When is casting Silence acceptable?
Asked by RoyLancaster 9 years ago
Say player one has Silence in his hand, and player two taps land and says "I'm gonna play-" and then player one casts Silence before player two actually casts anything. Is this legit, or a super cheap method of doing things?
FancyTuesday says... #2
Odds are it's not a legit play. You must have priority to cast spells and activate abilities. Priority begins with the Active Player, the player whose turn it is, then when that player passes priority it goes in turn order until all players pass priority, then the game moves on to the next step.
Priority is passed around every time a spell/ability goes on the stack or resolves, which is what allows people to respond to those events, but priority starts with the active player and non-active players can't act until priority is passed to them.
November 15, 2014 8:35 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... Accepted answer #3
The first step in casting a spell or activating an ability is announcing it and putting it onto the stack. At that point, players no longer have priority to respond. Remember, Magic is a turn-based game, not one about speed and sleight of hand tricks. By announcing the spell, player one has indicated that he is beginning the casting process. Player two does not have priority, and he cannot respond until after the casting process is complete.
Furthermore, Silence can't be used as a counterspell. It doesn't do anything to spells on the stack, and players can still respond to it.
November 15, 2014 8:47 p.m.
My experience with Silence is that the earliest you can play this card is in the upkeep step, but even then, if you are csating it in your opponents turn you have to wait for him to untap and either cast a spell or pass priority to you.
If do cast it at this point your opponent is still able to respond to it with instants that Silence wont be able to stop in the upkeep step. Once the upkeep step ends Silence will then be in effect for the rest of the turn preventing any other spells being cast.
Kirtanei says... #1
A player can only cast spells when he or she has priority.
So no, it is not an acceptable way to do it.
November 15, 2014 8:29 p.m.