Xiahou Dun and timing restriction for his activation

Asked by Enral 4 years ago

Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed 's activation ability has a very specific timing restriction:

Activate this ability only during your turn, before attackers are declared.

My question is if the timing restriction is essentially "pre-combat main phase" or "before I declare combat phase"? Let's say I have infinite mana, can I form an infinite loop with Xiahou + Living Death ? Or is the timing restriction limiting me to only recur the spell back and I'll go right into my combat phase?

Raging_Squiggle says... Accepted answer #1

I personally love this card.

You can activate his ability in any step or phase up to the declare attacker step. This means that the very latest you may do so is in the beginning of combat step. Anything beyond that is too late.

9/20/2013 If a turn has multiple combat phases, the ability can only be activated before the beginning of the declare attackers step of the first combat phase in that turn.

A ruling from Xiahou’s Gatherer page. While the multiple combats is irrelevant, it does state that it just has to be activated before declare attackers step.

You may loop Living Death and Xiahou as many times as you want provided you have the mana to do so. The game doesn’t automatically send you into the combat phase after one activation.

December 31, 2019 1:09 p.m.

Kogarashi says... #2

And for a specific list of when you could activate Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed 's ability, you can activate it during your upkeep, draw step, precombat main phase, and beginning of combat step. The only one of these where you could also use Living Death is your precombat main phase.

As mentioned, the game will not automatically move you on to the next step or phase just for activating Xiahou Dun's ability. The game only advances steps and phases when all players pass priority on an empty stack.

December 31, 2019 1:21 p.m.

Enral says... #3

Thanks for the answer guys!

December 31, 2019 1:57 p.m.

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