Ah, the good old days of “Bolt your Jace as soon as he comes in”. See, priority is a funny thing, and it’s almost like magic (editor’s note: no pun intended?) to the people who aren’t well-versed in it.

The short version of the story: Priority is the system of who can do what at any given time in a Magic game. Almost every action in the game requires you to have priority to take that action. Casting spells is one of those things. So is activating abilities (including mana abilities, though they don’t use the stack).

So who GETS priority? Well, everyone, at some point… but only ONE person at a time. But the important thing for the article is this: Whenever any given object on the stack resolves, the Active Player, the player whose turn it is, gets priority first. What this means is that after your planeswalker or your Birthing Pod resolve, YOU have priority. YOU are the guy who can cast spells or activate abilities right now, not your opponent. This is important because that means you can use your Pod or your Liliana of the Veil right away, before your opponent can stop you. You can activate Liliana to put her out of burn range and keep her alive. You can activate Pod before your opponent Disenchants it, so you get a use out of it. That doesn’t mean they can’t respond to the ability, just that they can’t do anything until that ability is already on the stack (assuming it’s the first thing you do after you get priority).

Today’s Strategy Tip written by
Trevor Nuñez, Level 1 judge from Roswell, NM