Activating Mutavault to Block

CompellingST · Joined: 05 Jan 2008 Posts: 4

I have a question on how activating lands to block during the combat phase works. I know that when they activate it, I have a chance to respond by destroying it with something like Nameless Inversion (Or at least, thats how its worked in my games).

But when exactly do each of the steps occur?

nico · Administrator Joined: 28 Oct 2003 Posts: 808

Questions like this can be figured out when you look at the comprehensive rules. The relevant phase for you is the combat phase, and in the combat phase there are multiple steps:

1 beginning of combat step <-- both players get priority to activate abilities and play spells

2 declare atackers <--- active player declares atackers, and taps the atacking creatures if needed. No players get priority during this step, so there is no possibility to respond. All creatures are declared atacker and tapped simultaneously

3 play spells, play abilities <-- both players get priority to do this

4 declare blockers <-- again, no player gets priority, and all creatures are declared blocker simultaneously

5 play spells, play abilities

6 combat damage step

The step that matters for you is step 3. In this step, the defending player can activate his mutavault, but since you get priority too, you can destroy his mutavault creature at that moment, after the mutavault ability has resolved.

Greetz Nico

Husapi · Joined: 31 Jan 2008 Posts: 24