Game Mechanics - Timing

Timing...

Timing is one of the most frustrating thing about Yugioh. In Magic: the Gathering when an effect is suppossed to happen, it happens. There are other cards and effects that can counter effects, but that is an intuitive mechanic and makes sense, even to a new player. Yugioh does not have that luxery. Initially, timing is confusing. In fact, timing was never even mention by Yugioh until you hit the competitive scene, where they blind-sided you with it.

Luckily, Konami has realised that it is a part of the game and is now included in the rule book.
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131004125132/yugioh/images/f/f1/Missing_the_Timing_EN-US.png

However, this is just a blurb of what timing is. But it does give a great starting point. This will mostly be a paraphrasing of the wiki. There are more ruling on the wiki for individual cards. This is mainly a friendly-word version of their summary.

"IF you can" vs "WHEN you can"

This is probably the most important thing about timing. These are the words you want to look for to determine when something can miss timing.

Yugioh Wiki wrote:

"Sometimes an optional effect can only be activated 'when' a condition happens. In this case, you are only allowed to activate the effect when the activation condition being met was the last thing to happen in the game. If something else happened after the activation condition was met, then you have missed the timing, and cannot activate the optional effect, unless it is a certain type of optional Trigger Effect, such as ones phrased 'If... you can...'. Optional effects which can miss the timing are phrased 'When... you can...'"

Let's look at some examples. If you want more in-depth reasonings behind the interactions, feel free to check the wiki or other trusted sources.

Examples:

Peten the Dark Clown's effect is a "When... you can..." type of effect, meaning it CAN miss timing. So what deos that mean and How does it miss?

If Peten is used as a tribute for a tribute summon, it misses timing. Why? The tribute happens, the monster is summoned, and Peten's effect goes on the chain. It is not chain link 1, so the "When" effect misses its chance to go off.

If Peten is used as a tribute for an effect, it misses timing. Why? Same as above. The tribute happens, the other effect goes on chain link 1, and Peten's effect goes on the chain after it. Peten is still not chain link 1, so the "When" effect misses its chance to go off again.

Let's replace Peten with The White Stone of Legend. Now what happens? While the word "When" is on the card, if you read White Stone's effect closely, the words "you can" cannot be found on it. This is not an optional effect, so it will always go off.

Chain Link 1 the thing to take note of. "When... you can" effects miss timing if they were to *activate* past chain link 1. Let's look at another example.

Heart of the Underdog is another "When... you can" effect. This one is a continuous spell though, so that makes it easier to have multiples on the field, which could lead to confusing situations.

Say you have 3 Underdog's on the field. And, during yur draw phase, you draw a normal monster for it's effect. All 3 effects can trigger simultaniously. Since they are simultanious activatons, they all DO NOT miss timing and you can successfully put all the effects on the chain (forming a 3 link chain, 1 for each activation). All 3 of these effects will go ff and you will draw your cards successfully. But what happens when you draw a Normal monster from one of these Underdog effects?

Let's step through the chain process here:
[lst]
[*]Draw a Normal Monster. Activate all 3 Underdog's. All 3 go on the chain. (Chain length 3)
[*]Resolve the third Underdog effect. (Draw a card. Chain length goes to 2).
[/lst]

Now what? Well, you are on chain link 2. Activating another Heart of the Underdog would mean activating it and putting it at chain link 3. Since HotU is a "When.... you can" effect, it misses timing. Remember, "when...you can" only works if it would be activated on chain link 1. So you cannot put any more onto the chain.

But then, why did it work when the first time? I put 2 of those activations onto chain link 2 and 3 didn;t I? Shouldn't they miss timing? Nope. Because from their perpective, they all activated on chain link 1. They resolved at different times, but they all activated on CL1. And that is the trick. Let's go back to resolving the chain.

[lst]
[*]The next HotU resolves. (CL goes to 1) Even if you draw another monster, the HotU cannot acivate yet because it would be activated at CL2.
[*]The final HotU resolves (CL0).
[/lst]

Now this is the special one. If you draw a monster here, you CAN activate all 3 HotU again, because they all think they would all trigger at CL1 simultaniously. This is where the loop can start.

"And", "and if you do", "also" & "then" conjunctions

Yugioh Wiki wrote:

"With cards with Problem Solving Card Text that state in their effect a 'then', followed by another part of the effect, will cause cards that have an activation condition 'when... you can' something happens to miss the timing to activate the effects. This is because the different parts of the effects are NOT considered to happen simultaneously, but rather you do the part before 'then', and then you do the part after 'then'."

aka: effect ... then ... second effect.

These are considered to act like 2 different effects on the same chain. Meanig what ever happens after the THEN to be the last thing to happen and the end result of the card effect. This can cause other "when... you can" effects to miss timing because once a chain starts resolving you cannot add to it anymore.

ex: Soul Taker vs "When a monster you control is destroyed by battle or by card effect and sent to the Graveyard: You can Special Summon this card from your hand."

Result:
You cannot special summon the monster.

Reasons:
Soul Taker says: "Target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; destroy that target, then your opponent gains 1000 Life Points."

Here is what happens.
Activate Soul taker.
Target your opponent's monster (this can be chained too. It is a cost of the card)
Destroy that monster. (The chain has started resolving, so you cannot chain to this)
THEN your oppoent gains life. (This is the last thing to happen on the chain, and responces are now allowed)
Opponent cannot special summon because the last thing to happen was not a monster destruction, but life gain.

Yugioh Wiki wrote:

Cards that state "and", "and if you do" or "also" do not miss the timing if the last thing to happen is one of the above in the text, and this is because these effects ARE considered to happen simultaneously, unlike "then", and therefore cards that activate do not cause any timing issues.

This is the opponsite of THEN clauses. And effect do not cause timing to miss. So if Soul Taker said "Destroy a monster AND your opponent gains 1000 life: then that monster would be allowed to summon itself.

Optional and Mandatory on the same chain

This one is something I learned from years of playing Gadgets. When you have effects go off simultaniously, mandatory effects always take precidence.

Ex:
You play Goblindbergh and activate his effect: Choosing to special summon the Green Gadget in your hand.
The effects of goblindbergh (change to defense position) and Green Gadget (summon, fetch red gadget) would activate simultaniously.
Mandatory effects must be placed on a higher priority than optional effects, so goblindbergh HAS to be placed at CL1, putting Gadget at CL2.

Since Gadget effects are all "WHEN this card is Normal or Special Summoned: YOU CAN add "!~~~ Gadget" from your Deck to your hand." They can miss timing. Being at CL2 in this situation, Gadget misses the timing.

Some other things to note:

I was asked a few other queston in regard to timing and rulings, I though I would add them here.

** You cannot chain to a summon. You respond to it.

I got this question in response to a Vanity's Emptiness play. Player A special summoned Black Luster Soldier, Player B responds with Vanity's Emptiness. What happens?

BLS is an Inherent Summon (no other card effect is puttin him onto the field). Which means that Vanity's does not work in the way player B wants. When BLS is summoned, there is no chain. So BLS is already summoned when Vanitys resolves. If Vanity's was already face up before BLS was summoned (or his effect was activated to summon himself) then he could not be summoned. But because his effect puts him onto the field without a chain, Vanity's does not work. What would have worked? Black Horn of Heaven.

Speaking of, there was a similar ruling I needed.

Black Horn of Heaven (and Thuner King Rai-oh and Horn of Heaven) is kind of the flip side of that coin. They all stop Inherent Summons. So Black Horn of Heaven would have stopped BLS. This is the rule for Horn of Heaven.

**You can only use the effect against a Special Summon which does not use a Chain Link (aka inherent). You cannot use the effect when a monster is Special Summoned during the resolution of another card.

So if Player A activated Call of the Haunted to special summon a Blue-Eyes from the grave, and Player B actvated Black Horn of Heaven in responce to it, what heppens? Well, the thing is, Player B cannot do that. Because BHoH only stops summons that don't use a chain. Blue Eyes would be summoned in the chain of Call of the Haunted, making BHoH useless and unable to activate. What would have worked, Vanity's Emptiness. Chain Vanity's to the activation of Call. Vanity's resolves first, then Call. But since Vanity's is already resolved, Call can't ss anything, and just sits there tking up space.

TLDR::

sources::

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Like this!!

Sure. Sounds good.

Nottu the Evoker wrote:

Looks like I'm not as good at this as I thought.

To be fair, some of those are pretty hard hard. 70 is still pretty good

i agree with Monte