First off, I must give credit where credit is due. This article is inspired by a book that helped my chess game greatly, International Chess Master Jeremy Silman wrote Reassess your Chess. Unlike most chess strategy and tactic books, it doesn’t begin with the advanced strategy — instead, Silman believes that most players can be made better players by taking them back through the basics. I think that this theory will prove true for Magic as well — and so in an effort to make myself and others better Magic players, I bring you "From the Top."

I’ll be focusing on Priority and Timing in this article. These both are integral parts of the game of Magic. Without a clear understanding of what these are, you’re playing a very simplistic game of Magic, and in truth probably a pretty poor version of Magic.

I’ll be referring to the Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF of the Comprehensive Rules; any page numbers mentioned are referring to that file.

You don’t need to know my whole Magic story, but I want to stress now that I am not a DCI judge. So while I work hard to double check myself and my facts, mistakes do happen... And if found, they will be executed. I’d like to thank my in-house editing team; several caged monkeys have read this over a dozen times, and they assure me that if it was poo, they’d fling it.

Having said that, let’s begin.

The modern meaning of "priority," according to Merriam Webster, is “superiority in rank, position, or privilege.” So, then; priority in Magic is to have the superior position to take an action.

Now we ask the natural question: what do we do when we actually have priority? Let’s now turn to the Comprehensive Rules. According to section 408.1d (pg. 31): “A player may play a spell or activated ability only when he or she has priority.” So we can do anything when we do have it. And we can’t do anything when we don’t have priority.

Well, that’s not true. You can concede anytime, even when you don’t have priority. But in terms of actions that don’t end the game, you can’t do anything without priority.

Not a damn thing.

So knowing when you have priority is obviously an important piece of Magic. You have to understand when you can activate the Top, and when you can cause your opponent to discard, and when you can do that nifty Johnny combo trick. Priority is integral in doing all of this.

So when exactly do we get priority? Allow me to direct you to section 408.1c (pg. 31), where it briefly explains that the active player receives priority “at the beginning of most phases or steps.” It goes on without telling us which phases or steps that is, so we have to look elsewhere — section 300 (pg. 21) — a section that I would call “The Dissection of a Turn,” though Wizards goes with the much more bland “Turn Structure.”

A player’s turn is composed of five phases: Beginning, Precombat Main, Combat, Post-combat Main, and the End of Turn. Of these phases, the Beginning, Combat, and End of Turn phases, are broken down into further steps. So, let’s take the phases one at a time and see just how timing and priority play into them.

The Beginning Phase is broken down into three steps, which are:

Untap (302, pg. 21)
No player receives priority in this step. The active player phases in any permanents (an old ability that's rarely seen these days). They then determine what is going to untap, and then untap everything simultaneously. So there is no chance to do anything during this step. The active player does their duty and moves on.

Upkeep (303, pg. 21)
First, any abilities which trigger at the beginning of the Upkeep are placed on the stack, as well as any triggered abilities which occurred during the untap step. Once these are all on the stack, then priority is given to the active player, followed by the inactive player. This is the first opportunity to use any abilities or cast any spells for the turn.

Draw (304, pg. 21)
First, the active player fulfills his drawing responsibility. Drawing does not use the stack, so it simply happens without the chance to respond during this step. After drawing takes place, the active player receives priority.

Neither the precombat nor post-combat phases have any sub steps. Both main phases begin by placing any triggered abilities on the stack and then giving the active player priority. There are some things that can only be done during the main phase, so let’s look into those.

During either main phase, as long as the stack is empty, the active player may lay a land. Laying a land does not use the stack, and so the inactive player may not respond to the playing of a land in this manner. (And, of course, a player may only lay one land during his turn unless a card says otherwise.)

Also, the two main phases are the only phases during which the active player may play permanents, and sorceries. Instants may of course be played during this phase too, but instants may be played whenever a player has priority regardless of phase.

That reminds me... If you come across older cards, you might see the card type "interrupt" — this should be treated as an instant for all purposes. All interrupts were changed to be instants between the printings of 5th and 6th Edition. Anyway, back to the main phases.

The main phases end when both the active player and the inactive player pass priority in succession. After the precombat main phase we move to the combat phase. In the words of John Travolta as the Archangel Michael, “Battle!!!”

Combat is where 90% of Magic’s dirty work takes place. No other part of the game can draw a temper as quickly as mistimed action during combat, so let’s work through it step-by-step. The combat phase is broken down into five steps which we’ll go through below.

Beginning of Combat (307, pg. 23)
Entering this step begins with any triggered abilities being placed on the stack. After that, the active player receives priority. When both players pass priority, we move to the next step.

Declare Attackers (308, pg. 23)
Immediately upon entering this step, the active player declares his attackers, tapping as necessary. After the attackers have all been declared, priority is given to the active player and the step continues as normal.

Now, 308 goes on a bit more to explain the more detailed aspects of declaring attackers, but most of it is not pertinent to this article — however I’d like to note a key point. If at any point a player makes an illegal attacking or blocking declaration, the game reverts to the moment just prior to that declaration. There is no penalty, there is no repercussion.

(Unless a judge decides you're trying to abuse the system and slaps you with a penalty. And, of course, we should note that the reason you don't get priority during the declare attackers step is so you can't stop someone's creatures from attacking by picking them off one by one as he declares each of them in turn. You either have to cast a spell before the declare attackers step, which is your last priority before your opponent chooses the creatures that he'll be attacking with, or you have to wait and let him attack with whatever critters he chooses. This can be extremely significant when casting a spell that says something like, say, "Target creature cannot attack this turn" — The Ferrett)

Just like a college lecture, 90% of you may know this, but I’m writing for the remaining 10%.

Declare Blockers (309, pg. 24)
For the first time in the turn, the inactive player is given an action without having to wait for the active player to pass priority. Immediately upon entering this step, the inactive player declares all blockers. Once blockers have been declared, the priority is given to the active player. Then — when the active player passes it, of course — priority goes to the inactive player and then moves to the next step as usual.

Combat Damage (310, pg. 24)
Before I go through this step, I have to make sure you all realize that there can be two Combat Damage steps. If there are creatures in combat that have First Strike (or Double Strike), then there are two combat damage steps; otherwise there will only be one. You can read section 310.5 for the comprehensive rules’ explanation of how double strike and first strike relate to the combat damage steps.

If there are to be two combat damage steps, the first one only involves creatures with first strike and double strike, while the second one would only involve normal creatures and double strikers.

Now, in terms of a generic combat damage step, the step immediately begins with the active player defining how damage will be dealt from his attackers.... Which is immediately followed by the defending player defining how his defenders will deal their damage. All damage assignments become a single unit in game terms and are put on the stack; immediately following that, the active player is again given priority. This is followed by the inactive player, and then it ends as normal with the stack resolving.

If you have a hard time grasping how damage assignment works, then think of it this way: imagine that you write all damage assignments on a sheet of paper and lay it down on the table. That paper is the bottom of the stack, and players may play spells or activate abilities that will be placed on top of the stack.

End of Combat (311, pg. 25)
All triggered abilities go on the stack and priority is given to the active player. When both players pass priority all creatures are removed from combat and the combat phase is over.

Now there are a few more points I want to make about the timing of combat before moving on. State-based effects are what my next article will be on, and they are the basic building blocks of magic. They are things like “players with zero or less life lose the game,” as well as “creatures with lethal damage are placed in the graveyard,” and so forth. State-based effects are checked whenever a player would get priority.... and thus I can’t ignore them in this article, so I just wanted to mention them. Here’s an example of a simple combat:

So let’s say you attack me.

In the declare attackers step, you declare your Sakura-Tribe Elder as an attacker and then pass priority to me. I in turn pass priority back to you.

This sends us into the declare blockers step. I declare no blockers and you then receive priority. (Note that I did not pass it to you; after I declare no blockers, you automatically have priority.) You pass priority to me, and I in turn pass it back to you.

This subsequent pass sends us into the combat damage step, and it is at this very moment that it’s too late for me to do anything about the Elder hitting me for damage. Thankfully, it’s also too late for you to pump the Elder any bigger. His one point of damage is placed on the stack (as would any other damage from creatures, but he is the only one). And so I take my one point of damage, unless I cast some spell that prevents it.

After the combat phase, we enter the post-combat main phase — something I covered with the earlier main phase, there are no differences between them. After the post combat phase is the End phase.

End Phase
This is composed of two steps: the "end of turn" step as well as the "cleanup" step. This is perhaps the most-used phase for actions on another player’s turn. You know that if you do it at this phase, you don’t have to worry about their actions in any other phases and that you’re about to untap (assuming it is a two-player game.) So it is for this reason that I think this phase is the second most important to understand in terms of timing and priority.

The "end of turn" step begins with all "at end of turn" triggered abilities being placed on the stack. The active player is then given priority.

Understanding the fact that the "at end of turn" triggers have already been placed on the stack is a critical tool in the Magic player’s arsenal. If those triggered abilities are already on the stack, then they won’t be triggered again until the next end of turn step. So if you Otherworldly Journey a creature out of the game at this time, it won’t return until the next end of turn step. Or if your Kiki-Jiki creates a token of something after these triggered abilities are on the stack, then the token will remain until the next end of turn step. This is defined in the rules in section 313.2 (pg. 26).

But you have to be careful! This only holds for the "at end of turn" triggers. Continuous effects that have the key phrases "until end of turn" or "this turn" will still end this turn because they actually end in the end step.

So during the cleanup step of the end phase, we first discard down to our hand size. Then all damage is simultaneously removed from creatures and all "until end of turn" and "this turn" effects end (also simultaneously). After this, state-based effects are checked and then the active player is given priority. Once both players pass priority and the stack is empty, another cleanup step occurs. Now, if there are no state-based effects at the beginning of this step, and then the turn ends. So if there is one pass through it checks again — and if there are no state-based effects, the loop ends and the turn concludes.

I’m sure this was obvious to some of you.... but if you found one nugget or one point that you didn’t know or hadn’t considered, then my job is done.