Mother of Runes

[MoxBropal]

My opponent attacks with a Grizzly Bears. I block with a Mother of Runes (http://magiccards.info/ul/en/14.html). I want to activate Mother's ability to give her prot green. At what point in the combat phase is it too late to do that?

[Kayradis]

Do it before damage.

[Justin]

For more information:

506. Combat Phase

506.1. The combat phase has five steps, which proceed in order: beginning of combat, declare attackers, declare blockers, combat damage, and end of combat.

Mother of runes can block and tap to give herself protection from a color if you do this after you've declared her as a blocker, but before combat damage.

[MoxBropal]

Awesome. I know this seems obvious but I'm working on cleaning up my technical play. I appreciate the input. So specifically:

In the Declare Blockers step, I declare Mother of Runes is blocking Grizzly Bears. When the attacking player passes priority, I activate mom's ability.

[cdr]

Exactly. In each step, the step-specific things happen (triggers triggering and going on the stack, declaring attackers/blockers), then the active player gets priority. The game moves to the next step once both players pass priority in succession.

[FTW]

Awesome. I know this seems obvious but I'm working on cleaning up my technical play. I appreciate the input. So specifically:

In the Declare Blockers step, I declare Mother of Runes is blocking Grizzly Bears. When the attacking player passes priority, I activate mom's ability.

Yep, but be careful. A lot of attacking players won't say "pass priority, do you want to do anything?". After you declare blockers, they will say a shortcut like "damage?" or "effects?" or "ok?". That implicitly means they are passing priority and asking you if you are also passing. Make sure to not just nod along here. Take the priority and do it then, otherwise you lose your window.