Originally posted by Brian Schenck:

…as once Albert has asked “Go to combat?”, that means he's passed priority to Natasha up to the beginning of combat step. Albert has to wait until after declaring attackers to actually activate Rogue's Passage's ability, as he doesn't have priority. Once Natasha says “Okay”, then Albert can proceed with declaring his attackers and activating Rogue's Passage targeting his creature.

Since Natasha has said “Okay” and not taken actions, priority currently lies with Albert as I see it. This is why I'm viewing it the way I am. Albert has priority and took two actions the wrong way round, in a single block of actions.

I understand that attacking with a Mutavault is not OoOS, but as Brian says, I don't think it applies here.

Originally posted by Tristan Killeen:

Albert says “Go to Combat?” Natasha says “Ok.” Albert then activates Rogue's Passage targeting one of his creatures. Albert then proceeds to attack, and Natasha calls for a judge. She claims that Albert missed his chance to attack.

How would Albert have missed his chance to attack? Unless Rogue's Passage has invisible text saying things I cannot read (like “you may not attack this turn”) then the only thing I can see Albert having possibly done wrong is activate an ability when it wasn't clear he had priority.

Originally posted by Jackson Moore:

How would Albert have missed his chance to attack? Unless Rogue's Passage has invisible text saying things I cannot read (like “you may not attack this turn”) then the only thing I can see Albert having possibly done wrong is activate an ability when it wasn't clear he had priority.

The accepted shortcut in the MTR dictates that a line such as “go to combat?” would advance the game to when Natasha has priority in beginning of combat. If Natasha does nothing with that the phase continues into declare attackers and Albert will not have priority until after he has declared his creature attacking. Natasha's intent is that since Albert has attempted to activate an ability he has moved past his opportunity to declare any creatures as attacking, even though he then did so immediately after attempting to activate the Rogue's Passage.

My feeling on this is that Albert has attempted to engage in a block of actions that, while technically in an incorrect order, arrive at a legal and clearly understood game state once they're complete. Even in this incorrect order I feel like there is almost no opportunity for advantage and there really isn't any information to be gained. That being said, I can certainly see a case where the ruling is a GRV for attempting to activate his land when he does not have priority, but I think we can't determine which ruling is correct without either being there or talking to the players, as what happened between activating the land and declaring his attack is super relevant.

I pretty much agree with what Brian and Ben have said - I wanted to chime in again to answer a couple of loose threads (with some very good points by their authors!).

First, the difference between “Go to combat? Attack, attack, activate Celestial Colonnade, attack” and “Block, block, activate Celestial Colonnade, block.”

Originally posted by Jon Lipscombe:

It is my understanding that we allow animation of creatures when blockers are declared (“block, activate mutavault, block with it) as OoOS, why does the same not apply here?

The reason one is fine and the other is not is that the NAP gets priority right before declaring blockers. There's no opportunity here for a “gotcha” trick (which is what the shortcuts are designed to prevent) - the attacking player doesn't get priority before knowing whether or not NAP is going to activate his or her Colonnade. If AP wants to respond after NAP activates, but before blocking starts, he or she is just rejecting a shortcut and we can just rewind - no infraction, no penalty.

On the other hand, letting AP see what NAP is going to do before deciding if he or she is going to activate the Colonnade gives AP a distinct advantage. We could get a considerably different set of decisions depending on which way AP goes, so we can't consider this OOS.

That ties into my other point:

Christopher Wendelboe
My feeling on this is that Albert has attempted to engage in a block of actions that, while technically in an incorrect order, arrive at a legal and clearly understood game state once they're complete. Even in this incorrect order I feel like there is almost no opportunity for advantage and there really isn't any information to be gained.

I think you want to be really careful here. I've seen a number of judges recently reject the established tournament shortcuts because they don't see much chance for advantage or information gained. But there might be hidden information involved (or implied!) that's leading players to play the way they are. We have shortcuts, in part, because we want people to be able to play Magic more naturally than Magic Online, and to know that when their opponent says something, they're going to be held to a standard set forth in the MTR, that works the same way anywhere, so they can act accordingly.

Deviating from the shortcuts, even (especially?) at Regular REL events is dangerous because it tells players at your event, “Hey, you can't count on the official shortcuts to protect you, so you need to play like a robot, because the rules designed to prevent Gotchas are disabled.” That's just not an enjoyable experience for anyone. And yes, you're going to hit some feelbads when a player who isn't aware of a shortcut loses a chance to blow his or her opponent out, but you're countering that by creating a feelbad when a player who assumed a shortcut was protecting his or her action.

Since you've got to choose one feelbad or the other, the best choice is probably not to create one for the player who was following the rules. The other player might be upset at first, but he or she will be upset with policy, and not with the judge who enforces it, and will take a better lesson away (“I should read the shortcuts”) than the other player might.

I'm not advocating that we reject the established shortcut here. The rules of the game dictate that Albert has the opportunity to activate his land after declaring his attackers, yet before his opponent can declare blockers. I agree that he should 100% be held to having no actions during the beginning of combat step, I'm not sure I see the advantage to penalizing him so long as it was a single batch of actions. Again, I very much feel like there is no single “right” answer to this situation because the ruling can change based on exactly what happened.

We basically have two options here as I see it:

1). We rule Out of Order Sequencing, we hold Albert to attacking with his creature(s) and that he has targeted the chosen one with his Rogue's Passage during the declare attackers step. Natasha may respond at either point, or request that the batch of actions be done in the correct order.

2). We rule GRV for Albert because he has attempted to activate an ability when he does not have priority. We instruct him to declare his attackers. It's possible that he realizes he will still be allowed to activate his ability before blockers are declared, but we do not inform him of such unless asked directly.

Originally posted by Christopher Wendelboe:

I'm not advocating that we reject the established shortcut here.

I apologize if I misrepresented your position - I mostly just wanted wanted to take a sec to make a point about respecting that we have shortcuts for a reason, after seeing a disconcerting number of judges go cowboy on this lately.

I tend to advise my players to be open about their communication. If you think of a way to “trick” information from an opponent or advance the game state without giving them a chance to respond, then you're not actually playing Magic.

I had to reread MTR 4.2 to realize that it offers to pass to begin combat opponent priority. It could be that the player's question was to go to the begin combat step and Rogue's Passage there, but since there is a documented shortcut for this case, we need to obey that.

Now, it is legal for Rogue's Passage to be activated in the declare attackers step, so it's not like Player missed his chance to make his guy unblockable.

Originally posted by Christopher Wendelboe:

The accepted shortcut in the MTR dictates that a line such as “go to combat?” would advance the game to when Natasha has priority in beginning of combat. If Natasha does nothing with that the phase continues into declare attackers and Albert will not have priority until after he has declared his creature attacking. Natasha's intent is that since Albert has attempted to activate an ability he has moved past his opportunity to declare any creatures as attacking, even though he then did so immediately after attempting to activate the Rogue's Passage.

Thanks, Chris. I think I misunderstood what was going on in the situation at hand.

Is there any functional difference between “Activate Rogue's Passage, attack” and “Attack, activate Rogue's Passage”?

If the answer is no (and I posit that it is), then that would seem to fall cleanly into OOOS.

Edited Toby Elliott (Aug. 9, 2015 09:53:38 PM)

It seems to me like a lot of people think that Albert's line of play was “combat? activate Rogue's Passage, attack” all in one fell swoop, which sounds like OoOS to me. But what if his line of play was “combat? activate Rogue's Passage” *pass priority and wait for a response* “attack” instead? Because from my reading of the scenario, that was the impression that I got, which wouldn't qualify as OoOS since he waited for responses in the middle of the batch of actions.

Originally posted by Toby Elliott:

Is there any functional difference between “Activate Rogue's Passage, attack” and “Attack, activate Rogue's Passage”?

If the answer is no (and I posit that it is), then that would seem to fall cleanly into OOOS.

In this exact situation there's (probably?) no difference, you're right. However I see it more like this: “use activated ability, attack” is not the same as “attack, use activated ability”. And there could be a big difference (manlands, Keyrunes, etc.). I want to avoid ruling this any differently just because in this case it's an activated ability that doesn't care if it's being activated before or after attackers are declared.

That being said, Albert did not miss his chance to attack just because he tried to use an activated ability. He's just not allowed to use it before he attacks - he can still attack with his creature and use it afterwards. If there really is no difference like Toby said, then there's no harm done. And to be honest, I don't know every Magic card, and I'm not 100% certain that there can't be a scenario where it would make a difference. That means we would have to look at every card on the battlefield, graveyard, maybe even the players' hands just to make sure “activate, attack” has the same result as “attack, activate”.

Originally posted by Toby Elliott:

Is there any functional difference between “Activate Rogue's Passage, attack” and “Attack, activate Rogue's Passage”?

This, I think, captures the main point here.

A lot of people have brought up “attack, activate colonnade, attack”, but there is a crucial differerence between that and Rogue's Passage - if we start from the beginning of Declare Attackers (which the shortcut has taken us to), there is no way to have an animated, attacking colonnade - but it is possible to have an attacker with Rogue's Passage activated.

The arguments against this being OoOS all involve the shortcut - but we can just take the shortcut as used correctly and accepted, and “Rogue's Passage, attack” as being acceptable OoOS for “Attack, Rogue's Passage”. If the opponent has some kind of response to Rogue's Passage, then of course that's different and we make Albvert sequence it correctly, but if we don't, there doesn't seem to be an issue here.

Originally posted by Tobias Rolle:

I want to avoid ruling this any differently just because in this case it's an activated ability that doesn't care if it's being activated before or after attackers are declared.

Why? The reason for having OOOS is so that we can allow less technical play in the cases where the game doesn't care.