This situation was relayed to me from an SCG Event and I wanted to hear how other people would rule this. Situation: Anson is playing Eldrazi Tron, while Noah is on Death and Taxes. During Anson's precombat main phase, he casts Thought-Knot Seer. With the ability on the stack, Noah casts Path to Exile targeting Thought-Knot Seer, then activates Ghost Quarter targeting Anson's Urza's Tower. Anson floats three mana in response (Tron is active) and fetches a Wastes. Path to Exile resolves and Anson gets another Wastes, Thought-Knot Seer's abilities resolve and Noah draws a card, then has a card taken by Anson. Anson then taps Eldrazi temple for two mana and moves a card from his hand towards the battlefield, saying “Okay, second main, no, wait, cast Reality Smasher” (no pauses). At this point, Noah calls a judge and claims that because Anson said second main, they're in that phase and Anson doesn't have the mana to cast Reality Smasher anymore.

I feel like this one could go either way, and I believe it was ruled that they were in precombat main. I probably would have ruled it to be in postcombat main, but then again, I didn't have the luxury of seeing the interaction for myself, only hearing about it afterwards. Assuming everything above is how things happened, how would you rule in that situation?

This isn't a game of ‘gotcha’. If Anson immediately changed their mind and didn't gain any additional information then I would be happy to rule we're in the pre-combat main phase. If there was a significant pause as if seeking information on potential plays from Noah then they're in the post-combat main phase.

As always, when it comes to communication rulings you really do need to be there to make the call.

Edited Norman Ralph (March 17, 2017 12:16:09 PM)

#2 to Norman

To me, we are clearly still in first main, if everything happened as discribed.

Saying “Okay, second main, no, wait, cast Reality Smasher” (no pauses).

If this happen as describes it sounds that not even a second has passed between “main” and “no”, so as my personal opinion if you rule that they are now in second main, that will be too severe for the AP. Will be different if for example new information has been revealed like a card played at the end of the main phase by NAP.

I agree with others, AP tells all in the same sentence and remind to play something…
Anson don't get extra information in the event… soo jump to post-combat main is excesive.

I understand to jump if Anson tells “go to main 2” wait the divine inspiration in the oponent face and now tells the “no, no, in main 1 i want to…”.

Play Magic: the gotcha isn't good… it's similar to “touch card, play card”.

I agree with all the others, we are still in pre-combat main here. You can't “misclick” in paper magic. For me, if there are little to no chance that the player got extra information by saying the wrong thing first, then changing his mind should be completely fine. I mean, we want players to play fast, so we don't want to penalize players for speaking before they think (not if we don't have to at least).

I've made a similar ruling where there actually was a second or two between APs initial choice and him wanting to change it, but the opponent was tapped out and didn't react at all until after AP changed his mind, so I ruled there was no extra information gained and no reason to not let him change his mind.

I'd want a bit more information before making a ruling. Why did Anson mention main phase 2 at all? He didn't go to combat, so the only reason to even mention it would be to make mana empty, which is exactly what he doesn't want to happen.

Edited Isaac King (March 18, 2017 05:59:21 AM)

I agree with the consensus everyone else has expressed here – we're still in main one, all is well.

The only thing I'd add is that it doesn't really matter that the initial setup is a complicated situation, with a bunch of effects and spells on the stack at once. Players are held to their statements and actions regardless of whether the board state had a lot of things going on or not. The key question here is whether the player solicited information from their opponent, not whether the board state got confusing.

“Second main, no, wait” – one statement, without appearing to ask for information/responses from the opponent: OK
“Second main?”, watch to see if opponent has effects or just shrugs “no wait!” : Not OK