Abraham controls Siege Rhino and Surrak, the Hunt Caller. He casts Anafenza, the Foremost, and asks “Combat?”.

Noah says "I kill Surrak with Valorous Stance".

Abraham thinks that he should get the trigger from Surrak, Noah disagrees. What would you rule, and why?

In particular, if you rule that the trigger happens, do you allow Noah to change the target of his Valorous Stance?

If you rule that the trigger goes not happen, do you allow Abraham to play another Anafenza before combat?

“Combat?” is an MTR 2.4 shortcut. The reason this works with Goblin Rabblemaster is because it does not require a target when it's put onto the stack; Surrak does. By stating “Combat?” AP has passed priority to NAP in Beginning of Combat. If you pass priority on a triggered ability with a target but don't state your target you've missed your trigger (IPG 2.1 Definition section).

If I took this call I'd ask Noah when he cast Volorous Stance.
-If he answers in Beginning of Combat then we have a Missed Trigger for Abraham with no penalty and we continue playing.
-If he answers in the Pre-combat Main Phase (i.e. he did not accept Abraham's “Combat?” shortcut) then I'd allow Abraham to cast another Anafenza or Surrak or whatever he wants to in his Pre-combat Main Phase.

Edited Chris Vlastelica (May 11, 2015 09:46:55 AM)

Interesting question - how I read the situation:

Its not clear here what phase we're in as a shortcut has been suggested by Abraham and then a spell cast by Noah. I would ask Noah when he's casting the Stance. Abraham can't force Noah to pass so he could have gained priority to cast the Stance either at the end of the pre-combat main phase or in the beginning of combat.

If he says ‘in combat’ then we have a trigger on the stack and the target cannot be changed - his misunderstanding the rules doesn't entitle him to a ‘take back’ See Chris's answer ^
If he says ‘in pre-combat main phase’ then yes Abraham will receive priority to cast his second Anafenza

Edited Marc Shotter (May 11, 2015 09:53:17 AM)

I feel we might be treading old ground here

Originally posted by Gareth Tanner:

I feel we might be treading old ground here

The point is that Surrak's ability requires a target, so we cannot just say that we are in beginning of combat with the ability on the stack, as we would with Rabblemaster. I don't know if “passing priority until beginning of combat” means that Abraham did not chose a target for Surrak's ability.

Edited Florian Horn (May 11, 2015 10:34:10 AM)

Originally posted by Florian Horn:

I don't know if “passing priority until beginning of combat” means that Abraham did not chose a target for Surrak's ability.

Did AP use “Combat?” differently previously? AP may not understand exactly what he was doing by his statement and that's unfortunate but it's a good opportunity to teach him about shortcuts and what they mean.

I would not back-up here in the event that NAP was casting Stance in Beginning of Combat since AP used a tournament shortcut (either accidently or just misunderstood what he was doing) and NAP cast a spell (given additional information about the game).

Last week in this article, Riki Hayashi wrote about Surrak (emphasis mine): "Combined with the missed trigger rules that state that you must announce targets when the ability is put on the stack, the use of this shortcut means that you are passing priority in the beginning of combat step when the trigger should already be on the stack (and thus have a target declared). In order to not miss the trigger here you need to make it a part of your shortcut. “Go to combat. Surrak targeting himself” or some variation of that."

Agree with the idea that Abraham missed his trigger by not naming a target, for exactly the reasons Riki stated (and Loïc quoted). Pretty straight-forward, I think.

I do find it odd that Abraham might want to cast a second copy of a Legendary creature?!? :p

d:^D

I have seen a lot of players, and I myself use, “Move to combat?” as a shortcut meaning “Pass priority in my main phase, proposing to move to the Beginning of Combat step”

This is the most common way Rabblemaster interactions happen - “Move to combat?” “In response, I'll Ultimate Price your Rabblemaster” -> still in Main Phase.

While “Combat?” is defined in the MTR as a shortcut to the Declare Attackers step, should we ask Abraham what shortcut he proposed? It feels like an overly harsh ruling if we say that Abraham missed his trigger when he intended to move to the beginning of combat step. I feel that we need to establish intention on both the part of Abraham and Noah in order to resolve this situation.

Any variations using the word “combat” means the same thingin game terms, even if the phrasing is different. This is to reduce the risk of players using word play to seem to mean one thing but do another

Originally posted by Jon Lipscombe:

should we ask Abraham what shortcut he proposed?

No, I rather think that burden falls on Abraham:

MTR
Certain conventional tournament shortcuts used in Magic are detailed below. If a player wishes to deviate from these, he or she should be explicit about doing so.

d:^D

For me it feels like we are still in the precombat mainphase. He proposes a Shortcut(passing priority to Noah in the Main Phase so the game can move to the beginning of combat) when he plays the Stance to destroy Surrak(not accepting the shortcut). If just asking for “Combat?” would move you to the beginning of combat you could cheat your opponent of any chance to react in the precombat mainphase to remove creatures like Rabblemaster/Surrak to prevent the trigger.

Originally posted by Johannes Wagner:

He proposes a Shortcut(passing priority to Noah in the Main Phase so the game can move to the beginning of combat) when he plays the Stance to destroy Surrak(not accepting the shortcut). If just asking for “Combat?” would move you to the beginning of combat you could cheat your opponent of any chance to react in the precombat mainphase to remove creatures like Rabblemaster/Surrak to prevent the trigger.

You can't cheat your opponent in such a manner, since they can reject the shortcut by saying “before combat”, “in your main phase”, “no”, or whatever.

In this case, though, the opponent has said nothing about the proposed shortcut, and just said that he is taking a game action that could legally be taken at the point that the shortcut is moving us to. It seems clear that Noah is accepting the shortcut (in which Abraham has missed his trigger), and is then acting in the beginning of combat step.

We could ask Noah to clarify when he is acting, but that gets us into a bit of an odd situation in which (it seems to me) we're giving Noah the option to change his mind about when he is acting, and roll back to doing it at an early point in the turn. This is odd both for the obvious reason (I hope it's obvious to others how weird doign that feels!), and because if he takes us up on it, it's more likely to advantage Abraham (since the trigger was missed), so it feels a like the judge trying to gotcha Noah into a worse play under the guise of being helpful, which is pretty awful (even though it's unintentional).

I don't understead how it's clear that he is playing his stance in the beginning of combat. Why do he has to answer anything else when he's casting a spell in reaction to that question(which is a pretty obvious “No”, “before combat”, “not accepting your proposed shortcut” or whatever)?

Edited Johannes Wagner (May 11, 2015 04:16:11 PM)

Since I don't think the shortcut from the Magic Tournament Rules has been posted yet, let's do that:

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.

So unless the opponent says otherwise, they are assumed to be casting the Stance during the beginning of combat step, not the opponent's main phase.

Nathan Long