#special actions

When can I use it?

Section 116.7 of the Comprehensive Rules reads as follows: “If a player with priority casts a spell or activates an activated ability while another spell or ability is on the stack, the new spell or ability has been cast or activated “in response to” the earlier spell or ability. The new spell or ability will resolve first.” That’s it. It’s that simple. Each time a player casts a spell or activates an activated ability, that player receives priority. That player then chooses to either cast another spell, activate another activated ability, or pass priority to the next player in turn order (so in regular tournament Magic, the opponent). In short, if the stack is not empty and you cast a spell or activate an ability, you are doing it “in response” to whatever is below it on the stack. The only things that will ever be on the stack are spells, activated abilities (indicated by their “cost: effect” formatting), and triggered abilities (indicated by the word “when”, “whenever”, or “at” at the beginning of the ability). Nothing else will ever use the stack – it will just happen immediately.

When can’t I use it?

Plenty of common things that happen many times over the course of an average game of Magic don’t use the stack. You cannot respond to these things. When their time comes, they just happen without using the stack. Because they never go onto the stack while you have priority, you never have a chance to do anything “in response” to them. But what are these things exactly? Once we understand what they are, how they work, and why the phrase “in response” creates confusion around them, we can better understand how to properly communicate with our opponents. Clear player communication is key because it ensures both players are on the same page with respect to the step or phase the game is in, which actions have been taken, and which shortcuts have been cut short. Imagine this: Ajani turns his creatures, including a Geist of Saint Traft, sideways and says “Attack with the team!” Nissa says “In response to attackers, I’ll cast Kozilek’s Return.” Ajani’s Geist dies, and then he puts a 4/4 Angel onto the battlefield tapped and attacking. Did Nissa’s communication make it clear when she was acting, and whether Ajani should be getting a 4/4 Angel from Geist of Saint Traft’s ability?

Turn-based actions

Turn-based actions happen automatically when steps or phases begin or end. They don’t use the stack and can’t be responded to. There are fifteen turn-based actions, which are:

• Phasing permanents in or out in the untap step • Untapping permanents in the untap step • Drawing a card at the beginning of the draw step • Setting a scheme in motion at the beginning of the precombat main phase (in Archenemy) • Choosing an opponent who becomes the defending player (unless you’re playing a multiplayer variant which has all opponents automatically become the defending player) • Declaring attackers at the beginning of the declare attackers step • Declaring blockers at the beginning of the declare blockers step • Active player announcing damage assignment order after blockers have been declared • Non-active player announcing damage assignment order after active player has announced damage assignment order • Assigning combat damage at the beginning of the combat damage step • Dealing combat damage after combat damage has been assigned • Discarding cards to reduce the active player’s hand size to his or her maximum hand size at the beginning of the cleanup step • Removing damage from all permanents and ending “until end of turn” and “this turn” effects after the active player has discarded in the cleanup step • Emptying unused mana from the mana pool at the end of each step or phase

I’ll save you the tedium of me going through and breaking down the above list in excruciating point-by-point detail, but suffice it to say that you can’t do anything “in response” to anything on the above list. For example, “in response to you blocking with Wall of Frost” does not make sense from a rules standpoint because blocking does not use the stack, so there is nothing to respond to. You can take actions before moving to the declare blockers step, or you can take actions after blockers have been declared, but you cannot do something “in response” to a turn-based action such as declaring blockers.

Special actions

According to the comprehensive rules, there are seven special actions which can be taken in a game of Magic. There is another created by Circling Vultures which allows you to discard it any time you could cast an instant (thank you to several Reddit users for pointing that out). The most common one is playing a land, but the others can be relevant as well. The seven special actions listed in the CR are:

• Playing a land • Turning a face-down creature face-up • Taking an action to stop a continuous effect or to stop a delayed triggered ability from triggering • Taking an action to ignore an effect • Exiling a card with suspend from your hand • Rolling the planar die in a game of Planechase • Turning a face-down conspiracy card face-up in a Conspiracy Draft game

Like casting a spell, you must have priority before performing a special action, but unlike casting a spell, performing a special action does not use the stack. A few of these can look fairly daunting, so let’s try to break them down:

Playing a land

A (usually) essential component of playing Magic: the Gathering, playing a land is a special action which does not use the stack. This is fairly simple: it means that the instant you have announced “I am playing this land”, the land is on the battlefield and you have priority again to do as you wish. Nobody can do anything before that land enters the battlefield. Playing a land is one of two special actions, alongside rolling the planar die, which must be performed during either main phase while the stack is empty (i.e. any time you could usually cast a sorcery).

Turning a face-down creature face-up

MORPHS! Although it is possible to have a face-down creature that wasn’t put there via morph or manifest (thank you, Ixidron), casting a creature with morph is the most common way of putting a face-down creature onto the battlefield. Because turning a face-down creature face-up is a special action, you don’t have the opportunity to blindly cast Shock targeting your opponent’s face-down creature before it possibly becomes Akroma, Angel of Fury. However, if the creature has a triggered ability which triggers when it’s turned face-up, that ability will go onto the stack as normal. You will receive priority and have a chance to respond. Just keep in mind that you are responding to the trigger and not the action of turning the card face-up itself.

Stopping a continuous effect or delayed trigger

A lot of words are used here to describe a fairly simple concept. Basically, this means that if an effect says you can stop it by paying a cost, nobody can respond to you paying that cost – it just gets paid. An example of this is Dominating Licid, which has an ability which reads “1UU, T: Dominating Licid loses this ability and becomes an Aura enchantment with enchant creature. Attach it to target creature. You may pay U to end this effect. You control enchanted creature.” If I pay U to turn my Dominating Licid back into a creature, you can’t respond by targeting it with Naturalize because the effect has already been ended and my creature has stopped being an enchantment.

Ignoring an effect

This is very similar to the aforementioned stopping of an effect – if you have priority and an effect states that you may pay a cost to ignore it, nobody can respond to you paying that cost. It is paid and you can ignore the effect regardless of whatever is put onto the stack after you do that. A good example of this is Leonin Arbiter, which reads “Players can’t search libraries. Any player may pay {2} for that player to ignore this effect until end of turn.” If I pay {2} with the intent of activating my Wooded Foothills, you can’t respond to the paying of that cost by casting Path to Exile on one of my creatures – you will absolutely have priority to do that if you want it, but because paying that cost doesn’t use the stack, the {2} has already been paid and I will have the chance to search my library for a basic land.

Exiling a card with suspend from your hand

By this point we’re probably starting to get a little repetitive: suspending a card does not use the stack. You pay the cost and exile it from your hand, just like you turn a morph or manifest face-up by paying the cost and turning it face-up, without waiting for approval from your opponent in between those two things. Although it looks like an activated ability to some players, note how it doesn’t use the “cost: effect” format which indicates an activated ability. You can suspend a card anytime you could normally begin to cast it as a spell.

Rolling the planar die

Rolling the planar die doesn’t use the stack, but its effects do: this doesn’t cause as much confusion to players because rolling either the chaos symbol or the planeswalk symbol will cause the corresponding triggered ability to be put onto the stack (in the case of the planeswalk symbol, it is simply “When you roll {PW}, planeswalk.”). Players will then have the chance to respond as normal. Just remember that nobody can respond to you saying “I am about to roll the planar die” because you just do it as a special action. It is one of two special actions which must be done at “sorcery speed”, the other being playing a land.

Turning a face-down conspiracy face-up

The philosophy of the morphed creatures section from earlier also applies here. Players don’t have the chance to respond to you turning the conspiracy face-up, it just happens. Do note that you can only do this when you have priority – it can’t be turned face-up in the middle of resolving a spell.

Circling Vultures

You can discard Circling Vultures any time you could cast an instant. This is another action which can't be responded to, just like the rest of these special actions. The Vultures was in a player's hand, then it's in that player's graveyard and that player has priority again, although if something triggers from a creature card entering the graveyard (such as Sidisi, Brood Tyrant), you won't have to wait to put that trigger onto the stack. It triggers immediately.

Mana abilities

Mana abilities don’t use the stack. This is a fairly simple concept and doesn’t need much elaboration, but let us recap what constitutes a mana ability while we’re on the topic. An activated ability is a mana ability if it doesn’t have a target, isn’t a loyalty ability, and could add mana to your mana pool when it resolves. Some examples of things which aren’t mana abilities:

• Deathrite Shaman’s first activated ability (“T: Exile target land card from a graveyard. Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.”) is not a mana ability because it has a target • Sarkhan Unbroken’s first activated ability (“+1: Draw a card, then add one mana of any color to your mana pool.”) is not a mana ability because it is a loyalty ability.

A triggered ability is a mana ability only if it is triggered by resolving an activated mana ability, it does not target, and it could add mana to your mana pool when it resolves. Although mana abilities do not use the stack and you cannot do anything “in response” to a mana ability, you CAN respond to abilities like the first activated ability of either Deathrite Shaman or Sarkhan Unbroken before they resolve, because those abilities are not mana abilities and therefore use the stack.

Replacement effects

Another thing some players try to respond to is a replacement effect for a card entering the battlefield. Replacement effects are effects which replace how something happens. An example: “As Phyrexian Revoker enters the battlefield, name a nonland card. Activated abilities of sources with the chosen name can’t be activated.” Phyrexian Revoker has a replacement effect, because instead of simply having it enter the battlefield, you choose a name as it enters the battlefield. The word “as” at the beginning of the ability is the key here which indicates that this is not a triggered ability. Because it is not a triggered ability, and we know that it’s not an activated ability or a spell either, the ability does not use the stack – that is, if I resolve a Phyrexian Revoker, there is no point in time at which you can “respond” to the ability while the Revoker is on the battlefield before a card has been named.

Moving through steps/phases