Chains and Spell Speed

A Chain is how players activate and resolve multiple effects. A Chain also refers to the activation of a card in response to another card's activation. If a card's effect is activated, the opponent is always given a chance to respond with 1 of their own cards, creating a Chain. You must always be careful not to resolve the effects of your cards before asking your opponent if they wish to make a Chain. If your opponent makes a Chain, then you will be given a chance to make an additional play on the Chain. If your opponent does not make a Chain, you may Chain to your own card's activation. Both players continue to add effects to the Chain until they both wish to add nothing else, then you resolve the outcome in reverse order - starting with the last card that was activated.

Spell Speed refers to the speed of a card's effect. If you want to respond to a card effect in a Chain, you cannot respond with a card that has a slower Spell Speed. In general, from fastest to slowest, it's Counter Card -> Quick-Play or Trap Card -> Effect Monster/Magic Card.

The first activated card is Chain Link 1. The next card is Chain Link 2, and so on. Every time a new Chain Link is made, they are stacked up in the order that the cards are activated. Once the Chain is completed, the outcome is resolved starting with the most recent card to be activated at the top of the Chain and proceeding down to Chain Link 1.

"Activation" is when you declare an intent to use a card: flipping a Trap Card face up, announcing that you are using a monster's effect, flipping a face-down Spell Card, and playing a Spell Card from your hand are all examples of activation. Activation costs are payed and targets are chosen at activation.

"Resolution" is when you carry out the effects of a card.

When you chain multiple cards together, their activation (intent to use the card) is declared, one after the other. But no cards have resolution until nobody wishes to chain (activate) more cards.

When resolving a chain, as the cards resolve they are NOT sent to the Graveyard until the entire chain has resolved, or a card specifically destroys them.

Magic, Trap, and Effect Monster Cards have different speeds. There are Spell Speeds from 1 to 3. Remember that you can only respond to a card with a card of equal or greater speed.

• Spell Speed 1
  • Normal Magic, Continuous Magic, Equip Magic, Ritual Magic, Field Magic, Effect Monster (Ignition, Trigger, and Flip)
  This is the slowest of all Spell Speeds. These cards cannot be activated in a Chain to any other cards. So it normally cannot be Chain Link 2 or higher.
• Spell Speed 2
  • Quick-Play Magic, Quick-Play Trap, Normal Trap, Continuous Trap, Equip Trap, Ritual Trap, Effect Monster (Multi-Trigger)
  These cards can be used against a card with a Spell Speed of 1 or 2 and can be activated at almost any time.
• Spell Speed 3
  • Counter Trap, Counter Magic
  This is the fastest of all Spell Speeds and can be Chained against a card of any Spell Speed. Only another Spell Speed 3 card may be used to respond to these cards.

Player A plays "Dark Hole" and Player B responds by activating their Set "Magic Jammer". Then, Player A responds to that by activating "Seven Tools of the Bandit."

In this case, Chain Links are stacked up as seen below:

• Chain Link 3: "Seven Tools of the Bandit" (Spell Speed 3) - Negates the effect of "Magic Jammer"
• Chain Link 2: "Magic Jammer" (Spell Speed 3) - Negates the effect of "Dark Hole"
• Chain Link 1: "Dark Hole" (Spell Speed 1) - Destroys all monsters on the field.

"Seven Tools of the Bandit" (Chain Link 3) is resolved first and negates the activation of "Magic Jammer."
"Magic Jammer" (Chain Link 2) would then be resolved, but the effect of "Seven Tools of the Bandit" stops its activation.
Therefore the effect of "Dark Hole" (Chain Link 1), which would have been negated by the effect of "Magic Jammer," is resolved successfully, and all monsters on the field are destroyed as originally intended.

The turn player always has priority to activate a card first in each phase or step of their turn. This is called the turn player's "Priority".

As long as the Turn player has Priority, the opponent cannot activate cards first, except for effects that activate automatically, like Trigger or Flip effects. When the Turn player "uses Priority to activate a card" or "passes Priority", Priority is automatically passed to the opponent. A player must pass Priority when moving on to the next phase or step.

Obeyed strictly, you would always declare that you're giving up Priority before the end of every phase and step, and ask your opponent if they wish to play a card. However, for ease of play, announcing the end of your phases or steps implies giving up priority. Therefore, when you announce the end of a phase, your opponent can just say "Before the end of your phase, I activate this card" and use a card. This means the opponent used the priority you (implicitly) gave up.

• A turn player has Priority to activate a card or effect first.
• After a card's activation, and at the end of each phase or step, Priority passes to the opponent.

"Destroy" (destroy a card and send it to the Graveyard) is different from "negate" (prevent the card's effect from happening).

Chaining "Mystical Space Typhoon" (or "Dust Tornado") to a card like "Raigeki" (or another Normal Magic or Normal Trap Card, a Quick-Play Magic Card, etc.) has no effect, as it does not negate the card's effect. So if "Raigeki" is activated, and the opponent chains "Mystical Space Typhoon" to destroy "Raigeki", "Raigeki"'s effect still resolves as normal.

But, if you chain against a Continuous or Equip Card, with "Mystical Space Typhoon" (or "Dust Tornado"), the Continuous or Equip Card is no longer active because it is destroyed, and the effect does not resolve and disappears.

Sometimes a Trigger Effect says that?whe? a condition happens, you?ca? activate its effect. In this case, you are only allowed to activate the effect when the condition being met was the last thing to happen in the game (activating cards & effects that have?t resolved yet does?t count).

If the triggering condition happened for an optional Trigger Effect, but something else has happened after that, then you have?missed the timin? and you cannot activate it. For example, this can happen if the optional Trigger Effect monster was Tributed for a Tribute Summon or to activate a card effect, or if the triggering condition happened in a chain and was?t Chain Link 1, or if another card effect or game effect has happened since then. The triggering condition has to be the very last thing that happened in order for a?whe? you ca? optional Trigger Effect to activate.

Note that Trigger Effects can be found on Magic & Trap Cards as well as Monster Cards.

When cards are activated, and a chain is formed, the cards activated in the chain are not sent to the Graveyard until the chain is completely resolved OR they are destroyed by a card effect in the middle of the chain.

However, once a Normal Magic Card, Quick-Play Magic Card, Normal Trap Card, Quick-Play Trap Card, Counter Magic Card or Counter Trap Card has been activated (even though it has not resolved yet), the fact that the card will be destroyed and sent to the Graveyard after the chain resolves has already been decided.

Because it has already been decided that the card will be destroyed, the card cannot be returned to the hand or Deck. This is similar to how Monster Cards that have been destroyed by damage calculation cannot be returned to the hand, even though they are not actually sent to the Graveyard until after effects are resolved.

Exception: Because "Swords of Revealing Light" is destroyed by its effect, rather than by the game mechanics, it can be returned to the hand or Deck before it is destroyed by its effect.

Sometimes, you will have simultaneous effects attempting to activate at the same time. Whenever you have simultaneous effects, resolve them in a chain, even if they are Spell Speed 1 effects. This is a special case when Spell Speed 1 effects can be chained to each other, because they are all trying to activate at the same time and the players are not choosing to activate them.

If only one player has simultaneous effects being activated, then that player can choose the order in which they resolve.

If both players have simultaneous mandatory effects being activated, then the "turn player" (the player taking his/her turn) automatically has his/her effect become Step 1 of the chain. The turn player has no choice but to be Step 1 of the chain, although if he/she has multiple effects being activated, he/she does choose which of those effects is Step 1.

Mandatory effects are added to the chain first, followed by optional effects.

Many cards and effects can only be activated under certain conditions, or can only be used against certain targets. But because other cards and effects can be chained to them, and resolve before the original card resolves, those conditions aren't always still correct at the end of the chain.

In general, if a card has specific conditions in order to be activated, those conditions only have to be correct at the time the card is activated. If they are no longer correct when the card resolves, the card's effect still resolves.

However, if a card has specific conditions regarding its target, and those conditions are no longer correct at the time the card is activated and when the card resolves, then the card's effect disappears.

Technically, a card that targets a monster only targets the Monster Card Zone it occupies. So, if another effect that resolves first in the chain moves the monster to a different Monster Card Zone, the original card affects whatever monster is in the Monster Card Zone that was targeted.