5. Fights

Focus and priority

Who gets to act, and when, while a battlefield is fought over

A showdown has two kinds of turn-taking at once, and it helps to keep them apart:

• Focus says who can start something while the chain is empty.
• Priority says who can add to the chain while it has something on it.

Whoever has focus has priority too, while the chain is empty. Once a card goes on the chain, priority passes back and forth as usual, and focus waits.

Passing focus

With focus and an empty chain, you have two choices: play an Action or a Reaction, or hand focus to your opponent. Handing it over is to pass focus.

When you both pass focus in a row, without playing anything in between, the showdown ends. A card played resets that: the other player then has to pass again before it can end.

An example

You move Shipyard Skulker, 3 Might, onto an empty battlefield. The showdown starts, and you have focus.

1. You pass focus. Your opponent has it now.
2. They play Hextech Ray on the Skulker: "Deal 3 to a unit at a battlefield." That would kill it. It goes on the chain, and they have priority.
3. They pass priority, and you answer with Discipline, a Reaction: "Give a unit +2 Might this turn. Draw 1." It goes on top.
4. You both pass priority. Discipline resolves: the Skulker has 5 Might. Then Hextech Ray resolves: 3 damage, not enough to kill it now.
5. The chain is empty, so focus moves on, from your opponent, who had it, to you.
6. You pass focus, and so do they. The showdown ends, and you conquer the battlefield.

Only cards someone chose to play move focus along. When a chain a trigger started is empty, focus stays where it was.