Wasn't sure what to call this. I'm aware of how the game rules work here, but unsure how to handle it in terms of face to face interaction. The situation:
Semicasual commander night at lgs. We are playing for a pack for the winner of the pod, but the REL is probably whatever the lowest possible is.
Opponent has Kahmal, Fist of Krosa, and is attacking me with several creatures. I am holding sudden spoiling. My ideal play is to wait for attackers to be declared, but play SS before he activates kahmal. So I'd like to ask, "it's the declare attackers step. Do you pass priority?" But I feel like if I say that, he'll suspect something and activate kahmal. If I say "move to blocks?" I feel like that indicates I'm passing, even though he has to pass first, so if he says yes and I then play SS, I'm reneging on agreeing to go to declare blockers. If say something like "let's take this one step at a time formally, with explicit priority passing", again, I'm alerting him that I have something and he may preemptively activate.
I'm not real familiar with all the tournament rulings of shortcutting and such. What's the best way to make a play that requires a bit of surprise, but where the onus is on the other player to declare thing that usually get shortcutted?
Ask if those are all the creatures that are attacking. If he says “ye-“ you interject with Sudden Spoiling.
Unfortunately, that's just a confirmation of the set of attackers, it does not entail a priority pass after attacker declaration. The opponent is well within his right to back you up as you rushed ahead.
What you can do, is to tap lands for mana without announcing what spell you are going to cast or what ability you are going to activate (you have to state what mana you have in your pool then). If you have some permanent with an activated ability needing mana, that's even better (like a manland) since it lures him into a false sense of safety. Since you are not within the process of casting/activating, you can activate mana abilities only if you have priority. Furthermore, mana abilities resolve immediately after activation and the player who activated them gets priority back after wards. So if your opponent is not stopping you, you now have priority during the declare attackers step to cast your split second spell without the opponent having the right to back up. Allowing you to tap your lands is him acknowledging that you have priority.
If you are crafty enough to formulate it well, you can propose a shortcut, which entails you declaring a set of blockers and after blocker declaration casting Sudden Spoiling. This leads to one of three possibilities:
1) Your opponent rejects it entirely. Then just cast Sudden Spoiling.
2) He just shortens it to after blocker declaration. But you are allowed to shorten it further. Just stop the shortcut entirely in that case and cast Sudden Spoiling.
3) He accepts it. You lose nothing as the game progresses to after your casting of Sudden Spoiling. Just make sure, that your proposed blocker declaration is how you want to actually block! (Though beware of triggers that go off with blocker declaration, especially those of the "when ... attacks and isn't blocked" variety!)
The reason why 1) and 2) work is because only the player who has priority can propose a shortcut, and him trying to shorten it is acknowledging, that you had priority to do so. And the only point for you to have had priority is during the declare attackers step after he passed it to you. (That's why you have to make sure, that the blocker declaration is clearly part of the shortcut proposal, so that you can shorten the shortcut to before blocker declaration!)
edit:
An easier way is to simply ask "Are you done? May I?" or just "May I?", especially if attacker declaration took a while. This way, you don't explicitly ask for priority, and you don't explicitly ask to move to blocker declaration, you just ask for your opponent to give up priority without using the word "priority". Of course, in order to not look suspicious, this has to be part of your usual routine, or at least something you do often during games, so that it is viewed by your opponent as normal behavior.
Semicasual commander night at lgs. We are playing for a pack for the winner of the pod, but the REL is probably whatever the lowest possible is.
Opponent has Kahmal, Fist of Krosa, and is attacking me with several creatures. I am holding sudden spoiling. My ideal play is to wait for attackers to be declared, but play SS before he activates kahmal. So I'd like to ask, "it's the declare attackers step. Do you pass priority?" But I feel like if I say that, he'll suspect something and activate kahmal. If I say "move to blocks?" I feel like that indicates I'm passing, even though he has to pass first, so if he says yes and I then play SS, I'm reneging on agreeing to go to declare blockers. If say something like "let's take this one step at a time formally, with explicit priority passing", again, I'm alerting him that I have something and he may preemptively activate.
I'm not real familiar with all the tournament rulings of shortcutting and such. What's the best way to make a play that requires a bit of surprise, but where the onus is on the other player to declare thing that usually get shortcutted?
Unfortunately, that's just a confirmation of the set of attackers, it does not entail a priority pass after attacker declaration. The opponent is well within his right to back you up as you rushed ahead.
What you can do, is to tap lands for mana without announcing what spell you are going to cast or what ability you are going to activate (you have to state what mana you have in your pool then). If you have some permanent with an activated ability needing mana, that's even better (like a manland) since it lures him into a false sense of safety. Since you are not within the process of casting/activating, you can activate mana abilities only if you have priority. Furthermore, mana abilities resolve immediately after activation and the player who activated them gets priority back after wards. So if your opponent is not stopping you, you now have priority during the declare attackers step to cast your split second spell without the opponent having the right to back up. Allowing you to tap your lands is him acknowledging that you have priority.
If you are crafty enough to formulate it well, you can propose a shortcut, which entails you declaring a set of blockers and after blocker declaration casting Sudden Spoiling. This leads to one of three possibilities:
1) Your opponent rejects it entirely. Then just cast Sudden Spoiling.
2) He just shortens it to after blocker declaration. But you are allowed to shorten it further. Just stop the shortcut entirely in that case and cast Sudden Spoiling.
3) He accepts it. You lose nothing as the game progresses to after your casting of Sudden Spoiling. Just make sure, that your proposed blocker declaration is how you want to actually block! (Though beware of triggers that go off with blocker declaration, especially those of the "when ... attacks and isn't blocked" variety!)
The reason why 1) and 2) work is because only the player who has priority can propose a shortcut, and him trying to shorten it is acknowledging, that you had priority to do so. And the only point for you to have had priority is during the declare attackers step after he passed it to you. (That's why you have to make sure, that the blocker declaration is clearly part of the shortcut proposal, so that you can shorten the shortcut to before blocker declaration!)
edit:
An easier way is to simply ask "Are you done? May I?" or just "May I?", especially if attacker declaration took a while. This way, you don't explicitly ask for priority, and you don't explicitly ask to move to blocker declaration, you just ask for your opponent to give up priority without using the word "priority". Of course, in order to not look suspicious, this has to be part of your usual routine, or at least something you do often during games, so that it is viewed by your opponent as normal behavior.
Former Rules Advisor
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