I really dislike the current shortcut.

The biggest, and most obvious problem is that players do not know or understand the shortcut, and it runs contrary to how players actually play the game. I thought this was always a prime consideration for how we make and apply policy? The outpouring following the Pro Tour shows that this shortcut is *deeply* unpopular with players, and for that reason alone, must be changed.

I also dislike how the short cut explicitly often goes against what the player actually said: “Move to Beginning of Combat” is NOT the same as “Move to Declare Attackers”, and we should not treat them the same. If anybody wants to argue that this distinction confuses players, I will counter that the current situation also confuses players.

Discussions of strategy should be irrelevant. The CR gives players a window to animate lands and crew vehicles in their Beginning of Combat. It is not for us to say that players should do all this in their main phase. As long as the step exists, players should be allowed to use it. Currently, the shortcut only allows this if players know to say all this while passing priority. This is more complex than the problem it is trying to solve.

I do not understand the argument that the current policy helps non-English speakers. Is “Move to Combat, Weldfast Engineer triggers; I target my servo” easy for players who don't share a language?

There are three Magic terms all competitive players should know: “attack”, “combat” and “pass”. These should be defined as specific magic terms which just happen to have the same definition in the English language. In rugby union, when a ruck or a maul is formed, the referee indicates this by shouting “Ruck!” or “Maul!” - and this works just fine for Japanese, Argentinian or Italian players who do not necessarily speak English. “Ruck” and “maul” are rugby terms and every player knows what they mean.

Similarly, I would propose that “pass” just means “I am passing priority”, “combat” means “ I am passing priority until I have priority in Beginning of Combat” (in most cases, the same as “pass”) and “attack” means “I am passing priority until you have priority in Beginning of Combat”.

I know that this isn't perfect, but I believe with a bit of fine-tuning it can work better than the current policy. It allows both AP and NAP to screw up - but that's fine. Demigod of Revenge can be awkward with Counterspell, but we expect the NAP to know that they should allow the trigger to resolve first. The important thing is that both players know what step/phase they are acting in - if they act in the wrong phase that should be a mistake we allow to happen.

This conversation has now became circular, as people are suggesting things that has been already suggested and opposed without addressing the opposition, which will lead to the same opposition to be wrote by someone else, and so on. It's a sign it's time to put it to rest for now.

- Emilien