Ghostly prison complications.

[mossivo1986]

I have two Knight of the Reliquary's. My opponent has a ghostly prison. I begin my turn and draw a card. It's a land. I play said land move to my combat step. Is there a way I can pay for ghostly prison and attack my opponent with one of the Knights? If so please explain? I've now asked several judges, IRL and over the internet and i'm getting very different responses.

[mchainmail]

No. Here is my reasoning:

According to the rulings on Propaganda (same oracle text as GP) ( http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=4718 ) "The payment is made during the declare attackers step at the same time you are declaring the attacker." The cost to attack is not a triggered ability or anything else besides a static ability that modifies the rules of attacking.

The first thing that happens in the declare attackers step is you choose which creatures are attacking. Therefore, you don't have the opportunity to activate abilities before attackers are actually declared.

The reason some people may say yes is because under Pre M10 rules, mana can be floated between phases, letting a player do the reliquary trick at the beginning of combat. (And there it works.)

[Malchar]

I agree that the answer should be no. However, you are allowed to activate mana abilities during the declaration of attackers if you need to make mana to pay for costs. The only problem is that the knight's ability is not a mana ability.

[cdr]

As mchainmail said, the problem is 106.4 (http://yawgatog.com/resources/magic-rules/#R1064) - you can't float mana from Beginning of Combat to Declare Attackers.