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Say it after he untaps his first permanent during his untap step.

Feb 4, 2013 -- 9:52AM, Bowshewicz wrote:

Feb 4, 2013 -- 9:44AM, FezzHead wrote:

Feb 4, 2013 -- 8:43AM, jeff-heikkinen wrote:

As mentioned several times above, you should let him know you plan on doing something in his upkeep as part of passing the turn.

What if I want to prevent the situation where I say "Pass turn, do (something) on your upkeep," and my opponent responds with "Wait, do (something else) on your end step"?

Don't say what it is that you're doing. Just let him know that you want to "do something" in his upkeep so that he knows not to draw. When the time comes, you can let him know what it is that you're going to actually do.

Its still unfair that you have to give away information, especially when it can lead to "In that case, I will... in your end step".

If my opponent tries to move from one step to another without passing priority to me, and I have the rules on my side, why should I get the blame?

~ Tim     

True, the rules say that each player must pass priority in each step to advance the game. But the rules also say that shortcuts are allowed and that player communication is important.

Consider the similar situation of declaring attackers. It's acceptable in this case to let your opponent know that you want to hold priority when you get to the beginning of combat step, but the responsibility is normally on the active player to offer this chance before he declares his attackers. If he jumps the gun, the game can be (mostly) harmlessly rolled back a moment, and the active player simply gives up information if he moves to fast.

In the case of upkeep-draw, however, the active player only stands to gain by jumping ahead. If you had wanted to do something in his upkeep, the game can still be rolled back, but now he has valuable information. There are two ways to remedy this that put the onus on the drawing player:

First, to penalize him for drawing too quickly. This is undesirable because it introduces a significant difference between kitchen table play and tournament play. Nearly every new tourney player would run afoul of this penalty -- not good.

The second is to require that the drawing player ask permission of his opponent to draw. This is absurd, and there's no real reason why the convention shouldn't be applied to any situation in which the opponent has priority. This would be an exception to the shortcut rule -- partially undoing the good shortcuts do for the natural flow of games.

In either case, a player may suspect his opponent will cast something in his upkeep, decide that the extra information of his next card is worth a small penalty, and go right ahead and draw. He still comes out on top.

The current method of putting the burden on the reacting player only needs to be invoked when it is necessary, requires no infraction procedure, does not much disturb the game's natural flow, and burdens the player who is most likely to benefit from its use. I believe it is the best solution.

suppose i take Zauzich's suggestion and say "entering my end step. i pass priority to you. are you doing anything on my end step?" and my opponent says "no". and then i say "i'm going to do something during your upkeep". then my opponent untaps and says that it's his upkeep with me having priority. can i then decide that i'd rather not do something after all, or am i bound to "do something" because i said i would?

You can not do something, but you opponent will get priority back still in upkeep if they want it.