Welcome back to the Knowledge Pool! This week's scenario is another SILVER level situation, so as usual please wait until Thursday to post in the thread if you are L2 or higher.

The Blog post for this week's scenario can be found here:
http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=1003

Alan and Nathan are playing in a Standard GPT. Alan has a Nightveil Specter and a Mutavault in play. Alan says “Move to combat.” Nathan surveys his hand and then says, “Sure, go ahead.” Alan taps a swamp and moves his Mutavault forward, saying, “Attack with Mutavault and Specter.” Nathan says, “You can't attack with the Mutavault,” and calls for a judge. When you arrive, both players verify what has happened. Alan states, "I was waiting to see if he wanted to cast Glimpse the Sun God. He used one on me last game."

What do you rule? What is your fix?

Alan has used one of the standard tournament shortcuts according to MTR 4.2
to indicate he would like to move to the beginning combat step where he has
priority. It's perfectly legal for him to activate Mutavault's ability and
declare it an attacker.
After that, however, he prematurely moved to the Declare Attackers step
without waiting to see if Nathan had any responses. Generally, this kind of
behavior would be seem to be a GPE-GRV. A case could be made that this is
an example of Out Of Order sequencing, but for me, I think that the error
lay not in the order of events (performing both the activation and the
declaring of attackers simultaneously), but rather the skipping priority in
between. Interestingly though, the infraction also might fit with a
GPE-CPV, since Alan could be said to be improperly representing the step
that they are in. Though, again, the error was in skipping Nathan's
priority, not in representing the current step incorrectly, and I would
still come down on the side of GRV.
I would issue a warning to Alan for GPE-GRV, and back up to the activation
of Mutavault's ability.
Now, this does toe the line of USC-Fraud slightly, since it may appear that
Alan is trying to make his opponent think that he doesn't get a chance to
cast Glimpse in response, especially given his reply. I would definitely
question the player about whether they knew about the shortcut or not, but
assuming they didn't, I don't see much basis for that infraction here.
Others might disagree, however, and I would at least consider an
investigation in order.

Thomas Edgar
L1, Sindelfingen, Germany

Ruling – Alan has missed his opportunity to activate Mutavault. Warning-GRV Issued to Alan, get permission from the HJ to back up to the beginning of the declare attackers step with Mutavault un-animated.

Reasoning – The statement ‘declare Attackers’ is an established shortcut (From MTR 4.2:
A statement such as “I'm ready for combat” or “Declare attackers?” offers to keep passing priority until an opponent has priority in the beginning of combat step. Opponents are assumed to be acting then unless they specify otherwise.). When Nathen replies “go ahead” he has passed priority back which causes the turn to progress to the next step (declare attackers). Alan even confirms that he was passing priority to Nathen to try to bait a glimpse the sun god.
I backed up to the activate of Mutavault because activating it was an illegal action since Alan cannot activate it during the declare attackers step, before he declared attackers. We would not force him to commit to tapping his swamp since he did so to pay for an illegal action, and we fully rewind everything including tapping of lands when we back up.

After the match I would explain to Alan that if he wanted to ensure that his mutavault was activated he would have to mention it right away as part of the phrase ‘go to combat’ signifying that he retained priority. I would also mention that he can respond with effects if his opponent does cast/do something in the beginning of combat step, but if they pass priority back with an empty stack it is now too late to activate the Mutavault.

Ah, right, it's until an OPPONENT has priority, so in that case it was an
illegal activation. The rest of what I said still stands, however.

I personally don't believe Nathan's response to be that of passing priority. It sounds to me like he was accepting Alan's offer to move to the combat phase, because if both players don't agree to move on, they cannot as someone (in this case Nathan) still has priority. Questioning the players on this would provide more clarity. I will assume that Alan's play begins at the Beginning of Combat Step.

Alan's statement seems to contradict the play that was listed here. I would question him as to when he was waiting for the response. Was he expecting the response prior to the combat step, forgetting that Nathan cannot target the Mutavault until after its ability is activated? Is he claiming that he did in fact wait after activating Mutavault (though if he confirmed these events, that would be a contradiction)? If it was the latter this could be cheating because Alan may have been trying to stop Nathan from responding and is now trying to avoid my ruling, however there's no way I can prove this and there's far from enough information for me to issue such a ruling, but the possibility is always worth noting in case more suspicious situations with Alan arise.

However, with the provided information I feel that the primary issue here is that Alan moved from the Beginning of Combat Step into the Declare Attackers step without communicating it, and without giving Nathan priority. I cannot assume that Alan intentionally meant to skip Nathan's priority, so I will assume that Alan just failed to communicate the new step, breaking MTR 4.1. This makes it a TE-CPV, for which the penalty is a warning for Alan.

I would be fine with allowing the attack, given OOS, however, since Alan
confirmed that he was waiting to see if his opponent would respond first,
OOS does not apply since he stood to gain an advantage from his sloppy
play. I would get permission to rewind the illegal activation of Mutavault
since we are in the Declare Attackers step during the declaration of
attackers and educate Alan on what he did wrong. The infraction here would
be a GRV for Alan and a warning to go with it.

I would need to get some more details of Alan's understanding of the turn structure to know what actually happened here. If he thinks he can activate Mutavault at the beginning of the declare attackers step before attackers are declared, then he did propose the standard tournament shortcut but committed a GRV. Alan is given a Warning, and the game is backed up to the declaration of attackers with Mutavault un-activated.

If Alan knows his last opportunity to activate Mutavault is in the beginning of combat step, then he wasn't proposing the standard tournament shortcut and it shouldn't be applied to the game. In this case, his unclear communication constitutes a CPV (specifically: using an undeclared shortcut or modifying a tournament shortcut without announcing the modification). Alan still gets a Warning, but in this situation the game is backed up to the point in the main phase when Alan made his error.

Alan has clearly moved from the pre-combat main phase to the beginning of combat step. He then activates his mutavault but seems to forget that he has to pass priority to Nathan before declaring his attackers. I would issue him a GPE-GRV (warning) and rewind after to the point where Nathan has priority to cast his Glimple the Sun God.

I believe that Alan used a shortcut to move to Beginning Combat step. He then waited on his opponent to make a play of Glimpse the Sun. This says to me that he had passed his priority in the Beginning Combat step. Since his opponent made no play, both players have passed priority, and we will move to the declare attackers step. The first part of this step is for the attacking player to declare attackers. AFTER attackers are declared there is a chance to have priority to do other things. Because of this, activating Mutavault was illegal at this time.

My penalty is a GPE-GRV for Alan. We will rewind to the point of the illegal action (activating Mutavault), untap any mana sources used to perform the action and continue play from there. Alan will be able to declare any other attackers that he may wish.

There is no penalty for Nathan for GPE-FtMGS because he called a judge immediately when the situation arose.

EDIT: Steps, not phases…whoops.

Edited Dustin Jones (Feb. 26, 2014 08:13:03 AM)

Unless the players have established a shortcut otherwise, “move to combat” means that Nathan gets priority in the beginning of combat. It is clear that Alan at least understands the concept of the shortcut, since he has admitted that he intended to give his opponent an opportunity to cast an instant before he declared attackers. Ask the players if they have previously assigned a different meaning to the “move to combat” shortcut in this match, but assuming they didn't, then Nathan accepted the shortcut and passed priority, and we are now in Declare Attackers. Alan has declared an illegal attacker, so he gets a GPE-GRV and we move back to the beginning of Declare Attackers.

We have legally moved to the declare attackers step. The GRV occurred in the declare attackers step, so we should not rewind past that step. This is not a case of legal out of order sequencing because the “block” of actions Alan performed were not legal in the intended order.

USC-Fraud is not an infraction. USC-Cheating requires that the player knowingly violate a game rule to gain advantage. It is clear that he intended to gain advantage in the case that his opponent had Glimpse, but we have no reason to believe he was aware that his actions were illegal. Proposing a shortcut and intending to propose a different shortcut is a misplay, not TE-CPV, and a rewind to the main phase is not warranted.

Edited Dan Collins (Feb. 26, 2014 08:18:38 AM)

Before reading other answers -

I'm a bit confused at the situation. Why does Nathan assert that Alan can't attack with Mutavault? My assumption for the rest of my answer is that Nathan believes the game has already progressed to the Declare Attackers step, and it is thus too late to animate Mutavault.

Since this appears to be a communication problem, the first step is to investigate how they've been communicating in previous games. Since the scenario doesn't state any deviations, I assume they've been sticking to common shortcuts.

“Move to Combat” is already a defined tournament shortcut, meaning, “I'll pass priority until we enter the beginning of the combat phase”. Nathan says “Sure”, and the game moves to beginning of combat. Alan's tapping of the swamp, and attacking with the Mutavault, are basically an undeclared shortcut for “Activate Mutavault's ability, pass priority until it resolves, pass priority until we move to declare attackers, and declare Nightveil and Mutavault as attackers”. This is a legal sequence of plays.

If Nathan wants to interrupt this shortcut at any point (perhaps playing another Glimpse), he can do so. Otherwise, the line of play stands. There's no infraction, and no penalty.


After reading other answers -

I had to reread the scenario a few times, and then reread the MTR, to figure out why my answer disagreed. The MTR states that shortcuts like “ready for combat” or “move to attacks” offer to pass priority until the opponent has priority in the beginning of combat step. i.e., the player wants to move to declare attackers.

This is a bit surprising to me, since I would expect the phrase “move to combat” to mean that the player wants to pass to move into combat, and end up with priority in the Beginning of Combat step. Outside of timing/baiting trickery, this sequence of communication is how I usually see Mutavault handled by players. They offer to move into combat, then activate Mutavault, then attack.

That said, given the rest of the scenario, I think Alan expected we were right before the declare attackers step, when an opponent would normally cast pre-attacking tricks. When Nathan says “Sure” and the game moves to declare attackers, the sequence of activating mutavault and attacking with mutavault and spectre is illegal. In this case, it's a GE-GRV for Alan, with a warning, and the game rewinds to the beginning of declare attackers. Untap Spectre, Mutavault, and Swamp. Alan has the choice of whether to attack with Spectre or not.

This scenario is pretty interesting. Without the wrinkle about trying to bait out Glimpse the Sun God, the scenario seems to be how most attacks with Mutavault get played out. This may mean that most players are playing the card and related shortcuts incorrectly, and we might get some angle-shooting players in the future trying to enforce this. I think that, without the wrinkle of waiting for a combat trick, I would probably rule this as a legal line of play, with communication problems, and educate the players about the correct use of tournament shortcuts, communication, and the turn structure.

It seems the animate/attack block of actions was all done as a single thing, not “animate Mutavault? ok. Now attack”.

We're clearly in the Declare Attackers step, because whether he knew it or not, he used the official shortcut. Which means we have a GRV of some kind.

The question is where the actual first error occurred. Since he was trying to animate and attack at the same time, I'd call the animation of the Mutavault during the Turn Based Action of Declaring Attackers the first error. Since there is no possible way for that action to be legal (since he and his opponent already left Beginning of Combat), Out of order sequencing doesn't fit in here.

I could make an argument that his activation of the Mutavault implicitly meant he declared no attackers, and that his second attempt to declare was illegal (and he'd be stuck with a useless animated Mutavault and no attackers). But that seems to defeat the philosophy behind OoOS in general. (If we don't expect 100% accurate play, we should be consistent about it)

So, GPE-GRV/Warning for Alan for animating Mutavault when he couldn't. No infraction for his opponent. Ask the head judge to rewind back to the beginning of declare attackers (untap the Specter and the Mutavault and the mana spend to animate it, un-declare the attackers).

Without reading any of the thread:

This seems like a pretty cut-and-dried example of a player not knowing what the shortcut “move to combat” means. Instruct the player that “move to combat” is a shortcut meant to pass priority in the “beginning of combat” step, and that if the other player passed priority, then the current step is the declare attackers step, by which point it's much too late to activate his Mutavault. If the player would like to dispute this call, I would further instruct the player that if he allows his opponent to cast Glimpse the Sun God, then he is implicitly passing priority (because a player can't cast a spell when they do not have priority), and hence if the opponent does not cast Glimpse and simply passes priority back, then the step ends and Declare Attackers begins. In this way, I have 2 methods to tell AP that they're wrong, one from a communication standpoint and one from a pure rules standpoint.

Depending on the experience level of the player, I may simply instruct the player to “communicate more clearly” or I might instruct him on exactly how to communicate “beginning of combat” so that he gets the result he wants.

As for penalty, no penalty, no rewind.

I forgot that AP actually activated his Mutavault and tried to attack with it. In this case GPE - GRV for AP, rewind to the beginning of declare attackers, untap the Mutavault and the land used to animate the Mutavault. FtMGS for NAP only if NAP had made any further game actions after AP had activated the Mutavault but before I was called to judge.

Edited Lyle Waldman (Feb. 26, 2014 08:06:11 PM)

I think we've reached consensus on GRV for AP.

I think we really have to investigate further before we put this one to bed, in the real world. I believe we are to assume no cheating in these scenarios but A is playing technically enough to try this trick, so it would be worth finding out what his understanding of the rules was. If we think he knows about MTR 4.2 enough to know that he shouldn't get an opportunity to activate Mutavault, we need to get the head judge involved.

Originally posted by Talin Salway:

This scenario is pretty interesting. Without the wrinkle about trying to bait out Glimpse the Sun God, the scenario seems to be how most attacks with Mutavault get played out. This may mean that most players are playing the card and related shortcuts incorrectly, and we might get some angle-shooting players in the future trying to enforce this. I think that, without the wrinkle of waiting for a combat trick, I would probably rule this as a legal line of play, with communication problems, and educate the players about the correct use of tournament shortcuts, communication, and the turn structure.

Well, the problem is that playing sloppily gets you an advantage here if you rule this as a legal play, even if he's not baiting for a combat trick. Let's say Nathan has a 2/2 creature on the battlefield. It's both conceivable for Alan to want to attack with the Mutavault or not attack, depending on whether he feels like offering his opponent a trade.

Let's say that Nathan does not want to get hit by Nightveil Specter at all, and would prefer not to get attacked by Mutavault either although this is secondary. If Alan is playing correctly, then Nathan has the option to tap both creatures during the beginning of combat phase, or only the Nightveil Specter if Alan didn't want to activate the Mutavault (this may change his decision, but this may also not change it).
But if Alan plays sloppily as in the scenario, Nathan has no strategy that allows him to do what he wants to do both in the case where the Mutavault is animated and in the case where it is not. If he waits until after the declaration “animate/attack”, he will not have a chance if it is never animated, and if he doesn't wait, then he'll never catch the Mutavault even if it was always going to attack.
The only real option Alan has is to ask “are you going to animate your Mutavault?”, but that's a very large burden to put on a player to ask that he remins his opponent of his manlands.