@Waterseas So the conclusion is that it is impossible to get priority in your beginning of combat phase. However, Rob McKenzie will allow you to have priority in your beginning of combat phase if you are clear about your intentions. Thank you, Rob McKenzie.

Even if he thinks priority is a nebulous concept, I'll take his stance over "It's just impossible."

Yep

I decided last week that I'm just going to keep doing what I always have done: "Beginning of combat?" It has yet to fail me.

I'll accept whatever rules lawyering comes my way.

Helps that you're not a combat focused player, at least in modern

The funny part is that the only time I have ever had to say that is in Modern, with my deck, to get rid of floating mana.

What typically generates the floating mana?

Gigadrowse

Ahh, got it

Turn to frog + Magus of the moon is dumb

How so?

Magus of the moon's 'ability' is still in effect after being turned to frog

Right, because layers

Yep, tis dumb

Really, it's just consistent

Shouldn't there be a dependency that causes the ability to turn off?

Ala Blood Moon and Urborg

Dependencies only apply within a layer

boo

Consistent sure, but completely unintuitive

There are multiple types of abilities that Turn to Frog can't stop: text changing abilities, type changing abilities, color changing abilities.

Predatory Sliver + Telekinetic Sliver, Turn to Frog targeting the latter, makes it so predatory sliver doesn't have the tap ability, because they're on the same layer

Also because Turn to Frog turns the creature into a Frog

Right, but if that's all it did, predatory sliver would still have the tap ability, telekinetic wouldn't

Right, I was thinking about it backwards. Yeah, it's on the same layer and the timestamps line up that way

Or, I guess that is a dependency

Yep

I feel like dependencies should trump layers

Would that cause issues?

Almost certainly yes

How so?

Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "issues"

Some things would definitely work differently

Any examples?

Humility + Opalescence

I'd be fine with that change honestly

Seems more intuitive that way

The thing is, they already avoid having abilities at upper layers that depend on lower layers. If you changed that rule, I think it might only hit ability-removing abilities

The question is, how high up in the layers should that hit?

How do you mean?

Removing Characteristic-defining abilities could be weird

I don't think there are actually any static copy abilities or control changing abilities, so those wouldn't be affected

Text changing ablitiies too, but you rarely see those anyway

Yeah

Removing characteristic defining abilities could be weird, though. Humility would make Devoid creatures colored, and Transguild Courier colorless, and creatures with Changeling be only Shapeshifters.

True

Is that less or more intuitive?

Arguably, those are applied before the layers, so ignoring them could be justified

Have to go AFK for now

So, I can see how that change might be more intuitive, but it would definitely introduce more theoretical complexity: hoisting dependencies like that could create larger and more complex dependency graphs

Here's an example that gets stranger if dependencies can cross layers: Mycosynth Lattice + Titania's Song

Isn't it the same as opalescence enchanted evening humility?

Yeah, I guess. It's just that having an ability affect the card it's on dependent on an ability that it's removing could be confusing

i.e. Humility only affects itself because Opalescence turns it into a creature

Mmhmm

And, since the ability applies before its own layer, arguably it should remove itself before you actually get to layer 6

If it can still affect itself