Forum:In which step do monsters "battle"?

In a recent duel with a friend, I was having trouble dealing with his Ally of Justice Catastor, so I summoned a Hyper Hammerhead and attacked in an attempt to send his Catastor back to his Extra Deck. However, my friend claims that Hyper Hammerhead's effect wouldn't activate because the line in Catastor's effect stating "without applying damage calculation" means that the entire Damage Step is skipped. After some research, I later pointed out to him that Catastor's effect would only activate at the Start of the Damage Step (substep 1) which means that the Damage Step would have to start for Catastor's effect to activate, and if it starts then it would have to end. I also pointed out that the phrase "without applying damage calculation" could only apply to Damage substeps 3-5, while Hyper Hammerhead's effect would activate in Damage substep 7. My friend then claimed that this was irrelevant because Catastor would destroy Hyper Hammerhead before battle took place between them in the first place, but I can't seem to find anything to confirm this.

Basically, here's my question: Apart from Damage substep 7, what portion of the Battle Phase would need to be skipped/negated in order to prevent Hyper Hammerhead's effect from activating (the part where "battle" takes place)? ISmartMan (talk • contribs) 17:18, April 13, 2011 (UTC)