In a PPTQ, Asha is playing against Nymeria. Asha has Deceiver Exarch in play, while Nymeria controls a Suture Priest.
Asha : "I play Splinter Twin and make a billion copies of Deceiver Exarch“.
Nymeria : ”Ok, you lose a billion life and the game“.
Asha : ”Erm, actually, I'll do just one copy".

Is Asha allowed to change her mind at that point?

Edited Florian Horn (April 22, 2015 12:25:54 PM)

In reality, the Suture Priest will trigger as each copy of Deceiver Exarch enters play one at a time. Nymeria will need to indicate the life loss trigger with the first copy of Deceiver Exarch and this will interrupt the Exarch/Twin combo shortcut.

Asha can change her mind at that point since Nymeria added the Suture Priest's triggered ability to the stack during the shortcut.

Edited Eric Paré (April 5, 2015 07:30:33 PM)

Asha has proposed a shortcut Nymeria has interrupted that shortcut and proposed their own, Asha and proposed a different shorter shortcut

The Suture Priest's trigger is not a game action taken by a player. As a result, this shortcut is not interrupted since Nymeria is taking no actions. Were I the floor judge, I would rule that Nymeria has lost the game.

Samuel, this can't be as you described. When we go deeper into how each cycle works we have (under the assumption that it's Asha's turn - when else should she want to combo off anyways):
1. first Exarch Copy enters the battlefield, his own trigger and suture priest trigger do trigger
2. Asha puts her trigger on the stack, then Nymeria puts her trigger on top of it (APNAP-rule).
3. To make a new copy, the exarch trigger needs to resolve because otherwise she can't untap the original Exarch but before that the suture priest trigger needs to resolve since it's stacked on top the exarch trigger. So while you're right, she has not taken any game actions (which doesn't even matter since she doesn't ask for priority but just refuses the shortcut) it's also true that we can not allow Asha to advance the game state to a point where Nymeria would have missed her trigger (which would be the case if we would let Asha make new copies).

TL,DR: I'm with Eric and Gareth, the first copy is made, both triggers are on the stack and the Suture Priest trigger would resolve first, AP get's priority.

Edited Christian Genz (April 6, 2015 02:50:56 AM)

Originally posted by Samuel Nathanson:

The Suture Priest's trigger is not a game action taken by a player.

This is just to make sure I understand your reasoning here, Sam: Note that Suture Priest's triggered abilities require its controller to make a choice upon resolution (“may”). Is the making of this choice not considered a “game action taken by a player”?

Originally posted by Samuel Nathanson:

The Suture Priest's trigger is not a game action taken by a player. As a result, this shortcut is not interrupted since Nymeria is taking no actions. Were I the floor judge, I would rule that Nymeria has lost the game.

Nymeria has lost the game? Why?

Asha proposes a shortcut (A). Nymeria then proposes a different shortcut (B) based on the first proposal. How do you possibly come to the conclusion that this means (B) is not valid and (A) is inherently accepted? Asha can't cause Nymeria's triggers to be missed just by being the first player to propose a shortcut.

Edited Alex Roebuck (April 7, 2015 02:24:46 AM)

Nymeria has not interrupted the shortcut. She has accepted the shortcut, even though she stated the outcome a little oddly. (A won't lose a billion, she'll likely be dead long before then.)

It's a little odd because A's shortcut will not result in the game state A described, but I'm going to call that a misplay rather than trying to issue an infraction. (Saying this is CPV because A didn't correctly communicate the game state at the end of her shortcut would, indeed, be a misplay.)

Alex, I think its a safe assumption that Sam's statement was simply a typo. Wouldn't be the first time I've seen someone get confused by all these names we come up with. Alternately, we can hook Mr. George R. R. Martin up with a burgandy shirt and perhaps he will start killing off characters for us.

Edited Dan Collins (April 7, 2015 08:14:13 PM)

But Dan, as I said earlier, announcing the trigger IS actually interrupting the shortcut since the first suture priest trigger has to resolve before A can even make a second copy (and the trigger even contains a choice for what it's worth).

I am inclined to agree with Dan on this. My opinion is guided by the following example from Nathaniel Lawrence in this article.

Originally posted by Nathaniel Lawrence:

What if there are triggered abilities that would occur in the middle of a shortcut?

Well, they’re probably going to happen, but it’s not guaranteed. The Infraction Procedure Guide (IPG 2.1) specifically states triggers are to be assumed remembered until the controller of the trigger takes some action that would demonstrate they have been missed. For example, just because the statement “Move to combat” offers to pass priority until the opponent has it in the Beginning of Combat step, it doesn’t mean the player isn’t going to be able to make a token with their Goblin Rabblemaster. As long as that player puts the token into play before declaring attackers, they’ve demonstrated they know the trigger exists at an appropriate time. However, if the opponent wants to act to prevent such triggers from occurring, such as making sure that Goblin Rabblemaster receives a Murderous Cut and doesn’t produce a token, then they’ll need to speak up and be clear about when they’re acting (namely, during the Precombat Main Phase). Otherwise, we assume they’ve acted specifically at the “last moment” and so the Goblin Rabblemaster trigger is already assumed to be on the stack.

My understanding is that Nymeria has accepted the shortcut and acknowledged her Suture Priest triggers.

Jacob, that does not change the fact that the first suture priest trigger has to resolve before A can even make a new copy. So a potential game state with 1million copies of the exarch in play and 1mio triggers of suture priest on the stack just can not exist…

Edited Christian Genz (April 7, 2015 10:02:02 PM)

I agree with Christian on this. The reason the rabblemaster trigger works because the time you have to acknowledge it is after the shortcut. If you would establish a shortcut that directly jumps to Declare Attackers the trigger would be missed. The same way I see it with the suture priest. You have to acknowledge the trigger at the time it would change the life totals and to do that you would have to speak up and interrupt the shortcut.

Originally posted by Christian Genz:

Jacob, that does not change the fact that the first suture priest trigger has to resolve before A can even make a new copy. So a potential game state with 1million copies of the exarch in play and 1mio triggers of suture priest on the stack just can not exist…

I don't think that ruling about what constitutes an interruption is necessary to make this ruling (though it's sufficient), because the proposed shortcut is impossible. “A billion Pestermites on the board and A is dead” isn't a legal game state to shortcut too, since A will be dead after 20. The shortcut wasn't legal in the first place.

I would rule that Asha is dead. I'm seeing a lot of technical parsing of shortcuts here, but the fact is that Asha made a mistake in judgment, or perhaps hoped that Nymeria would forget his triggers.

> The shortcut wasn't legal in the first place.

I'm with Riki; a billion Pestermites is perfectly legal if Nymeria forgets her triggers.