Some confusion about this. I'm used to activating my mask of restrict in response to the declaration of a tribute summon, so I can bluff with it fd as long as I can. How would this work with jinzo ?

Player A has a monster, player B a fd mask of restrict. Player A declares he wants to tribute, player B flips mask of restrict. At this point, no tribute was made, and the monster was never summoned right ? So even if Player A wanted to tribute summon Jinzo there would be no problem right ?

You can't chain Mask of Restrict to a summon. You can't chain ANYTHING to a summon. By the time you could activate Mask of Restrict, the monster would have been tributed already and monster summoned, thus too late for anything.

I never used the word chain ...

Its "activating in response to the declaration of a tribute summon".

You can't chain to an attack either, that never stopped me from "activating sakuretsu in response to the declaration of an attack" to destroy the monster and the stop the attack ...

Okay...but by the time you activate, the monster has already been tributed...so... it's pointless...

There are certain requirements for a chain to start:

1 - Something has happened

2 - You have priority

3 - Timing is correct for card activations

What you are asking does not fit 2 out of the 3 requirements that I have just mentioned.

1 - Nothing has happened yet. In order for you to activate Mask of Restrict, you would need to activate in response to SOMETHING. The announcement of summoning does not count because nothing has really happened, and it's also not a chainable event.

2 - You don't have priority. In order for a player to normal summon a monster (outside of card effects) they must do so while there is no active chain, if they wish to tribute summon then they must tribute the required amount of monsters and then attempt the summon. The only time you can activate a card in response to an attempted summon is during the window of opportunity that is available to cards like Horn of Heaven or Solemn Judgment because they actually negate the summoning itself. You also can't play Mask of Restrict because the turn player would need to pass priority to you so you can activate a card effect, but they can't do that because they are busy trying to summon.

The reason you can activate Sakuretsu Armor when a player declares an attack is because the specific requirements written on Saku. Armor have been fulfilled and you have priority to start a chain (the turn player passed priority to you). "Responding" or "chaining" has nothing to do with it, you are activating a card/beginning a chain using the window of timing that a card has.

Now if they attacked with GK Assailant (an example) while Necrovalley was on the field (and they chose to activate its effect to switch the position of an enemy monster) THEN you would be chaining Sakuretsu Armor because it is being chained to the activation of GK Assailant's effect (and the activation timing is still correct).

Anyways, I'm rambling now . . . :tired:

I also have a question regarding mask. can you chain mask to your opponents soul exchange. I was thinking this because soul exchange has to choose a monster first before the tribute

Yes you can, that is a very good move in fact and would cause the opponent to have just wasted a card. Chaining Mask of Restrict to Brain Control would be great as well since more than half the time the monster they take would just be tributed instantly.