In Magic, the turn is broken down in to many steps and phases, which give players the opportunity to cast spells or activate abilities at different points in the turn. They are, in order:

• Beginning Phase:
  • Untap*
  • Upkeep
  • Draw
• Main Phase (often referred to as 1st Main or Pre-combat Main)
• Combat Phase:
  • Beginning of Combat
  • (Choosing Attackers*) Declare Attackers
  • (Choosing Blockers*) Declare Blockers
  • (Assigning Combat Damage*) Combat Damage (there will be a second Combat Damage step if a creature in combat has First Strike or Double Strike)
  • End of Combat
• Main Phase (often referred to as 2nd Main or Post-combat Main)
• End Phase:
  • End Step
  • Cleanup Step**

*You might have noticed some parts of the turn with asterisks(*) by them. These are places where neither player gets priority (the opportunity to cast spells or activate abilities).

The most common question about this is, “Can I do something in my untap step before I untap?” And the answer is “No.” Your last chance to do anything before you untap is your opponent’s end step. Once your turn starts, the first thing that happens is you untap, then you move to your upkeep.

If an ability of a card triggers during one of these parts of the turn, such as untapping lands while you control Wakethrasher, or declaring attackers with Hellrider, those abilities wait to go on the stack until the next part of the turn (Upkeep and Declare Attackers, respectively).

**The exception here is for the Cleanup step, where players normally do not get priority. If an ability triggers during the Cleanup step (e.g., discarding Worldspine Wurm because you have 8 cards in hand), players get priority so the game can resolve the ability (an object on the stack can never resolve without both players passing priority without doing anything). After players have the chance to respond and the ability resolves, the game will start a new Cleanup step. This can happen any number of times until a Cleanup step occurs without the players getting priority (though it’s very rare for this to happen more than once).

Today’s Rules Tip written by Andrej Selivra, Level 1 judge from Los Angeles, CA