During day 2 of a Legacy Grand Prix Anton casts Cabal Therapy in his first main phase by paying its mana cost. He names Lightning Bolt and sees that in Nicholas’ hand there are two copies of Tarmogoyf. Anton then attacks Nicholas with his Yavimaya Elder, deals combat damage and then moves to his second main phase.
Once there, he casts Cabal Therapy for its flashback cost by sacrificing his Yavimaya Elder and while reaching for his library to search for the lands from the Elder’s ability he says “I’ll name those Tarmogoyf you have in hand”.
Now Nicholas claims that Anton has missed his trigger for Yavimaya Elder, because he already named a card for Cabal Therapy and calls a Judge.
What is the infraction, fix, and penalty (if any)?
Judges, feel free to discuss this scenario here!
View AnswerThis is a typical case of Out-of-Order Sequencing as defined at MTR 4.3. There’s no infraction and no penalty. Players are allowed to perform Out-of-Order Sequencing of actions at any time provided the resulting game state is both legal and clear once they have finished.
Yavimaya Elder’s ability triggers when is sacrificed to pay for Cabal Therapy’s Flashback cost and Cabal Therapy’s card is named on resolution so the right order is to resolve first the Elder’s ability and then name the card for Cabal Therapy.
As no player have gained advantage nor additional information by this Out-of-Order Sequencing, the current sequencing should be allowed to resolve as it is, then Anton looks at his opponent’s hand for Tarmogoyfs and discards all the copies and then he searches his library for up to two basic land cards an puts them into his hand and shuffles his library unless Nicholas asks for the actions to be resolved in the correct order.
Is also noteworthy that Out-of-Order Sequencing applies at any REL, so even as this is held at Professional it doesn’t change our ruling.