Mtg can instants be played during upkeep

Some abilities have "sorcery speed" baked into their rules, and some cards allow them to be activated "any time you could cast an instant". However, the timing restriction has been used to turn mana abilities into non-mana abilities, most famously Lion's Eye Diamond - this is to prevent it from casting spells, as part of the process of casting a spell is putting the spell from the hand onto the stack before paying costs.

Starting with Strixhaven: School of Mages , the card text "only any time you could cast an instant" was shortened to "activate as an instant. The opposite of instant speed is sorcery speed. The cards with the types mana source or interrupt became instants. MTG Wiki Explore. Main Page All Pages. Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? Edit this Page. Edit source History Talk 0. An instant is not a permanent. Instants During the upkeep and draw steps, however, players can cast instants and activate abilities as normal.

You cannot, however, do it before that ability gets triggered and goes on the stack, which is what messes up your plan. Things do not untap during your upkeep. They untap during your untap step. Some spells take a long time to manifest and can surprise you when they finally take effect, but there are simple Instant Spells out there that are effective immediately.

Of course, if you'd be happy trading that spell for a Cancel , then maybe wait anyway. But what if your opponent does have mana untapped in their blue deck?

Well, in that case. If you think your opponent might have the counterspell, and they do have mana untapped, the upkeep step is where you want to be.

Well, there are two important reasons: your opponent hasn't drawn their card for the turn yet meaning they have nothing new to fight off your instant with, such as a counterspell , and if your opponent does counter your spell, it'll be on their turn, which means they tap mana. In short: if your opponent is going to Cancel your spell, at least make them lose access to three mana on their turn to do it. Now this isn't without risks. You could get crushed by, say, a Brute Strength once again if it's damage removal on a creature you're targeting.

But especially in Constructed, where you often know your opponent's rough deck composition, this is a great window. Classically, this is a popular time to cast spells to fight over in control mirror matches.

Well, let's say I cast Torrential Gearhulk in my opponent's upkeep. They try and counter it. I counter back. They counter back once more. Well, maybe my Gearhulk didn't resolve. This means that on my turn I'll have all my mana untapped, while they still have a bunch of countermagic mana tapped. And then it's a perfect time for me to try and land the threat I really wanted to punch through!

This one is actually a bit different than the others. It involves waiting longer than normal to make your choice! Let's say you have a Final Reward in your hand, and your opponent once again has that Hyena Pack. Your opponent really likes playing Hyena Pack , I guess. Your opponent attacks. And, for whatever reason, you're tempted to give that Hyena Pack its Reward.

If you take the 3 damage here, then you can still cast Final Reward in your opponent's end step. There's a chance you'll have taken that damage for nothing. But if they're about to cast a much larger creature, you can Final Reward that instead!

Essentially, the question to ask becomes: "Is taking the damage from this creature worth having the option to kill the next thing your opponent plays? Sometimes that answer will be yes. Sometimes that answer will be no. But a lot of the time, I find it pretty worthwhile to wait. Then you get to answer their large threat, untap and cast whatever your big threat was, and suddenly have the tempo back in your favor. It's pretty easy to pass the turn here, cast Mind at the end of your opponent's turn, draw your two cards, and untap.

That's a default play. But often, unless you have something else you want to do in your hand, you should just play it in your main phase.

If you draw a land, you can play it for the turn. What this means for your strategy In your specific strategy, though, this isn't quite enough. It can't do that, because things happen in this order: Cryptoplasm's triggered ability is placed on the stack.

As part of this process, you choose your targets for that ability, which means choosing the creature Cryptoplasm will copy. At this point, Sudden Spoiling can't yet be cast, and Archetype of Endurance still has hexproof, so it cannot be legally chosen as a target. You receive priority and can cast instants. This is the earliest time you can cast Sudden Spoiling, but at this point it's too late to make Archetype of Endurance a legal target for your Cryptoplasm - a target's already been chosen.

Eventually, your Cryptoplasm's triggered ability resolves, and it becomes a copy of the creature you chose in step 1. Clever thinking, but the order of events prevents this strategy from working. Improve this answer. While a slightly different situation than described, the question asker might like to know that a clone can become a copy of the Archetype, since it doesn't target the creature it becomes a copy of. Featured on Meta.

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