Two questions about silence...
Asked by Gamer7129 14 years ago
1) Since Silence doesn't have split second, your opponent could still cast cards with flash and/or instants right?
2) If you're fast enough, can you cast silence in response to your opponent tapping his or her lands, before their spell actually hits the stack?
It's also worthy to note that there is never a point in a turn where two players are racing to see who plays their spell fastest/first. If anything it can be the opposite...
The rules for priority can get somewhat complicated but essentially the active player is the player whose turn it is.
The active player begins each step with priority. They can then play any spell or ability which is legal to play at that time adding it to the stack. Keep in mind that any time a player plays a spell or activates an ability they do not pass priority, they retain it. Thus, they can play additional spells and abilities until they are ready to pass priority.
Once they pass priority, their opponent(s) can also respond as each will recieve priority individually, and each playing spells and abilities while retaining priority until they are ready to pass priority to the next player. Eventually when priority is passed around the table one full revolution without anything being added to the stack the top spell of the stack resolves, once it's resolution is fully handled the active player again recieves priority.
Once the stack is empty and all players pass priority the phase/step ends and the next phase/step/turn begins.
Even this is somewhat generalized from the official rules (not too much though).
Also note: No player ever receives priority during the untap step. Additionally no player receives priority in the cleanup step unless a triggered ability is triggered during the cleanup step. In such a case the active player receives priority first as normal and it is handled as outline above (only instants and instant-speed abilities can be played during the cleanup step). Finally I just wanted to clarify that yes, players do receive priority during every upkeep.
Hopefully this helps some.
October 15, 2010 5:45 a.m.
Also, when I said above it can be the opposite the reason is best illustrated by this example:
Say player A attacks player B with his 1/1 when player B has no creatures and is at 1 life.
Say player A has a giant growth (target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn) in hand and that player B has a lightning bolt (deal 3 damage to target creature or player).
If Player A casts giant growth on his 1/1 the spell goes on the stack. He then has to pass priority to player B who can respond with lightning bolt. Since lightning bolt will be higher on the stack it will resolve before giant growth dealing 3 damage to the 1/1 creature.
Upon the resolution of lightning bolt the 1/1 creature is dead. Specifically when lightning bolt resolves the 1/1 creature is alive until the active player (ie player A) would recieve priority..in reality any time a player would recieve priority state-based actions are checked before they get priority. State based actions are responsible for saying "lets move creatures dealt lethal damage to the graveyard" and "players at less than 0 life or more than 10 poison counters lose the game", etc...
On the other hand if Player A had been coy he could have passed priority without playing Giant Growth to Player B, then once player B casts lightning bolt he can respond with Giant Growth which would then be higher on the stack and thus resolve first. So when lightning bolt hits it does 3 damage to a 4/4 creature and thus the (formerly) 1/1 creature survives.
xeratheenigma says... Accepted answer #1
for part 1 yes they can cast instants and flash spells
for part 2 no you can not
because tapping lands for mana does not use the stack so the active player would have priority allowing him/her to cast a spell during his mainphase/upkeep (cant remember the first phase you can cast spells in) so when he casts the first spell priority passes to you then you cast silence then priority would pass back to the active player and so forth this stops when both players decline to cast a spell or use an ability.
October 14, 2010 8:55 p.m.