I really want to say no token, but unfortunately nap did not difinitively say he was breaking the shortcut. If we were to go by his intent when he does not actually know when he should cast the bile blight (or that he should mention the exact phase he is doing so) we are essentially coaching him. I would give ap his token and explain how it works and have them keep playing.

According to CR116.4, “If all players pass in succession (that is, if all players pass without taking any actions in between
passing), the spell or ability on top of the stack resolves or, if the stack is empty, the phase or step
ends.”

In this scenario, AP has attempted to move to the declare attackers step without first passing priority to move OUT of the main phase–if NAP is aware of the timing required to prevent the token from entering (and I have no trouble believing he does, given his decision to cast Bile Blight when he does), and AP is aware that both players need to communicate that priority has been passed, then it sounds to me more like AP is trying to pull the wool over NAP's eyes by entirely jumping the declaration that he intends to move to combat.

Jeremy, Section 4 of the MTR allows these kind of things to happen.

MTR4.2- Tournament Shortcuts:
"A tournament shortcut is an action taken by players to skip parts of the
technical play sequence without explicitly announcing them. Tournament
shortcuts are essential for the smooth play of a game, as they allow
players to play in a clear fashion without getting bogged down in the
minutia of the rules. Most tournament shortcuts involve skipping one or
more priority passes to the mutual understanding of all players “

”
• 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.“
El mar 4, 2015 10:55 PM, ”Jeremy Fain" <

It seems reasonable to me to consider that Nelson calling a judge is sufficient to indicate that they are “specifying otherwise” where MTR 4.2 is concerned.

I'd still like to know: Why are we treating this differently than the “I'd like to leave my main phase” scumbaggery? Being too specific is not a demonstration of rules knowledge, but declaring intent without stating explicit timing/terms is?

There is nothing “scummy” here. The active player stated a simple shortcut, indicating that he wanted to move to combat. There wasn't any tricky wordplay meant to confuse the opponent. It is up to Nelson to clearly state when he's playing the spell. If he doesn't then we simply apply the shortcut as indicated by policy. The active player was correct to point out that the trigger was already on the stack, based on how policy handles this. Nelson realizing that he played his spell at the “wrong” time isn't him indicating that he's interrupting the shortcut.

Policy is that A has offered to pass priority to the declare attackers step *with the Rabblemaster trigger on the stack* (since there is no visible game state change here). Thus, unless N specifies that he he casting Bile Blight at the end of A's main phase, A gets the token.

So I'm clear here, if Nelson had simply said, ‘Ok.’ in this scenario we're in Declare Attackers step with no resolved trigger, yeah?

If N says, “OK”, then A taps his creatures and puts a tapped token onto the board, this is techically incorrect - the trigger has to resolve in the Start of Combat step - but I would regard this as Out of Order Sequencing. Once N has passed priority there is no way for him to interact before the token is in play, attacking. Anyone disagree?

Disagree, after the token comes into play we have another round of priority passes to go before we move into the Declare Attackers step. If A taps his creatures and puts a token into play I'm happy with it being OoOS however if N wants to interact with the token before it attacks I'll back up and remind A to give N a chance to interact if he wants.

Originally posted by Joshua Silvestri:

My understanding of the shortcut “declare attackers” passes priority to your opponent in the beginning of combat step. The Rabblemaster trigger can be on the stack and that be the point of priority. So if they say OK, getting a Token, and then having another round of Priority pass is perfectly fine.

Originally posted by Julio Sosa:

MTR4.2 is quite clear about it.
Unless stated otherwise, the opponent is using his priority on the Beginning of Combat step.

Yup. Totally should have looked that up rather than relying on memory. It does seem a bit odd that the shortcut jumps the game immediately to that space. But I suppose the point of a shortcut is to jump over a series of priority passes so if you want to interrupt any of them you need to be specific. This and the “Go” shortcut are the only ones that seem to assume that an opponent responding has accepted the shortcut though rather than assuming the opponent is interrupting the shortcut by acting.

Shamelss plug:

Some discussion about shortcuts has been recently published in Nathaniel's article on shortcuts. I encourage giving it a read-over and seeing how that applies to this discussion, as well as discussion in the article forum post.

I agree with Emilio. MTR 4.2 states that in this scenario we're in the Beginning of Combat step and the NAP has priority. The MTR doesn't specify that the stack has to be empty, and the Rabblemaster trigger has to be acknowledged when it resolves, not when it's put on the stack.

I would give the AP his token.

Originally posted by Shawn Doherty:

There is nothing “scummy” here. The active player stated a simple shortcut, indicating that he wanted to move to combat. There wasn't any tricky wordplay meant to confuse the opponent. It is up to Nelson to clearly state when he's playing the spell. If he doesn't then we simply apply the shortcut as indicated by policy. The active player was correct to point out that the trigger was already on the stack, based on how policy handles this. Nelson realizing that he played his spell at the “wrong” time isn't him indicating that he's interrupting the shortcut.

This is why I would ask NAP about their intention, though. I find it hard to believe that they acted at the “wrong” time if they called a judge as soon as the token is put into play.

To be clear, I'm not disagreeing that NAP should have specifically stated that they were acting during the Precombat Main Phase. I just disagree that they're trying to fix a misplay if they're immediately calling a judge because they thought they reacted in time.

I'm willing to be wrong, and this may be a lesson for Nelson going forward. But since I've always been taught to ask the players why they did what they did, I feel like we have a good shot at clarifying whether Nelson got it wrong or there was simply a confusion over what step they acted in.

Just because he called a judge doesn't mean that he wanted to play the
spell at a different time. It just means that they don't understand
something. It could be that NAP thought that there was a time that he
could play the Bile Blight *after* AP could play a haste creature but
before the Rabblemaster would make a goblin. So what AP says they still
get the Goblin, NAP calls a judge.
The great thing about these shortcut are that we don't have to back up and
figure out intent. They allow the game to progress quickly by having
certain things happen automatically unless specifically deviated from.

This is a good lesson for Nelson to be specific when making plays. It
doesn't mean that he needs to worry about the exact words that he uses,
just that the intent of the speech is clear. When a player chooses to be
silent on a subject (like when they are playing a spell), the shortcuts can
step in to fill the gaps.