The NEW Combat Short - Cut: Are We There Yet?

Hello everyone, and welcome back to exile!  

I must apologize for taking so much time away from my Blog recently, however real life has been keeping me very busy as of late.  My family and I have sold the house we are currently living in, and now we are in preparations to move slightly north of exile from our current home in Midland, On into the neighboring town of Penetanguishene, located on beautiful Georgian Bay.  

In addition to these distractions at home, I am actually currently sitting on a VIA Rail train, en route to Montreal where I will once again be floor judging at Grand Prix Montreal this weekend.

But despite my distractions due to these other obligations, I have nevertheless been itching to talk about several Magic related topics with you, my friends and followers.  On our journey through exile today we will be taking a look at the recent changes to one of our (formerly) most controversial tournament rules; the combat short-cut.

The Old Combat Short-cut: A Dead End

You may recall that in the month of February of this year I had written a lengthy blog post about how the combat short-cut works in real life Magic tournaments.  Due to the tournament rules once again evolving, that old blog post is no longer valid, although I have left it up for those who may still want to get a better understanding of the issues we used to labor under with the old short-cut in place.

Under the old short-cut rules, players often had a really difficult time getting to act with their priority in the Beginning of Combat Step (BoC).  The old short-cut had been designed to ensure that in almost every situation imaginable whenever the Active Player attempted to leave their first main phase, then the next time anyone would get priority would be when the Non-Active Player acted in the BoC step.  The reason that the old short-cut had worked just fine for years was thanks to a distinct lack of abilities or triggers that would happen in the BoC step.  As long as the R&D department at Wizards chose not to use the BoC step for actual game design elements, the old short-cut could continue to basically ignore that step's very existence and the player experience did not suffer. 

This began to become a serious problem for players as some recently printed cards in standard (ie. Weldfast Engineer) had triggers that would specifically occur in the BoC step, and our old short-cut had begun to cause issues with players missing triggers that they hadn't actually forgotten about.   Again, feel free to read my old blog post on this subject if you would like a clear explanation on how this process used to work, and the problems it created.

In recent sets more and more (and more, and more) cards began to have interactions occur during the BoC step which has made changing how the Combat Short-Cut works necessary.  And so now that we understand 'why' the short-cut had to change, let's take a moment to look at...

The *New and Improved* Combat Short-cut

When Toby Elliot posted the policy changes for Amonkhet HERE, he listed the goals for a new and improved Combat Short-cut would include the following:

1. It needs to be friendly to non-native English speakers. Having to parse the difference between “I pass priority in Combat” and “I pass priority into Combat” is not something we want in a global game.
2. It needs to prevent players taking advantage of ambiguity to be able to claim that they’re still in their main phase after the non-active player’s action has been resolved.
3. It needs to prevent the active player from forcing the non-active player to act first when they shouldn’t have to (relevant for Mutavault/Cryptic Command scenarios)
4. It needs to accommodate the non-active player having floating mana.
5. It needs to let the active player crew or activate creature-lands at the intuitive time.
6. It shouldn’t be too punitive on missing beginning of combat triggers unless the player really had gone past that point.
7. It needs to reflect that non-active players may want to remove the source of triggers before combat.
8. It needs to avoid “Combat”, “pass”, “declare attacks”, “wait, I want to do something first”
9. It should be short to express and intuitive to understand.

While the Rolling Stones will be happy to tell you "You Can't Always Get What You Want", the new combat short-cut was able to accomplish most of these goals and is certainly an improvement above the old one.  Without any further delays, let's take a look at the new Combat Short-cut!

From Toby's post: 

If the active player passes priority during their first main phase, the non-active player is assumed to be acting in beginning of combat unless they are affecting how or whether a beginning of combat ability triggers. However, if the non-active player takes no action, the active player has priority at the beginning of combat. Beginning of combat triggered abilities (even ones that target) may be announced after any non-active player action has resolved.

That's a lot to process all at once, so let's break this down into bite-sized bits, shall we?

If the active player passes priority during their first main phase, the non-active player is assumed to be acting in beginning of combat unless they are affecting how or whether a beginning of combat ability triggers.

Basically what we get from this part is that once the active player tries to leave their first main phase, if the Non-active player chooses to take any actions, it is assumed that they acting in the BoC step, unless they are trying to stop something that would happen automatically once they are in the BoC.  

The best example for this would be if AP has a Goblin Rabblemaster in play.  If AP says "move to combat" while he has a Goblin Rabblemaster in play, NAP may very well want to destroy the Rabblemaster during the AP's main phase, because once the game enters the BoC step then Rabblemaster's trigger is going to go onto the stack and AP is getting a free 1/1 goblin token.

***Note that if NAP chooses to destroy the Rabblemaster in AP's main phase (in order to prevent the token from being created in BoC), then we are still in the first main phase of AP's turn and AP will get another opportunity to do things at 'sorcery speed' in their main phase before attempting to move to combat again.  This is the trade-off of NAP not allowing the game to progress into the BoC step when AP tried to move there.  There is no way for NAP to prevent the token from being created without keeping the game in the 1st main phase.

If we take the Rabblemaster out of the situation (which is clearly a corner case situation - most cards don't have abilities that happen in BoC) and instead just give AP a 4/4 Angel token with flying, then we will have a different result.

When AP declares "move to combat?", if NAP responds with "in response, doom blade your Angel token" then this action is being taken by NAP in the BoC step, mainly because it is clearly in NAP's benefit to be choosing to act after we have left the active player's main phase.  

***Note that NAP acting in the BoC step is most likely still how things will go in 99% of games being played.  Most of the time, we won't have beginning of combat triggers happening that NAP would need to worry about preventing. 

So all of that seems fairly simple, right?  Most of the time NAP is acting in BoC unless there is a reason that they would want to act earlier.  Everything so far is pretty much unchanged from how the old short-cut used to work, so what's new here?

However, if the non-active player takes no action, the active player has priority at the beginning of combat. Beginning of combat triggered abilities (even ones that target) may be announced after any non-active player action has resolved.

The biggest change from the old short-cut is that the active player now gets a guaranteed priority in the BoC step, where they can put triggers on the stack and cast instant speed spells, with the unusual part being that in a fair amount of situations the AP will be putting those triggers and effects on the stack after something else has already resolved in the BoC step.

That's a lot to process, and it's also somewhat counter intuitive to what we as magic players are used to in tournament play, so allow me to explain a little more.

In our previous example where NAP decided to cast Doom Blade targeting the active player's Angel token, we have established now that NAP is casting Doom Blade during the BoC step, because that's what is in NAP's best interest.  Thanks to our new combat short-cut, AP gets a chance after the Doom Blade spell has resolved to put any BoC triggers on the stack, even though a spell (Doom Blade) has already resolved in Beginning of Combat. 

You're likely wondering "how are things going to play out in everyday games of Magic now?".   Let's take a quick look!

With no BoC effects/triggers:

AP: Move to combat?
NAP: Sure.
AP: Declare attackers?
NAP: Sounds good. 

This will be the most common scenario, and is pretty close to how most players naturally talk during games of Magic.

When AP has BoC triggers to announce:

AP: Move to Combat?
NAP: Sure.
AP: Weldfast Engineer trigger happens, targetting my 3/3 beast.
NAP:  Okay
AP: Declare attackers?
NAP: Sure.

Pretty simple, right?   

Let's add a removal spell into NAP's hand and see what the best line of play is:

AP: Move to Combat?
NAP: Sure.
AP: Weldfast Engineer trigger happens, targetting my 3/3 beast.
NAP:  In response, Doom Blade your 3/3 beast.
AP: Darn.  Declare attackers?
NAP: Sure.

Note that in situations where AP is going to be placing a trigger on the stack, it's often going to be strategically better for NAP to wait and see what targets AP chooses for their triggers before NAP uses their removal. 

The End Of The Line...

Hopefully this look at the new and improved combat short-cut will help players have a clearer understanding of the changes that the recent updates to policy have brought us.  Until next time, I'll be here for any Magic related questions you may have, walking along this pathway through Exile. 

-JVM