Priority v. 1.1
By Michael Palmer
It's come to my attention that many of the questions being asked on our forums here at netrep.net have been the same questions regarding priority and specific monsters and how they interact. First, I'll say the golden rule that no one seems to understand as of right now. A monster does not have priority! YOU THE PLAYER HAVE PRIORITY!!! Some people just don't understand that so the first thing we always say while answering questions is "This monster doesn't have priority, no monster has priority. The player has the priority." So make sure you rephrase your questions before posting them if you ever ask about a monster's priority.
With that pushed aside, I thought up a few situations with certain monsters that you could use their effects with while using YOUR priority:
Player A summons Tribe-Infecting Virus to the field.
Player B responds with Trap Hole.
Player A choose to use turn priority to activate Tribe's effect.
Player B's Trap Hole is then added on the chain as link 2.
Chain:
Link 1: Tribe-Infecting Virus's effect is activated.
Link 2: Trap Hole is activated.
Resolution:
Link 2: Trap Hole first resolves since it was the last card on the chain and destroys Tribe-Infecting Virus.
Link 1: Then Tribe's effect resolves since it was not negated destroying all monsters of the specific type called.
Reason: I know what many of you are thinking. How can a card resolve fully if it's no longer present on the field at resolution? Well, to put it quite simply, it's like chaining MST to Raigeki. Even though you destroyed Raigeki in the chain, it's effect was never negated so it will resolve as normal even though it was destroyed in the resolution step before it's resolution would take place. The same goes with Tribe and any other monster, it's effect is being chained to with the trap card being responded with. Since you can't chain to a summon, the trap card would have to be chained to the cost effect of the monster. Since the trigger effect is spell speed 1, it would have to be the first link in the chain. Then you add on the speed 2 effect of the trap card, in this case it was Trap Hole, and it destroy Tribe first and then Tribe's effect destroys all monsters of the specific type called.
Player A summons Magicial Scientist.
Player B activates Ring of Destruction.
Player A activates Scientist's effect by paying 1000 Life Points.
Player B's Ring of Destruction then resolves destroying Scientist and dealing 300 points of damage to both players.
Player B's Scientist's effect resolves special summoning his fusion monster to the field.
Chain:
Link 1: Magical Scientist's effect is activated.
Link 2: Ring of Destruction is activated.
Resolution:
Link 2: Ring of Destruction resolves destroying Magical Scientist and dealing 300 points of damage to both players.
Link 1: Magical Scientist's effect resolves special summoning a Fusion monster.
Reason: Basically see the same as TIV.
Player B has Skill Drain face-up on the field.
Player A tribute summons Jinzo.
Player B's Skill Drain is already active and is a continuous effect.
Player A's Jinzo is negated upon the successful summoning.
With this it's a simple time stamp effect. Since Skill Drain was in effect first on the field, Jinzo's effect is negated.
Player B has a face up Level Limit Area B on the field.
Player A tribute summons Spell Canceller.
Same issue as above, since Level Limit was in effect first, it will turn Spell Canceller to defense position. Then Spell Canceller's effect will trigger, negating Level Limit, I'll also add to this, since Level Limit is negated that DOES NOT mean you can change the position of Spell Canceller, you can not change the postions of a monster summoned that same turn, so it'll stay in defense until it's either destroyed or until you can turn it your next turn. You however can change positions any other monster you may control at that time since Level Limit is now negated by Spell Canceller.
Reason: In this case, I'm demonstrating that continuous effects take priority over other effects. What I showed you is that a continuous effect that's on the field will take priority over resolution against another continuous effect introduced due to it being in effect first. In this case, since Skill Drain was active first, it's effect will effect Jinzo first before Jinzo could effect Skill Drain. Since Jinzo is negated, Skill Drain is not negated by Jinzo's effect. In the second demonstration I showed you Spell Canceller Vs. Level Limit Area B, the end result is Spell Canceller goes to defense mode and then negates Level Limit, the simultaneous effects would go on chain as I showed above.
Player A tribute summons Mobius The Frost Monarch and targets two spell/trap cards on the field.
Player B responds with Torrential Tribute.
Player A's Mobius The Frost Monarch resolves since it's effect is activated as soon as hits the field and the targetted spell or trap cards that were targetted upon summoning are destroyed. If Torrential Tribute is one of these targetted cards, it does not negate Torrential Tribute.
Player B's Torrential Tribute then resolves destroying all of the monsters on the field, including Mobius The Frost Monarch.
Chain:
Link 1: Mobius's effect is activated targetting up two spell/trap cards on the field.
Link 2: Torrential Tribue is activated.
Resolution:
Link 2: Torrential Tribue resolves destroying all monsters on the field.
Link 1: Mobius's effect resolves destroying the two spell/trap cards that were designated as the targets upon activation (summoning).
Reason: This one should be apparent, the effect activates as soon as it's summoned, and this means that as soon as Mobius hits the field, the player controlling Mobius gets to select up to two targets with it's effect. Then Player B has the right to respond with a trap after the selection is made. Mobius's effect would resolve as normal and than the trap card activated in response to him will resolve as normal.
Here's a tad bit different of a situation...
Player A's D.D. Warrior Lady attacks Player B's Face Down Card.
Player B flips their Face Down Card and reveals their own D.D. Warrior Lady.
Damage Calculation is reached and Player A takes 100 points of damage for running into D.D.'s 1600 defense with a 1500 ATK.
The question being is who gets the choice to remove first?
This one is quite simple, the turn player would have first choice on whether or not to remove. Player A would be the person to make the first choice on this, if they choose not remove, than it goes to Player B who has the choice now with their D.D. Warrior Lady. If they choose to remove than both monsters are removed from play. If not, than nothing happens and both monsters stay on the field, Player B's in face up defense position and Player A's in face up attack position.
That's enough for cards you would have "priority" with. It should be a little more evident that cards with normal face up effects would have their effect active on the field before any trap can be activated in response to the summon (not chained to the summon since another Golden Rule is that summons have no spell speed, which means for you new guys, they're non-chainable).
CARDS THAT A PLAYER HAS NO PRIORITY WITH:
If you read the above, you'll notice that that means that what is coming next is cards that you have no priority over to activate certain effects they control. First I'll talk about the one card that almost everyone wants to confuse it would seem.
Player A summons Breaker The Magical Warrior
Player B activates Bottomless Trap Hole
Player A chooses to use priority... but wait, what does that mean!?
Chain:
Link 1: Breaker is summoned, activating his effect to add the counter.
Link 2: Bottomless Trap Hole is activated.
Resolution:
Link 2: Bottomless Trap Hole resolves destroying and removing Breaker from the game.
Link 1: Since Breaker is no longer face-up on the field, the counter cannot be added to the card.
Reason: Breaker's effect is very tricky and some people don't understand how it's tricky. Breaker basically almost has two effects. The first is the addition of the counter, without this counter you cannot activate the secondary effect, so it's essential. The face up effect of Breaker as soon as it's summoned is the addition of the counter, not it's "breaking" effect itself. So the only priority you have when an opponent responds to the summon of your Breaker is the addition of the counter. If you look at the above chain you'll see that Breaker's counter is never added because Breaker is no longer face-up on the field to recieve the counter.
OTHER EFFECTS AND PRIORITY:
This goes towards the Giant Orc summoning/Sac to Catapult Turtle Vs. Torrential Tribue. It's still my reasoning and my opinion that you could sacrifice the monster to Catapult Turtle, since when you look at the above chains, you see that it's always the trap being chained to a speed 1 effect.
What would happen in this case is the situation would look like this:
NOTE: This is still being debated, I've got many people I know who are very good judges agreeing with me and others who are very good disagreeing, it's a very hot topic, but I hope to have something on it soon (I've already started looking into it).
Player A summons Giant Orc.
Player B activates Torrential Tribute.
Player A uses turn priority to activate the trigger effect of Catapult Turtle.
Here's the chain:
Link 1: Catapult Turtle's effect is activated, the cost of the effect is sending Giant Orc to the graveyard, which is done at activation.
Link 2: Torrential Tribute is activated.
Resolution:
Link 2: Torrential Tribute resolves destroying all monsters on the field.
Link 1: Since Catapult Turtle's effect was never negated, it would resolve as normal dealing 1100 points of direct damage to Player B.
Reasoning: I'm calling this reasoning for a reason, if someone comes up with it not being true, I want them to understand my completel reasoning behind my explanation. If a monster is considered face-up on the field after the summon, and if priority chains are the way I and many others have described them in the previous thread, then Giant Orc would in fact be on the field for the sacrifice to Catapult Turtle. Since the player with turn priority can choose activate any effect, including trigger effects, it would only make sense that they could activate Catapult Turtle's effect. Since the sacrificing of Giant Orc is a cost, it has already been tributed and destroyed by the time Torrential Tribute (which is chained to the trigger effect) resolves. Since Catapult was not negated (much like the Tribe example and Magical Scientist example above) then it would resolve as normal dealing 1100 points of damage to the opposing player.
I see no reason why it would be any other way and I see on reason why it would be contradicted within the game, it would only confuse even the most expert of players into second guessing every aspect of the game, it's situations like this that tend to cause people to quit, it causes massive confusion with the game, and it just really isn't very cost worthy if you get my point.
I'll look into maybe getting a few answers from UDE about the proposed chain, but for now I'm leaving this in the essay as another example of turn priority. It might be contested, but I still have yet to see a very good reason (the one reason someone gave only strengthens the argument I have).
In any case, that's all the updates I'm doing to this, most other things can be asked about in this thread. If you have any questions or beef about something I've exlained, feel free to explain yourself, that's what this is all about, it's to help others reach a better understanding about this aspect of the game and without that help, we're doomed to confusion and uncertainty for the rest of our lives... well... for the rest of the time we're playing Yu-Gi-Oh!
By Michael Palmer
It's come to my attention that many of the questions being asked on our forums here at netrep.net have been the same questions regarding priority and specific monsters and how they interact. First, I'll say the golden rule that no one seems to understand as of right now. A monster does not have priority! YOU THE PLAYER HAVE PRIORITY!!! Some people just don't understand that so the first thing we always say while answering questions is "This monster doesn't have priority, no monster has priority. The player has the priority." So make sure you rephrase your questions before posting them if you ever ask about a monster's priority.
With that pushed aside, I thought up a few situations with certain monsters that you could use their effects with while using YOUR priority:
Player A summons Tribe-Infecting Virus to the field.
Player B responds with Trap Hole.
Player A choose to use turn priority to activate Tribe's effect.
Player B's Trap Hole is then added on the chain as link 2.
Chain:
Link 1: Tribe-Infecting Virus's effect is activated.
Link 2: Trap Hole is activated.
Resolution:
Link 2: Trap Hole first resolves since it was the last card on the chain and destroys Tribe-Infecting Virus.
Link 1: Then Tribe's effect resolves since it was not negated destroying all monsters of the specific type called.
Reason: I know what many of you are thinking. How can a card resolve fully if it's no longer present on the field at resolution? Well, to put it quite simply, it's like chaining MST to Raigeki. Even though you destroyed Raigeki in the chain, it's effect was never negated so it will resolve as normal even though it was destroyed in the resolution step before it's resolution would take place. The same goes with Tribe and any other monster, it's effect is being chained to with the trap card being responded with. Since you can't chain to a summon, the trap card would have to be chained to the cost effect of the monster. Since the trigger effect is spell speed 1, it would have to be the first link in the chain. Then you add on the speed 2 effect of the trap card, in this case it was Trap Hole, and it destroy Tribe first and then Tribe's effect destroys all monsters of the specific type called.
Player A summons Magicial Scientist.
Player B activates Ring of Destruction.
Player A activates Scientist's effect by paying 1000 Life Points.
Player B's Ring of Destruction then resolves destroying Scientist and dealing 300 points of damage to both players.
Player B's Scientist's effect resolves special summoning his fusion monster to the field.
Chain:
Link 1: Magical Scientist's effect is activated.
Link 2: Ring of Destruction is activated.
Resolution:
Link 2: Ring of Destruction resolves destroying Magical Scientist and dealing 300 points of damage to both players.
Link 1: Magical Scientist's effect resolves special summoning a Fusion monster.
Reason: Basically see the same as TIV.
Player B has Skill Drain face-up on the field.
Player A tribute summons Jinzo.
Player B's Skill Drain is already active and is a continuous effect.
Player A's Jinzo is negated upon the successful summoning.
With this it's a simple time stamp effect. Since Skill Drain was in effect first on the field, Jinzo's effect is negated.
Player B has a face up Level Limit Area B on the field.
Player A tribute summons Spell Canceller.
Same issue as above, since Level Limit was in effect first, it will turn Spell Canceller to defense position. Then Spell Canceller's effect will trigger, negating Level Limit, I'll also add to this, since Level Limit is negated that DOES NOT mean you can change the position of Spell Canceller, you can not change the postions of a monster summoned that same turn, so it'll stay in defense until it's either destroyed or until you can turn it your next turn. You however can change positions any other monster you may control at that time since Level Limit is now negated by Spell Canceller.
Reason: In this case, I'm demonstrating that continuous effects take priority over other effects. What I showed you is that a continuous effect that's on the field will take priority over resolution against another continuous effect introduced due to it being in effect first. In this case, since Skill Drain was active first, it's effect will effect Jinzo first before Jinzo could effect Skill Drain. Since Jinzo is negated, Skill Drain is not negated by Jinzo's effect. In the second demonstration I showed you Spell Canceller Vs. Level Limit Area B, the end result is Spell Canceller goes to defense mode and then negates Level Limit, the simultaneous effects would go on chain as I showed above.
Player A tribute summons Mobius The Frost Monarch and targets two spell/trap cards on the field.
Player B responds with Torrential Tribute.
Player A's Mobius The Frost Monarch resolves since it's effect is activated as soon as hits the field and the targetted spell or trap cards that were targetted upon summoning are destroyed. If Torrential Tribute is one of these targetted cards, it does not negate Torrential Tribute.
Player B's Torrential Tribute then resolves destroying all of the monsters on the field, including Mobius The Frost Monarch.
Chain:
Link 1: Mobius's effect is activated targetting up two spell/trap cards on the field.
Link 2: Torrential Tribue is activated.
Resolution:
Link 2: Torrential Tribue resolves destroying all monsters on the field.
Link 1: Mobius's effect resolves destroying the two spell/trap cards that were designated as the targets upon activation (summoning).
Reason: This one should be apparent, the effect activates as soon as it's summoned, and this means that as soon as Mobius hits the field, the player controlling Mobius gets to select up to two targets with it's effect. Then Player B has the right to respond with a trap after the selection is made. Mobius's effect would resolve as normal and than the trap card activated in response to him will resolve as normal.
Here's a tad bit different of a situation...
Player A's D.D. Warrior Lady attacks Player B's Face Down Card.
Player B flips their Face Down Card and reveals their own D.D. Warrior Lady.
Damage Calculation is reached and Player A takes 100 points of damage for running into D.D.'s 1600 defense with a 1500 ATK.
The question being is who gets the choice to remove first?
This one is quite simple, the turn player would have first choice on whether or not to remove. Player A would be the person to make the first choice on this, if they choose not remove, than it goes to Player B who has the choice now with their D.D. Warrior Lady. If they choose to remove than both monsters are removed from play. If not, than nothing happens and both monsters stay on the field, Player B's in face up defense position and Player A's in face up attack position.
That's enough for cards you would have "priority" with. It should be a little more evident that cards with normal face up effects would have their effect active on the field before any trap can be activated in response to the summon (not chained to the summon since another Golden Rule is that summons have no spell speed, which means for you new guys, they're non-chainable).
CARDS THAT A PLAYER HAS NO PRIORITY WITH:
If you read the above, you'll notice that that means that what is coming next is cards that you have no priority over to activate certain effects they control. First I'll talk about the one card that almost everyone wants to confuse it would seem.
Player A summons Breaker The Magical Warrior
Player B activates Bottomless Trap Hole
Player A chooses to use priority... but wait, what does that mean!?
Chain:
Link 1: Breaker is summoned, activating his effect to add the counter.
Link 2: Bottomless Trap Hole is activated.
Resolution:
Link 2: Bottomless Trap Hole resolves destroying and removing Breaker from the game.
Link 1: Since Breaker is no longer face-up on the field, the counter cannot be added to the card.
Reason: Breaker's effect is very tricky and some people don't understand how it's tricky. Breaker basically almost has two effects. The first is the addition of the counter, without this counter you cannot activate the secondary effect, so it's essential. The face up effect of Breaker as soon as it's summoned is the addition of the counter, not it's "breaking" effect itself. So the only priority you have when an opponent responds to the summon of your Breaker is the addition of the counter. If you look at the above chain you'll see that Breaker's counter is never added because Breaker is no longer face-up on the field to recieve the counter.
OTHER EFFECTS AND PRIORITY:
This goes towards the Giant Orc summoning/Sac to Catapult Turtle Vs. Torrential Tribue. It's still my reasoning and my opinion that you could sacrifice the monster to Catapult Turtle, since when you look at the above chains, you see that it's always the trap being chained to a speed 1 effect.
What would happen in this case is the situation would look like this:
NOTE: This is still being debated, I've got many people I know who are very good judges agreeing with me and others who are very good disagreeing, it's a very hot topic, but I hope to have something on it soon (I've already started looking into it).
Player A summons Giant Orc.
Player B activates Torrential Tribute.
Player A uses turn priority to activate the trigger effect of Catapult Turtle.
Here's the chain:
Link 1: Catapult Turtle's effect is activated, the cost of the effect is sending Giant Orc to the graveyard, which is done at activation.
Link 2: Torrential Tribute is activated.
Resolution:
Link 2: Torrential Tribute resolves destroying all monsters on the field.
Link 1: Since Catapult Turtle's effect was never negated, it would resolve as normal dealing 1100 points of direct damage to Player B.
Reasoning: I'm calling this reasoning for a reason, if someone comes up with it not being true, I want them to understand my completel reasoning behind my explanation. If a monster is considered face-up on the field after the summon, and if priority chains are the way I and many others have described them in the previous thread, then Giant Orc would in fact be on the field for the sacrifice to Catapult Turtle. Since the player with turn priority can choose activate any effect, including trigger effects, it would only make sense that they could activate Catapult Turtle's effect. Since the sacrificing of Giant Orc is a cost, it has already been tributed and destroyed by the time Torrential Tribute (which is chained to the trigger effect) resolves. Since Catapult was not negated (much like the Tribe example and Magical Scientist example above) then it would resolve as normal dealing 1100 points of damage to the opposing player.
I see no reason why it would be any other way and I see on reason why it would be contradicted within the game, it would only confuse even the most expert of players into second guessing every aspect of the game, it's situations like this that tend to cause people to quit, it causes massive confusion with the game, and it just really isn't very cost worthy if you get my point.
I'll look into maybe getting a few answers from UDE about the proposed chain, but for now I'm leaving this in the essay as another example of turn priority. It might be contested, but I still have yet to see a very good reason (the one reason someone gave only strengthens the argument I have).
In any case, that's all the updates I'm doing to this, most other things can be asked about in this thread. If you have any questions or beef about something I've exlained, feel free to explain yourself, that's what this is all about, it's to help others reach a better understanding about this aspect of the game and without that help, we're doomed to confusion and uncertainty for the rest of our lives... well... for the rest of the time we're playing Yu-Gi-Oh!
