only by the Active Player. After they add as many as they like to the Stack, they pass priority. Now the next player (going clockwise) can add any number of I&AA to the Stack. When they are done, they pass priority, and the process continues.
If all players have passed priority without adding anything else to the Stack, the top spell/ability resolves. Now priority goes back to the Active Player and the cycle repeats, one resolution at a time, until the Stack is empty. Once all players pass priority with an empty stack, the game moves to the next Step or Phase. Note: if the last player passes priority, you do not get another chance to add something. The opportunity is gone.
This means that after a sorcery-speed spell or ability resolves, the Active Player can cast/activate another one, and the opponent cannot prevent this because they have not been given priority. A common misconception is that you can stop a player from activating a Planeswalker's Loyalty Ability (i.e. Karn Liberated's exile ability) by casting Boomerang "as soon as he resolves." You can't. The stack is empty, his controller has priority, and it's still a Main Phase.
I remember the arguments when I first got into MTG over who declared their action first, whether a creature should live or die, and waiting to see if your opponent will kill your creature BEFORE buffing it. Priority is how it really works."
That's a pretty good explanation of the stack itself....I guess to specify my question, it should've read at the end of which steps/phases does priority have to be passed...more so, the beginning part of someone's turn.
If the stack is empty and both players pass priority, then the game moves on go the next phase/step. This happens for every phase/step. And furthermore, the first time the active player gets priority is at the beginning of their upkeep.
sorry for off topic but i miss testset.
Same :'(
What I'm trying to get is what section in the rules covers this part of the the stack. I cast {cryptic command} and said at your draw step, which was obviously the mistake (modes were tap/draw), it should've been done at end of upkeep, but he looked at me funny and I've been trying to touch up on my specifics rules references for situations like this but I had trouble finding exactly where it's at in the rules section of the app. So I'm just trying to figure out exactly where I can look it up so I know specifics in the future
Section 116 in the rules. Explains how priority works, and explains how every player gets priority before a phase ends.