Multiplayer Priority Multiple Items on Stack

Asked by Minathia 4 years ago

4 Player Commander Pod, Players A(active), B, C, D in game.

Player A casts Grizzly Bears and passes Player B passes Player C casts Brainstorm and passes Player D casts Lightning Bolt targeting player B and passes

Stack in top to bottom looks like this: Lightning Bolt , Brainstorm , Grizzly Bears . All players will pass and Lightning Bolt will resolve.

After Lightning Bolt resolves, who has priority? Is it Player A because they are active, or Player C who controls the spell on top of the stack?

From the Comp Rules: 116.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.

This would mean, assuming everyone will pass from here, With Player C's Lightning Bolt on the top of the stack, Player A passes, then Player B, then Player C passes priority again on his own spell, then Player D, then it resolves.

This seems unintuitive, but I can't find any rule saying that it would function differently in (non-team based) multiplayer.

Kogarashi says... Accepted answer #1

Player A, for as long as they're the active player, will always receive priority after a spell or ability resolves, per the rule you quoted.

The only time someone other than the active player receives priority is immediately after casting a spell or activating an ability (then the player who cast the spell or activated the ability has priority).

So when Player C casts Brainstorm , they have priority immediately after to be the first to respond to their own spell. Same when Player D casts Lightning Bolt ; D has priority immediately after. Using that priority to add something else to the stack is "holding priority."

Yes, when Player D's Lightning Bolt resolves, Player A is the first to receive priority (if they want to cast/activate something), and they must pass followed by everyone else in turn passing without adding to the stack in order for the Brainstorm to resolve. Then A receives priority first again and everyone must pass for Grizzly Bears to resolve. It's the same in multiplayer as in 1v1, and it doesn't matter if it's team-based or not.

July 8, 2019 2:10 p.m.

Caerwyn says... #2

In the future, please remember to hit the "Mark as Answer" button to indicate your question has been resolved. Since this question has been answered for a couple of days and there have been no follow-up questions, I have gone ahead and chosen an accepted answer on your behalf.

July 12, 2019 4:18 p.m.

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