Out of Time + Dance of the Manse

[BigMacChaos]

In my friend group we play commander. One of my friends plays an enchantments deck and has the combo of Out of Time and Dance of the Manse that has sparked debate. I'm hoping to get some feedback on this particular interaction.
Out of Time reads, "When Out of Time enters the battlefield, untap all creatures, then those creatures phase out until Out of Time leaves the battlefield. Put a time counter on Out of Time for each creature that phased out this way.
Vanishing (At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter from this enchantment. When the last is removed, sacrifice it.)"
Dance of the Manse reads, "Return up to X target artifact and/or non-Aura enchantment cards each with mana value X or less from your graveyard to the battlefield. If X is 6 or more, those permanents are 4/4 creatures in addition to their other types."
The player casting DotM usually has X be 6 or more, so OoT comes back as a 4/4 creature, which means that it phases out all creatures, including itself, until it leaves the battlefield. Here is where the debate starts. The active player says that this interaction indefinitely phases out all the creatures that it phases out. The player leaving the game, either by death or concession, does not have any effect on the phased out creatures, due to OoT being phased out, therefore it is not able to check itself leaving the battlefield.
I am of the mind set that when the player leaves the game, so do all of that player's cards, and in turn, meet the condition of OoT leaving the battlefield.
Please help. If there are any level 3 judges to answer this question, please let me know, because the player who is playing this combo is determined that this question is not fully answered unless by an L3 judge. Not my choice, but theirs.

[pokken]

Reference I could find:


This is a peculiar quirk; phasing out does not count as leaving the battlefield. So everything phases out until Out of Time is able to leave the battlefield. Which it can't because it's phased out (and can't lose time counters either).

It sounds like your question is more:
Do things come back when the player leaves the game?

The answer to this is, I believe, fairly simple:
Did Out of Time leave the battlefield? Nope, then stuff stays phased out.

Going to do some digging on whether there's some rule about stuff phasing in when someone leaves the game but I doubt it!

Here you go with the rules reference:
https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Phasing
702.26K

702.26k Phased-out permanents owned by a player who leaves the game also leave the game. This doesn't trigger zone-change triggers. See rule 800.4.

I do not see any rule that would end the continuous Out of Time effect that prevents the permanents phased out from phasing back in.

Since zone change triggers don't happen, the permanents don't come back out of phasing.

NOTE: This is wrong! leaving it for references

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@WizardMN we require your specific set of skills! Once again, the world needs you.

[Mookie]

From Gatherer:

If Out of Time happens to be a creature when its enter the battlefield trigger resolves, it will phase out along with all other creatures. You'll never remove the last counter since it's phased out, so all creatures will remain phased out indefinitely.

From the comprehensive rules:

702.26k Phased-out permanents owned by a player who leaves the game also leave the game. This doesn't trigger zone-change triggers. See rule 800.4.

re: 'until' wording, on Gatherer:

Banisher Priest's ability causes a zone change with a duration, a new style of ability that's somewhat reminiscent of older cards like Oblivion Ring. However, unlike Oblivion Ring, cards like Banisher Priest have a single ability that creates two one-shot effects: one that exiles the creature when the ability resolves, and another that returns the exiled card to the battlefield immediately after Banisher Priest leaves the battlefield.
...
In a multiplayer game, if Banisher Priest's owner leaves the game, the exiled card will return to the battlefield. Because the one-shot effect that returns the card isn't an ability that goes on the stack, it won't cease to exist along with the leaving player's spells and abilities on the stack.

My reading is: everything is phased out indefinitely. When the owner of Out of Time leaves the game, their enchantment will also leave the game. Its one-shot effect phasing everything out will then end, and the permanents will phase back in.

I'll yield to an actual judge to confirm though.

[WizardMN]

I would disagree with @pokken (and, thus, agree with @Mookie) though I do see where Pokken is coming from.

Rule 702.26k introduces a slight wrinkle into the thought process but it seems like that rule is simply stating that those permanents leaving doesn't cause any triggers because nothing in the game can see them. This is consistent with phasing in general as they are generally treated as not existing so nothing can trigger on them leaving the field.

However, we aren't talking about another effect or permanent looking for it; we are talking about its own effect stating a duration that can end. And the game keeps track of that and the game can "see" phased out permanents just fine, even though it normally doesn't do anything with them. With this in mind, it seems this falls under the idea of "the duration is over" and things happen from that. Leaving the game is leaving the battlefield and the game can tell that the permanent now left the field and thus the duration from Out of Time is now ended. I don't believe it matters that nothing can see Out of Time leaving since it is really only Out of Time's own effect that cares about it. And it certainly left the battlefield when it left the game.

[pokken]

Leaving the game is leaving the battlefield and the game can tell that the permanent now left the field and thus the duration from Out of Time is now ended.

So like Banishing Light this makes a continuous effect that keeps the things off the battlefield until Out of Time is no longer on the battlefield; phasing out does *not* count as "not being on the battlefield"

I got a little turned around by conflating it with trigger wording.


More references of discussion:



Basically, you're right, the continuous effect ends when out of time leaves the game, I *think*. It's very confusing, because a Fiend Hunter would *not* trigger, but the continuous effect of Banishing Light or Out of Time does seem to end.