Can you cast spells at the beginning of your upkeep?

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The answer to this question is yes, you can cast instants and activate abilities at the beginning of your upkeep, but you cannot cast sorceries during this time. This is because upkeep is a step in the beginning phase of your turn where you can cast instants and activate abilities, but sorceries can only be cast during the main phase.

Frequently Asked Questions

General Questions

1. What is the priority at the beginning of upkeep?: At the beginning of the upkeep step, any abilities that trigger either during the untap step or at the beginning of upkeep go on the stack. Then the active player gains priority the first time during their turn.
2. Can you cast spells before your upkeep?: No, you can’t activate abilities before your upkeep. You get priority for the first time during your turn once your upkeep has started and any triggered abilities have gone onto the stack.
3. Can you cast spells before draw?: The first time any player may cast spells is during the player who goes first’s upkeep. If you are asking whether or not you can cast a spell before you draw a card in the draw step of a given turn, then yes, you are able to cast instants or activate abilities during your own upkeep.

Casting Spells

4. Can you cast spells after beginning of end step?: You can’t cast your spell after the end step, but you can cast it during the end step after everything else has resolved.
5. Can you cast a sorcery during your end step?: You cannot normally cast Day of Judgement during the End of Turn step. Creatures, like sorceries, can only be cast when it’s your turn, during the main phase, and when the stack is empty, unless they have special abilities that say otherwise, like Flash.
6. Can you play a sorcery on your Endstep?: In the actual game, your opponent can act during your End step (a step in the Ending Phase) without having something trigger. And, since you can only cast sorcery spells during your Main Phase (which comes before the End step), you can’t cast Lingering Souls.

Sorceries and Instants

7. When can sorcery spells be cast?: Sorceries and instants differ only in when they can be cast. Sorceries may only be cast during the player’s own main phases, and only when the stack is empty. Instants, on the other hand, can be cast at any time, including during other players’ turns and while another spell or ability is waiting to resolve.
8. Can you cast spells during your draw step?: No cards or abilities can be played during the untap step. During the upkeep and draw steps, however, players can cast instants and activate abilities as normal.

Abilities and Priority

9. What is the rule for cast in MTG?: To cast a spell is to take it from the zone it’s in (usually the hand), put it on the stack, and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. A player may cast a spell if they have priority.
10. Can you hold priority to cast a sorcery?: Holding Priority – Strictly speaking, a player gets priority after they cast a spell, activate an ability, or take a special action. However, we generally take a shortcut and assume a player passes priority after they do something. A player can hold priority if they explicitly say they want to do so.

Specific Scenarios

11. Can you flash in upkeep?: A creature needs to be in play from the beginning of your turn. You cannot cast anything during your upkeep with flash to avoid this. Essentially the creature needs to be in play at the end of the last turn for it to be able to activate abilities on the next turn.
12. Can you cast between upkeep and draw?: Can you play an instant between upkeep and draw? Yes – in fact, there’s no window in the Draw Step that you can cast something before they draw, only after. If you want to get them before they draw, it must be in the upkeep step.

Magic The Gathering Basics

13. Is a sorcery a permanent?: A sorcery is not a permanent. See rule 307, “Sorceries.” 307.1. A player who has priority may cast a sorcery card from their hand during a main phase of their turn when the stack is empty.
14. Do enchantments count as sorcery?: No. Sorceries, by definition, are not things that can attach to creatures, because they are not permanent spells. Enchantments are the kind of spell that is a permanent, and can therefore attach to other permanents (like creatures, lands, planeswalkers etc).

Turn Structure

15. What is the upkeep in magic turn order?: Your upkeep is the second step of your turn, between your untap and draw steps. It’s meant for triggers that are set to happen before your draw step and open up the opportunity for players to cast spells and activate other abilities before a player’s draw step, but after they’ve untapped.