Turn Structure
Temporary and Vision Timelines
Track a Temporary unit or gear through the turn, and resolve multiple Vision abilities without assuming each sees a different card.
Guide overview
What you’ll learn
- Place Temporary before Beginning Phase scoring.
- Resolve each Vision and its Predict separately.
Guide content
Understand the concept
A PermanentA Main Deck game object that remains on the board after being played. Unit and Gear are permanent types. Runes, battlefields and legends are not permanents simply because they stay on the board.View in Glossary is a Main Deck game object that stays on the board after being played: units and GearA permanent type normally played to Base. Non-unit gear normally enters ready and does not have Standard Move. Equipment is gear with the Equipment tag. Gear that is also a unit follows the specific combined-type rules.View in Glossary are permanent types. Runes, battlefields and legends are outside that category. VisionA triggered keyword: when you play this permanent, Predict. Each Vision instance triggers separately.View in Glossary and TemporaryA keyword that kills its permanent at the start of its controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring. Multiple instances trigger only once.View in Glossary are keywords that may appear on a permanent. Vision reacts to playing it. Temporary waits for the start of its ControllerThe player who currently controls a game object and makes the choices assigned to that controller. Control is established differently for battlefields and other objects, and need not match ownership.View in Glossary ’s Beginning Phase, before scoring. The controller is the player making decisions for that permanent. Follow these events rather than interpreting Temporary as an end-of-turn duration.
The turn when the permanent arrives
Suppose you play a Temporary unit during your Main Phase. It enters ExhaustTo Exhaust something, turn it sideways to show that it has been used for an action or cost that requires it to Exhaust.View in Glossary unless an effect changes that. If it also has Vision, its play trigger lets you PredictLook at the instructed number of cards from the top of your Main Deck, recycle any number, then return the rest to the top in any order.View in Glossary . Temporary does not kill it at that turn’s Ending Phase.
The unit can remain through opponents’ turns. Its presence still matters for movement, combat and control, subject to the usual rules. Giving it Temporary late in a turn does not create a scheduled end-of-turn death.
Awaken does not remove Temporary
At the start of the controller’s next turn, Awaken ReadyReady means a card or rune is available to be used for something that requires it to Exhaust. Ready objects are kept upright.View in Glossary the unit with the rest of that player’s applicable cards. The unit is still Temporary. Next comes Beginning: its Temporary ability triggers at the start of that phase, before scoring.
Example - The only unit at a battlefield Your Temporary unit survived there until your turn. It readies during Awaken, but Temporary then kills it before you score for HoldHold means Scoring a Battlefield you already control during the Beginning Phase of your turn.View in Glossary . If it was your only unit there and no other effect supplies a replacement presence, you cannot rely on it to keep that battlefield controlled for the scoring step.
Use the current controller and active text
Temporary refers to its permanent’s controller. If control changes, the relevant Beginning Phase belongs to the new controller. Having Temporary more than once has the same result as having it once: the keyword generates only one Temporary trigger.
The keyword must be active to trigger. Printed Temporary on attached gear is InactiveText that is still present but does not currently apply, trigger or allow activation. Other effects can still check that the text or keyword is present.View in Glossary with its printed Rules Text. That text can still be recognized by an effect checking for the keyword, but its kill trigger does not function while inactive. Do not kill all attachments merely because their top-most unit has Temporary.
Two Visions can see the same top card
Unlike Temporary, multiple copies of Vision trigger separately. Each Predict lets you look at the top card of your Main Deck and choose whether to RecycleRecycle means returning a card to the bottom of the appropriate deck. When you Recycle a rune, it returns to your Rune Deck.View in Glossary it (put it on the bottom of that deck). They resolve in sequence, with the normal process for resolving spells and abilities on the ChainAn off-board zone that holds cards and abilities during the process of playing them. Cards and abilities on it are public information.View in Glossary between them.
Example - Keep, then keep The first Vision shows a card you want. You leave it on top. If nothing changes the top card before the second Vision resolves, you see that same card again.
Example - Recycle, then look Instead, recycle the card seen by the first Vision. The second now looks at the new top card. You decide separately for each Predict; two copies of Vision do not mean “look at the top two and choose together.”
Keep in mind
Key points
- Temporary uses the controller’s Beginning Phase before scoring, not the Ending Phase.
- Temporary duplicates are redundant; Vision duplicates trigger separately.
- Keeping the top card can make successive Visions see it again.