Can you change APNAP order?
Asked by Yesterday 2 years ago
There are 3 players in the game. It's player 1's turn. It would ordinarily be player 2's turn next.
Player 3 casts a Final Fortune during player 1's main phase. Does APNAP order change for the remainer of the turn?
Alternatively, a player activates the ability of an Aeon Engine . Does APNAP order follow the reversed turn order for the remainder of the game?
I don't believe extra turns effect APNAP order, however, looking through the rules that is not made explicitly clear, so it is possible they do. Turn order is not clearly defined and is even missing from the Glossary section. As far as an official ruling, the closest I can find is an article from magicjudges.org from a decade ago which includes the following note:
(Extra turns generated by effects are not factored in.)
https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rulestips/2011/09/apnap-and-you/
June 15, 2021 1:58 p.m.
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Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #1
The Comprehensive Rules don't appear to have a hard definition for the phrase "Turn Order". The "Starting the Game" section only describes how to determine turn order for a 2-player game. The rules for multiplayer free-for-all games don't say anything specific and seem to assume the players already know how to determine turn order. A side comment given in 101.4 describing APNAP order ("...the next player in turn order (usually the player seated to the active player's left)...") looks to be like the only thing that covers it outright.
Since "turn order" isn't specifically defined by the rules of the game, that tells me we need to rely on the common meaning of the words, which is simply the order in which players will be taking their turns. By that reasoning, inserting extra turns into the normal turn order can change APNAP, so your example with Final Fortune does temporarily change APNAP order.
Aeon Engine straight-out says "reverse the game's turn order", so we don't have to do any logical gymnastics to get to the result that yes, APNAP is reversed for the rest of the game.
101.4 If multiple players would make choices and/or take actions at the same time, the active player (the player whose turn it is) makes any choices required, then the next player in turn order (usually the player seated to the active player's left) makes any choices required, followed by the remaining nonactive players in turn order. Then the actions happen simultaneously. This rule is often referred to as the "Active Player, Nonactive Player (APNAP) order" rules.
Fair warning: I'm not entirely convinced by my explanation of the Final Fortune result. I would need more time to research to see if an "Official" judge/rules source has addressed the question of whether the game has a more strictly defined concept of "turn order" and how inserting extra turns in various places can affect it.
June 15, 2021 11:33 a.m.