Kicking Orim's Chant in response to an attack
Asked by Sudain 13 years ago
I attacked. My opponent kicked card:Orim's Chant to prevent that. He argued that should prevent me from attacking. I disagreed and said that will prevent new attacks.
Is there a Right Answer?
MagnorCriol says... #3
The question for this lies in exactly when your opponent cast the Chant.
The Combat Phase has five steps: 1. Beginning of Combat Step
Declare Attackers Step
Declare Blockers Step
Combat Damage Step
End of Combat Step
Priority passes around at the end of each of these steps.
So, if your opponent actually cast card:Orim's Chant in the Beginning of Combat Step, before you had declared any attacking creatures, then this is perfectly legal.
If he waited for you to declare attackers, however, once the creatures are declared as attackers they can't be taken out of the red zone (by the Chant, anyhow).
This is why, in competitive play, players must declare that they're entering the combat step, rather than simply turning creatures sideways as a means of starting combat.
If your friend is going to play with these tricks, he needs to let the rest of the group know it's probably important to declare the start of the combat step, or else announce when he casts it - and before anything else happens - that he's casting the spell before attackers are declared.
August 28, 2011 9:08 p.m.
xxxxxxCronoxxxxxx says... #4
if you declared your attack phase and he did nothing untill you started to declaring witch creatures are attacking, then its to late and he just waisted a spell as the creatures are already attacking
however if you just tapped your creatures and then said im attacking you with them then he could get you to back up and use the spell to stop you from attacking
you have to give them a chance to do tricky stuff before you declare what you are attacking with
August 29, 2011 2:28 a.m.
Ahh, good to know. Our group is usually pretty lax about the beginning combat step so I guess we need to be more careful about that.
Thank you!
mozerdozer says... Accepted answer #1
Once a creature is declared as an attacker or blocker, it will stay that way unless a card specifically says that a creature is removed from combat, which there are few of.
Declaring a card as an attacker or blocker does not use the stack and thus can not be responded to. Once it's status as a blocker or attacker is decided, it stays that way.
An example card that does remove an attacker is Disharmony .
Alsom from the Oracle: "This spell does nothing to creatures which are already attacking. It does not remove attacking creatures from combat."
August 28, 2011 8:58 p.m.