Showdowns Step by Step

A unit becoming present at a battlefield its controller (the player who controls the unit) does not control applies Contested status if it is not already contested. Cleanup stages a Showdown there; opposing players’ units also stage Combat. “Staged” means awaiting its start, not that players have already received a response window. A staged Showdown persists while the contesting player still has units there and the battlefield remains contested. Staged Combat stops waiting if the opposing units cease to be present before it begins.

An effect sends units to two different battlefields. Finish that effect and its required tasks before opening either contest. Both can become staged. The game handles one active contest at a time; the turn player selects the battlefield when the relevant opening task offers a choice.

Neutral means no Showdown or Combat is in progress. Showdown state means one is in progress. Open means no Chain exists; Closed means a Chain exists. These are two separate distinctions. A Showdown can therefore be Open while players take turns with Focus, or Closed while its current Chain is handled.

At the start of a Showdown, the player who applied Contested receives Focus, the chance to act while the Showdown’s Chain is empty. Gaining Focus also gives priority, the right to take a legal action now. They can play a legally timed card or ability, or pass. A normal card-created Chain closes the state; Reactions then use priority. When that Chain finishes, the Showdown returns to Open and Focus normally passes. Chains initiated by triggered abilities or Add abilities are exceptions: finishing those alone does not pass Focus. When everyone passes Focus consecutively, the Showdown ends.

You move to an empty, uncontrolled battlefield and a non-combat Showdown begins. During it, an opponent plays a legal movement spell that brings their unit there. That spell’s Chain must finish before an Open Showdown can be converted into a Combat Showdown at that same battlefield. You do not begin damage assignment halfway through the movement spell.

Trace it: non-combat Showdown Open → movement spell creates Showdown Closed → spell resolves and checks stage Combat → Chain finishes and Showdown becomes Open → the conversion task opens Combat there. Attacker and defender are established through Combat’s opening procedure, including its triggered abilities. If the opposing presence disappears before the Combat starts, the staged Combat no longer proceeds.

During an active contest at battlefield A, a legal effect can create a new contest at battlefield B. B waits as staged while A and any necessary steps on the Chain are handled. A staged contest does not automatically let players start another independent Focus sequence while A is still active.

When the game returns to Neutral Open with no required steps still preventing the opening task, a waiting contest can begin. At Cleanup, staged Showdowns without staged Combat are considered by their opening task before the separate staged-Combat opening task. If several qualifying battlefields are offered by the same task, the turn player chooses one. Track each location separately; removing the contesting units from B can cancel its waiting Showdown before it ever opens.

In a game with more than two players, a battlefield with staged or ongoing Combat is not a valid Move destination for a player uninvolved in that Combat or without units already there. It is also not a valid place for an uninvolved player to play units. A required Move to an invalid destination instead Recalls; an effect requiring an uninvolved player’s unit to be played there puts it in that player’s Base instead. Do not treat the time before damage as unrestricted third-player entry.

Team play adds a different restriction: a battlefield occupied by your teammate’s units is an invalid Move destination for your units. Friendly status does not give you control of their units or permit their Standard Move. Before following an effect that stages another contest, check these destination restrictions as well as the card’s own wording.