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Asked by Wbg1415 3 years ago

On opponents turn he untapped Birds of Paradise during his untap phase. I play an Lightning Bolt before he taps birds of paradise for mana. He's states he can still tap birds for mana before Lightning bolt resolves?

Polaris says... Accepted answer #1

Yes, he can, for two reasons. One is that all players can cast instants and activate abilities in response to a spell or ability, even if that spell is an instant. For example, if you were targeting a Spore Frog with your Lightning Bolt , the opponent could respond by sacrificing it before Bolt resolved.

The second reason is that abilities that produce mana (mana abilities) don't use the stack at all. They can be used at pretty much any time and there's almost no way to disrupt them. However, mana drains from your mana pool at the end of each step, so the opponent only has that untap step to use the mana Birds of Paradise produced (meaning they can probably only use it for an instant or instant-speed ability).

As a side note, you typically can't take any actions during the untap step, barring something triggering during untap. Normally you'd have to wait until you got priority during their upkeep to Bolt the Bird.

February 24, 2021 12:33 a.m.