When is upkeep step

Abilities that trigger at the beginning of upkeep go on the stack, and then players can play instants and abilities. Once that is done, both players may play spells and abilities. Am I missing something? Untap, upkeep, then draw is indeed the order. Note that players do not receive priority to cast spells or activate abilities during the untap step. No player receives priority during the untap step, meaning that no cards or abilities can be played at that time.

During the upkeep and draw steps, however, players can cast instants and activate abilities as normal. No the creature is not removed from combat and yes the creature will still deal damage as normal. Creatures may be tapped or untapped after attacking and are not removed from combat.

You cannot, however, do it before that ability gets triggered and goes on the stack, which is what messes up your plan. But strategically it may occasionally make sense to set stops to get priority for certain plays — check out our tips article on this topic.

As you can probably guess from the previous explanations, steps are simply a subset of phases. Each turn consists of several phases, and each phase consists of several steps. Wasteland Illustration by Mark Poole. Yes, you lose mana at the end of each phase. Luckily, you also have Wasteland in play, so you can remove one of their lands.

Instead of having two untapped lands in play, your opponent has one untapped land in play and one blue mana in their mana pool. What do you do? Now you can cast Lightning Bolt without worrying about it being countered. You can only cast a card or activate an ability when you have priority, and priority is assigned at the beginning of the upkeep step. Any triggered abilities that happen during the untap step can only be responded to during the upkeep step. Thirst for Meaning Illustration by Brian Valeza.

Armageddon Clock Illustration by Amy Weber. Some older cards use to have phasing abilities. Many of them are still legal in some formats, but their wording has been changed to make them easier to understand. Take Armageddon Clock. Several other cards have been updated in similar fashion. Finale of Revelation Illustration by Johann Bodin.

Hopefully, any questions you had about phases in Magic have been answered. I know that all those little details about turn structure may seem tedious, especially if you mostly play Magic in person. They know the intricacies of turn structure inside and out. Assuming you have skimmed the basic rulebook this class will have some minor homework , it's time to get started.

Before we get into the structure of turns, we should talk a bit about "the stack". The stack is a simple concept that allows the game of Magic to be incredibly complex. Sound strange? It's not. Like I said, it's simple. It's also probably the most important long-term concept you will take out of this article, so sit up straight and pay attention.

Created with the addition of the Sixth Edition rules, the stack is where spells and abilities reside while they wait to see if they resolve. Spells go on top of the stack in the order they were added to it. In visual terms, it's helpful to actually picture this as a literal stack of cards, with the newest card always going on top of the stack.

How does it work? Well, a player we'll call him Ben with priority plays a spell or ability, and it is added to the stack. At this point, Ben has the option of adding additional spells or abilities on top of the stack note: this means you can respond to your own spells or abilities , or they can choose to pass priority to their opponent we'll call him Opie and see if the spell or ability resolves.

Once Opie has priority, he can then add spells or abilities to the stack on top of Ben's, or he can pass. Priority goes back and forth until both players pass in a row. When both players pass, the spell or ability on top of the stack the last card played resolves. After each spell or ability resolves, the active player the player whose turn it is gets priority again. At first that may sound complicated, but as you get used to using it in practice it will become second nature. To show this using an example, Ben decides he wants to cast Grizzly Bears , so he adds the Grizzly Bears to the stack.

Opie doesn't have any way of stopping the Bears from resolving, so he passes, meaning the Grizzly Bears are now in play and the stack is now empty. Ben says he is done casting spells for now. Opie has a deep-seated hatred of bears from a previous forest hike, and decides that the bears must die.

Therefore, now that the bears are in play, he places a Shock onto the table, targeting the bears. Ben decides he wants the bears to live, so he casts Giant Growth , also targeting the bears. The Giant Growth goes on the stack, on top of the Shock. Next on the stack is the Shock.

This means they will live to maul opponents another day. Three major things do not use the stack. First of all, mana abilities do not use the stack, so as soon as you use the ability like tapping a land , you get the mana. There is no opportunity for an opponent to respond to this by tapping your land or destroying it, or anything silly like that - you just get the mana and they get to sit there and be polite until you decide what to do with it.

Next, "static abilities" constant effects, which we'll get to in more detail in a later article also do not use the stack. For example, take the card Glorious Anthem. Last but not least, playing land does not use the stack. Land cards are not spells, so you just get to put them into play.

To clarify, saying something "does not stack" simply means that there is no chance to respond to that action before it occurs. Each turn is constructed of five phases, and each phase consists of discrete steps that happen regardless of whether or not you do something during them. Phases also signal the length of time you can float mana before you take mana burn. You can float mana from step to step through a phase, but if the phase ends and you still have mana in your pool, you burn for whatever amount of mana you have not used.

Today we're primarily going to focus on phases 1, 2, 4, and 5 with the knowledge that we'll be hitting the Combat Phase in more detail in the next two articles. Untap Step - During your untap step, you untap all your tapped permanents. You are not allowed to do anything else during this step.

Upkeep Step - This happens directly after untap and is the first time players may take action during a turn. Abilities that trigger at the beginning of upkeep go on the stack, and then players can play instants and abilities. Draw step: The first thing you do during your draw step is draw a card. Once that is done, both players may play spells and abilities.

There are no spiffy steps in this one, just one giant phase where lots of stuff usually happens. Assuming it is your turn, you can play any type of spell or ability during this phase. By contrast, since it's your turn, opponents can only play instants or abilities at this time not creatures, sorceries, etc. Main phases are also the only time that you can play lands.

During the early turns, you will normally want to play your lands during your first main phase so that you have more mana up to bluff or cast combat tricks. While you will generally want to cast combat-oriented sorceries or enchantments during your first main phase like Blanchwood Armor , for the most part you will want to wait to cast other spells and creatures until after combat occurs.

This leaves your opponent uncertain as to what you might play or do during and after combat and gives you more options and information with which to make your decisions. So, as a general rule of thumb, you often won't cast any spells before you attack unless it would help you out in that attack.