A tournament shortcut is an action taken by players to skip parts of the technical play sequence without explicitly announcing them. Tournament shortcuts are essential for the smooth play of a game, as they allow players to play in a clear fashion without getting bogged down in the minutiae of the rules.
Players naturally use shortcuts all the time to make the game to run smoothly and without unnecessary delays. Imagine if, every time a player casts a spell, they say, “I put it on the stack, choose these targets, tap a land for mana, pay the costs,” instead of simply tapping some lands, putting the card on the table and pointing to a target. Playing Magic Online with all possible yields and stops can give you a general idea of what that would be like.
Tournament shortcuts go a step further to improve the pace of games and to reduce the number of “gotcha” situations. While shortcuts exist to expedite gameplay, players still make mistakes and may accidentally use shortcuts to pass a point when they intended to take an action.
Most tournament shortcuts involve skipping one or more priority passes to the mutual understanding of all players;
These shortcuts make it easier for players to communicate even when there’s a language barrier involved. Thanks to shortcuts, players around the world can use simple phrases like “Go” and “Attacks?” to communicate. There’s almost no room for interpretation, leading to fewer “feel bad” moments for players.
If a player wishes to demonstrate or use a new tournament shortcut entailing any number of priority passes, they must be clear where the game state will end up as part of the request.
A player may suggest a new tournament shortcut by saying something like, “I do this, you do this, I do this and this is where we end up”. The shortcut is invalid if a player cannot demonstrate or describe the exact sequence that leads to the desired result. It might also look like “I’m going to tap this elf to gain 1 green mana, then untap it using this process, and do that 100 times.”
A player may interrupt a tournament shortcut by explaining how they are deviating from it or at which point in the middle they wish to take an action. A player may interrupt their own shortcut in this manner.
For example, Player A controls Basalt Monolith and Mesmeric Orb and says, “I’d like to tap and untap this Monolith 30 times or until I reveal a land.” This suggests a shortcut and a stopping point for interrupting the shortcut. Another example would be “I cast lightning bolt and hold priority”
If part of the shortcut is discovered to be or becomes illegal, the shortcut stops at that point.
If a shortcut is proposed, and in the course of executing it, the players discover some part is illegal, the shortcut stops at the illegal point. It does not revert back to the beginning of the shortcut and reverse the whole chain. If the player was performing actions out of order (such as allowed with out of order sequencing), we do the actions in the correct order and stop right at the illegal action.
A player is not allowed to use a previously undeclared tournament shortcut, or to modify an in-use tournament shortcut without announcing the modification, in order to create ambiguity in the game.
A player may not request priority and take no action with it. If a player decides they do not wish to do anything, the request is nullified and priority is returned to the player that originally had it.
This is to prevent players from requesting priority, then passing, and claiming the game has moved to the next phase since both players passed priority. Yes, this was a thing that has happened in the past.
During the resolution of one of their spells or abilities, a player may not assume their opponent has taken a shortcut. They must seek confirmation that a choice with no visible impact was taken.
A player must make sure an opponent has chosen not to use an optional effect from their spell or ability. If a player casts Path to Exile on the opponent’s Grizzly Bears, and the opponent does not search for a basic land, they must be told that the spell allows them to do so. (Failure to do so may be a CPV).
Certain conventional tournament shortcuts used in Magic are detailed below.
These are Official tournament shortcuts that are universal across all sanctioned tournaments. Players are still free to propose other shortcuts during their games as long as they stick to the rules.
They define a default communication; if a player wishes to deviate from these, they should be explicit about doing so.
When a player wants to interrupt or change a shortcut, they must be explicit about it. When a player says, “Go,” and their opponent wants to act still in main phase, they must indicate the deviation. Otherwise, the action occurs at the moment defined by the shortcut (in this case in their opponent’s end step).
Note that some of these are exceptions to the policy above in that they do cause non-explicit priority passes.
- If the active player passes priority with an empty stack during their first main phase, the non-active player is assumed to be acting in beginning of combat
If the active player says “Combat” or “Attacks?”, they are assumed to be passing priority. If the opponent does something in response, generally they want to be doing it in Beginning of Combat, right before attackers are declared. This is their last chance, and is when they will want to do it a large majority of the time, so we treat it as the default, with an exception.
unless they are affecting whether a beginning of combat ability triggers.
The main exception will be if there are cards that have “At the beginning of combat” triggers, such as Goblin Rabblemaster. Opponents will often want to kill the creature before the effect goes on the stack, so if they act in response it’s assumed it is in main phase, as that is when such actions will normally be taken.
Then, after those actions resolve or no actions took place, the active player receives priority at the beginning of combat.
This means that if the active player says “go to combat?”, they still have a chance to crew vehicles or activate creature lands if they want. However, the non-active player still has another chance to do something.
Beginning of combat triggered abilities (even ones that target) may be announced at this time.
This sentence allows for more leniency in identifying whether a trigger was missed. It overrules the section in the IPG that states when players need to demonstrate awareness of triggered abilities. The IPG details that triggered abilities with targets need to have the targets announced before they pass priority, and with this shortcut we are blurring the lines for a couple of priority passes. This doesn’t mean the player can announce Beginning of Combat triggers whenever suits them, these triggers should still actually occur in Beginning of Combat.For more details and examples on the combat shortcut, see Toby Elliott’s policy blog post here. For more details on Missed Triggers, read the AIPG section here. - If the active player passes priority with an empty stack during their second main phase, or uses a phrase such as “Go” or “Your Turn” at any time, the non-active player is assumed to be acting in the end step unless they are affecting how or whether an end of turn ability triggers.
This is worded similar to the combat shortcut, with some differences. When ending the turn, most players just say “Go” or “I’m done”, or just gesture with their hand. This shortcut is in use when players attempt to pass the turn. If there is confusion about the communication, just ask both players separately what they thought was meant, and how passing has worked so far in the game, using your judgement after that. If the non-active player is casting spells, they typically mean to do so at the last opportunity in order to limit options to the active player. The exceptions to this would involve pre-empting triggered abilities that occur at the beginning of the end step. This means killing a Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur to prevent it from drawing a player cards, or killing multiple zombies in order to lessen the effect of Liliana, the Last Hope emblem would be assumed to happen in the post combat main phase.
End of turn triggered abilities that do not target resolve after the non-active player passes priority.
This is a noticeable difference to the combat shortcut, but it reflects that people handle these two steps differently. For end of turn triggered abilities with targets, the controlling player still needs to follow the guidelines to show awareness as listed in the IPG. This means for ones that target, it needs to be announced as the player goes into the phase. For the most part, we expect players to announce triggered abilities pretty quickly as they pass the turn. This line provides clarity that if there are actions taken at end of turn, the active player can still demonstrate awareness of triggered abilities like those that create a token. - Whenever a player adds an object to the stack, they are assumed to be passing priority unless they explicitly announce that they intend to retain it.
This is a perfect example of how shortcuts speed up the game by matching how people naturally play it. Otherwise, players would have to explicitly pass after each time they add an object to the stack (see CR 116.3c).If anything, this shortcut is more important for what it doesn’t allow-—namely, a player hesitating after a play, fishing for a reaction from their opponent, and then claiming to have kept priority and acting with the knowledge of the opponent’s reaction.This also explains why Legacy players who play Infernal Tutor and Lion’s Eye Diamond must explicitly state that they keep priority after they play the tutor, otherwise their opponent will just say, “OK I pass!” and they will not be hellbent. - If a player adds a group of objects to the stack without explicitly retaining priority, they are assumed to be adding them to the stack individually and allowing each to resolve before adding the next. If another player wishes to take an action at a point in the middle of this sequence, the actions should be reversed to that point.
This is relevant when dealing with cards that have an activated ability that pumps themselves (e.g. Shorecrasher Elemental); their controller can just say “I pump my Shorecrasher’s toughness six times” to speed up the game and, if their opponent wants to cast Mardu Charm on it choosing the four damage mode, they can still do so at any time. The opponent cannot argue that they played the Charm “as a response to the six abilities on the stack,” because under the first sentence, each ability is assumed to have already resolved before another one is added to the stack (because it can’t be done without priority). Therefore, if the opponent chose to play Mardu Charm after the sixth activation then the Elemental would have already been successfully pumped five times. - If a player casts a spell or activates an ability and announces choices for it that are not normally made until resolution, the player must adhere to those choices unless an opponent responds to that spell or ability. If an opponent inquires about choices made during resolution, that player is assumed to be passing priority and allowing that spell or ability to resolve.
Players sometimes announce choices early when they assume their opponents don’t have any responses to their actions or when they are fishing for information. This shortcut prevents players from announcing choices early in order to trick opponents or improperly gain information and then making a different choice when the decision should properly be made. But if an opponent responds to the spell or ability, the controller may make any choice they choose, regardless of any announcements made.Example: Albert’s only creatures are 3 2/2 Wolf tokens, and he plays Honor’s Reward, saying: “I’ll gain 4 life and Bolster this token”. Norman answers with: “In response, I’ll Murder it”. Since the choice of which creature to Bolster is not made until the resolution of the spell, and Norman has responded to Honor’s Reward, Albert can change his choice to a different token when Honor’s Reward resolves. Also note that, in this scenario, not changing the choice would make the resolution of the spell illegal, since there are still valid choices on the battlefield when the spell resolves.Example: Andy casts Void targeting Naomi. Naomi asks what number Andy chooses, and Andy states one. It is now too late for Naomi to respond to Void, and Andy may not choose a different number. - A player is assumed to have paid any cost of 0 unless they announce otherwise.
It is almost always in players’ best interests to pay a cost of 0 when an effect requires it, so this shortcut assumes they do so, unless they specifically announce otherwise. This both prevents less experienced players from being taken advantage of and allows them to concentrate on other parts of the game.Example: Player N attempts to prey on his opponent A’s ignorance by trying to use Clash of Wills to counter A’s spell when when X is zero, hoping that A will neglect to announce his choice to pay 0. This shortcut prevents this situation from becoming a problem. - A player who casts a spell or activates an ability that targets an object on the stack is assumed to target the legal target closest to the top of the stack unless the player specifies otherwise.
This is generally for counterspell wars where there are multiple potential targets on the stack. - A player is assumed to be attacking another player with their creatures and not any planeswalkers that player may control.
This is true for all attacking creatures that player controls, including any creatures put onto the battlefield attacking. The attacking player must explicitly state which creatures, if any, are attacking any planeswalkers controlled by the defending player as part of the turn-based actions of the declare attackers step (CR 508.1b). A player cannot wait to find out which of their creatures are unblocked before declaring that they are attacking a planeswalker.For creatures put onto the battlefield attacking, the attacking player must explicitly state if those creatures are attacking any planeswalkers controlled by the defending player as those creatures enter the battlefield (CR 508.4). - If an object has multiple mana abilities, a player is assumed to be activating the one that most specifically applies to the spell or ability for which that mana is being used, unless they announce otherwise.
This is known as the Cavern of Souls rule, and handles similar cards. While typically in the rules we dont assumptions like this, mana abilities get a little bit of a carve out as typically player dont give as much thought to announcing which mana ability they are activating. Its ‘obvious’ based on what they did with it. This shortcut is an attempt to codify that narrow case where a player has a cavern of souls naming zombie and taps the Cavern to cast a Zombie, but doest explicitly annouce the color of mana or that they are using the second ability. - A player who does not scry/surveil when instructed to is assumed to have not looked and chosen to leave the cards in the same order.
This shortcut applies both scrying/surveiling as part of the resolution of a spell or ability as well as scrying after keeping a mulliganed hand. A big part of the reason for this change is not wanting to punish a player unjustly for ignoring information they have access to, but are not required to acquire. As a player is typically not required to access this information we also do not want to punish the opponent. - In the Two-Headed Giant format, attacking creatures are assumed to be attacking the head of the defending player sitting directly across from their controller, unless the creature’s controller specifies otherwise.
So for example Anna and April are playing against Nataly and Nicholas, and Anna is sitting in front of Nataly and April is sitting in front of Nicholas. If in the declare attackers step neither Anna nor April specifies who they are attacking, it is assumed that Anna is attacking Nataly and April is attacking Nicholas. Therefore, if Anna attacks with a Thief of Sanity without saying who is she attacking and there are no blockers, when the triggered ability resolves she will look at the top 3 cards of Nataly’s library and exile one of them.