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Mar 8, 2012 -- 10:20AM, majere39 wrote:

So my opponent plays Sun Titan, and targets Phantasmal Image to return to play. He says he "retained priority" during this process.

1) if he retains priority when he casts Sun Titan, then he will have to pass priority at some point to let his Titan spell resolve and enter the field.
2) once it hits the field, its ability triggers and goes to the stack and he chooses Image. Image can't return until he passes you priority to allow Titan's ability to resolve and return the Image.

Mar 8, 2012 -- 10:20AM, majere39 wrote:

Okay, I thought so but how does this differ from when someone plays a Planeswalker and says they are retaining priority in order to get a loyalty counter before I can Galvanic Blast for four to get the Planeswalker to zero loyalty?

Image doesn't copy anything until it hits the field which isn't until Titan's ability resolves to return it.

I don't see how the planeswalker example is relevant, but the active player gets priority once a spell/ability resolves so he can activate abilities/cast spells after the spell/ability finishes resolving.

Once Titan enters the field, it's trigger goes to the stack and Titan's controller as active player gets priority, so he can activate an ability or cast an instant if he wants, but the trigger won't return the Image until after he passes priority to you. At which point, you are free to cast a Doom Blade and destroy the Titan (Blade will resolve first, then Titan's ability will return Image which can now copy a creature on the field, but the Sun Titan he used to return the Image won't be an available choice).

In both cases, you have to wait until he passes you priority, but with the planeswalker, he already activated the ability and got the loyalty counters.

Sun Titan , Phantasmal Image , Doom Blade

"I retain priority" means "I want to cast/activate/play something else, too". He can retain priority, but this just means the Titan's ability will not resolve yet, so the Image is still on the graveyard at this point.

The Titan's ability will only resolve (returning the Image) after he has passed priority to you, and you back to him, meaning you will have the chance to cast Doom Blade on the Titan before the Image enters copying it. Your opponent can't deny you this.

Planeswalkers Abilities are activated (see the colon after the Loyalty Number?), and putting the counters on is part of the cost. That's why you can add Loyalty to a Walker without your opponent being able to respond. However, the Ability itself will not resolve without both players passing priority without doing anything, so your opponent has the chance to respond to the ability, just not to the adding of the counters.

The Titan has a triggered Ability (It starts with "When", "Whenever" or "At"), and they too have be put on the Stack and need both players to pass priority without doing anything before they resolve. So yeah, you are absolutely right when you say that Doomblading the first Titan will throw a wrench into the whole machinery.

The Titan would need an activated Ability that had returning the Creature from the grave as a cost to work like that (kinda like Master Transmuter , which is incredible against Removal for exactly this reason): "Return a permanent card with converted mana cost 3 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield: Do nothing. Activate this Ability only once each Turn, and only if Sun Titan entered the Battlefield during that Turn." Or something like that. You see, it does not really work as the cost of an activated Ability.