Originally posted by Sandro Carlucci:

I get that if this shortcut is reversed we would have the old “Ball Lightning” cheat back, but be honest, how many times comes this up and players come to you and ask “now, he played cryptic, can i play a haster?” and how many times did someone ask “can i crew now?”.. i guess its the ladder that comes up far more ofter these days..

I've had this situation come up in standard a couple months ago.

AP crews a smuggler's copter main-phase. NAP says ‘before combat, unlicensed disintegration on copter.’ AP then says, okay, surge a reckless bushwhacker and attack for 9 (instead of the 3 that would have come across before). I didn't step in because both players seemed to agree on where they were in the turn, but I could easily imagine an ugly judge call coming out of it.

Originally posted by Mark Mc Govern:

Originally posted by Sandro Carlucci:

Why do i have to say what im gonna do in a competitive strategy game

You can't play Magic without actually doing things. By definition.

Agreed. “I wish to go to Begining of Combat.”. Fair enough? I think so..

AP crews a smuggler's copter main-phase. NAP says ‘before combat, unlicensed disintegration on copter.’ AP then says, okay, surge a reckless bushwhacker and attack for 9 (instead of the 3 that would have come across before). I didn't step in because both players seemed to agree on where they were in the turn, but I could easily imagine an ugly judge call coming out of it.

Im not saying it doesnt exist, but what comes up more? Now i think that crewing comes up far more then bushwhacking? I give you that im not sure, but look whats happening now?

Prior to the advent of vehicles, the argument would have gone exactly the other way. Yes, there are some things (like mutavault) that we might want to do in BoC, but by far the more likely scenario would be going into the phase to trick NAP into using their removal, interaction, etc. mainphase. It seems that part of the current shortcut policy was based on the assumption that the BoC step would remain little more than a formality for most APs and that Wizards wouldn't print any powerful reasons to care about the BoC step, so the few exceptions could simply deal with the slightly sub-optimal line of revealing information a little early. We also bolstered the policy by noting that, when most people declare combat and receive a “go ahead,” the next thing the expect to be able to do is declare attacks and so we wanted policy to match that.

We're now realizing that a couple of our assumptions were not too accurate. Wizards has printed several powerful cards that care about the BoC step, so this step is now something that the average magic player has to engage with. Additionally, since so many players use MTGO, they expect to be able to use their BoC step in paper magic the same way they do in MTGO, so it now isn't clear that many players would expect the declaration of attackers to immediately follow the exchange “go to combat?”, “go ahead.” So its reasonable to consider changing the shortcut policy.

As for how to change it, we have basically three options:

1) Leave things pretty much as they are

2) Change the shortcut so that all references to “combat” or “attacks” go to BoC with AP having priority

3) Create two shortcuts: one (“combat”) goes to BoC step with AP having priority and the other (“attacks”) goes to BoC with NAP having priority.

Option 2 is potentially workable, but can be confusing to newer players and players that don't play MTGO, since AP now has to ask to declare attacks twice in order to declare attacks. (“attacks,” “okay” moves to BoC step, then a second “attacks,” “okay” moves to declare attackers). It potentially introduces confusion since explicit mentions of “attacks” don't actually let you declare attacks immediately after.

Option 3 seems to be the most popular among non-judge enfranchised players, since it matches the fine mechanics of the game the best. However, it creates a severe language-barrier problem since similar english words now have significantly different game-rules meaning, and can give rise to “magic words”-type questions and judge calls. In the same “magic words” vein, it (with option 2 to a lesser extent) also assumes that Wizards won't print haste creatures that are commonly played so that players don't have a strong incentive to try and abuse this shortcut splitting (at least in standard). Given how recently Lightning Berserker and Zurgo Bellstriker were played, and how close they were to being in the same standard as vehicles, I don't think this is a safe assumption to base a significant policy change on.

Edited Andrew Keeler (Feb. 12, 2017 02:56:49 AM)

Originally posted by Andrew Keeler:

As for how to change it, we have basically three options:

1) Leave things pretty much as they are

2) Change the shortcut so that all references to “combat” or “attacks” go to BoC with AP having priority

3) Create two shortcuts: one (“combat”) goes to BoC step with AP having priority and the other (“attacks”) goes to BoC with NAP having priority.

Option 2 is potentially workable, but can be confusing to newer players and players that don't play MTGO, since AP now has to ask to declare attacks twice in order to declare attacks. (“attacks,” “okay” moves to BoC step, then a second “attacks,” “okay” moves to declare attackers). It potentially introduces confusion since explicit mentions of “attacks” don't actually let you declare attacks immediately after.

Option 3 seems to be the most popular among non-judge enfranchised players, since it matches the fine mechanics of the game the best. However, it creates a severe language-barrier problem since similar english words now have significantly different game-rules meaning, and can give rise to “magic words”-type questions and judge calls. In the same “magic words” vein, it (with 2 to a lesser extent) also assumes that Wizards won't print haste creatures that are commonly played so that players don't have a strong incentive to try and abuse this shortcut splitting (at least in standard). Given how recently Lightning Berserker and Zurgo Bellstriker were played, and how close they were to being in the same standard as vehicles, I don't think this is a safe assumption to base a significant policy change on.

Option 2 adds an extra step that serves almost entirely to add an extra step. Let's take two scenarios:

AP: Attacks?
NAP: Okay.
AP: Weldfast Engineer pumps Dukhara Peafowl. Attacks?
NAP: Okay.
AP: Swing with Peafowl, Jump it.

vs

AP: Weldfast Engineer pumps Dukhara Peafowl. Attacks?
NAP: Okay.
AP: Swing with Peafowl, Jump it.

Even in the best case scenario where it IS useful, AP gets to avoid giving away Engineer in the main phase, but they still need to say what they are going to do, and it adds an extra step. In the worst case scenario where they play turn 2 Grizzly Bear and attack on turn 3 with it, it adds an extra step with nothing useful added to the game.

I did out a rough estimate with some of the locals that I know as the basis for how often the shortcut is used and the impact of this change. If they play exactly 30 FNMs a year (no prereleases, no PTQs, no PPTQs, no GPs…) at 4 rounds per FNM, that's 120 matches. If every match is 2.5 games, that's 300 games of Magic a year. Assuming that they declare attackers 3 times per game (really low if they have an aggro draw, but they'll make up for it with bad draws), that's 900+ “combat?”s a year. If they've been playing 10+ years, I don't think it's a huge stretch to say that there are a good number of members of the “10k Combat?” club.

How many of those times do they really want to do something in BoC? I can't imagine more than 500 in all of those 10k times. Suggestion 2 adds an extra step for 95+% (hundreds of times per year) of interactions to solve a problem that can be solved with “say what you are going to do”.

My biggest personal concern with option 3 isn't the language barrier issue (even though that's the biggest program-wide concern) - it's players mixing their shortcuts during a match and getting into a disagreement over which one they used. I can see this happening once a PPTQ where AP thinks they said “combat?” and NAP thinks they said “attacks?”. The change in option 3 actually creates less natural usage, as they need to think of not only what they want to do, but also what they want to say. Communication should be natural and not add to the decision tree while playing.

New player education is, like you mentioned, a significant issue with 2 and 3. For 2, I need to explain that “attacks?” once means “can I do stuff that isn't attacking?”. For 3, I need to explain that “attacks?” and “combat?” are questions with radically different meaning.

Both suggested changes remove clarity and natural flow from the process in order to “solve” problems that can also be solved by saying what you want to do. And no, “Pass priority” isn't what you are going to do; it's similar to “At End of Turn, I will not Lightning Bolt you”.

I know that people were all aflame with “unintuitive combat shortcut” regarding the current shortcut, but isn't doing something hundreds or thousands of times without ever thinking about it the definition of intuitive?

Originally posted by Jason Riendeau:

I know that people were all aflame with “unintuitive combat shortcut” regarding the current shortcut, but isn't doing something hundreds or thousands of times without ever thinking about it the definition of intuitive?

I think the argument from the other side goes something like “generally we aren't doing that.” Either they're playing MTGO where they have access to BoC without having to proactively state what they will do there, or they are mainly playing with friends who understand that saying “combat?” works by giving AP priority in BoC. As I understand it, this was the contention of AP during the PT judge call, and has been echoed by pretty several non-judges since.

Originally posted by Jason Riendeau:

My biggest personal concern with option 3 isn't the language barrier issue (even though that's the biggest program-wide concern) - it's players mixing their shortcuts during a match and getting into a disagreement over which one they used. I can see this happening once a PPTQ where AP thinks they said “combat?” and NAP thinks they said “attacks?”. The change in option 3 actually creates less natural usage, as they need to think of not only what they want to do, but also what they want to say. Communication should be natural and not add to the decision tree while playing.

I agree with you here, though I'm not sure how persuasive an argument that can easily be understood as “makes the judge's job easier, even if it makes the player's life harder” would be.

As above, those in favor of changing things would contend that option 3 is in fact the most natural method of communicating, and that the current rules creates a language barrier. I think our most persuasive arguments are to point out that option 3, the change favored by most non-judges I've seen, would actually make the language barrier situation worse. I also want to respond specifically to the claim that the “remove your guy before combat,” “okay, play a haste creature and attack with it” situation isn't something to worry about, since I haven't seen many people talk about in-standard or near-standard situations where that would be relevant, and there have been several in the past few blocks. I think the conversation would go much differently if more people realized that dash and vehicles were very nearly in standard together, and how much potential for abuse there would have been if they were.

Originally posted by Andrew Keeler:

they're playing MTGO where they have access to BoC without having to proactively state what they will do there

A quick note about MTGO: even on MTGO, the default settings are that AP doesn't hold priority in the Beginning of Combat step (same with the Upkeep step and the End step). You deliberately have to set a stop there, which seems to me to be equivalent to changing your shortcut.