Timing and Priority with Activated Abilities

Asked by jacobs472 7 years ago

I remember reading somewhere that you can keep playing without passing priority on your turn (assuming that you are only using instants and activated abilities). I checked the official rules, and it seems to check out:

116.1a A player may cast an instant spell any time he or she has priority

116.1b A player may activate an activated ability any time he or she has priority.

116.3c If a player has priority when he or she casts a spell, activates an ability, or takes a special action, that player receives priority afterward.

I was wondering how this would work in this situation:

Suppose I have a Midnight Guard on the battlefield from a previous turn. Would it be possible for me to cast Presence of Gond targeting Midnight Guard and make 8 billion 1/1 green Elf Warrior creature Tokens without letting my opponent have a chance to respond? Anyways, how would this resolve? Thanks in advance!

Boza says... Accepted answer #1

Well no.

In order for an object on the stack to resolve, all players must pass priority without doing anything.

So, you have to cast Presence of Gond, pass priority to let it resolve. If it does, you get priority again and can activate the new ability of Midnight Guard. If that is uninterrupted, Midnight Guard triggers and you have to resolve that trigger to untap it.

In short, in order to create one token and untap the guard, you have to pass priority at least 3 times.

July 6, 2016 11:47 a.m.

jacobs472 says... #2

Oh, alright. That makes sense. Presence of Gond has to resolve before you can do anything with it. Thanks!

July 6, 2016 12:07 p.m.

Gidgetimer says... #3

Well that and as he said you have to pass priority to resolve the ability to put a token in and to resolve the untap trigger. You can activate as many abilities and cast as many instants as you would like. Activating abilities and casting instants does not mean they have their effect. They become the top most object of the stack and then you have to pass priority for them to resolve and have their effect.

In short for every token you put in you have to pass priority twice and your opponents get two opportunities to interrupt the combo if they would like.

The common "Put in X tokens", where X is the number of tokens you would like to make, is a shortcut covering X times two priority passes. Each opponent must then either accept the shortcut or propose a place to interrupt it and say what they would like to do at that point.

July 6, 2016 1:03 p.m.