MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge - Guess Who's Back Back Again Edition

Are you excited for Kaladesh? And what do you think the monster Nahiri is summoning is? Any chance at all it's not Emrakul?

Is it possible, within the rules, for a replacement effect to target, had a brief debate on the concept and it was argued that a non-targeted effect being replaced could not target, as it was not able to ever do so.

Can non-creature permanents die?

You absolutely can.
Good luck finding any copies of it in their hand, library, and graveyard.

heres a card with a replacement effect "if...would..instead" that targets

furthermore on kor chant, you can see how the non-targeted effect, a creature taking damage, could be from combat or whatever, is replaced by a targeted effect

The rules say that you can name any side of a DFC and git the other side, tho.

Oh, wait, really?
Well then. In that case I'm probably wrong.

Actually, no, I think I'm right after all. Rule 711.4a.
Who told you that you could name one side and grab either side?

Oh god, we going to have this discussion again?

Good to see you on here again.

+1/+1. You cast Confront, When it resolves, investigating triggers the illuminator and the ability waits to go on the stack. You have 1 clue token from confront's investigate.

Erdwall Illuminator gains +1/+1 since you have a single clue. Then we're gonna put Illuminator's trigger on the stack, and when it resolves you investigate again and your clue count reaches 2, but not in time to increase Illuminator's p/t with the spell.

Yes. Die is shorthand for "goes to the graveyard from the battlefield". Permanents exist on the battlefield and if they go to the graveyard from there they "died"

You apply things that set p/t before things that modify it. So sudden spoiling sets the p/t to 0/2. Now you have teleportal giving it +1/0, so its a 1/3.

You have prowess boosts? Yeah they still apply. Since they modify p/t and don't set it, they apply after the spoiling.

And as you say, the creature can't be blocked, but isn't granted an ability. So it still can't be blocked, after Sudden spoiling.

I have a Hardened Scales on the battlefield, and a Kitchen Finks
When my Kitchen Finks dies and Persist triggers, does hardened scales do anything?

>If one or more +1/+1 counters would be placed on a creature you control, that many plus one +1/+1 counters are placed on it instead.

Persist
>702.78a. Persist is a triggered ability. "Persist" means "When this permanent is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, if it had no -1/-1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a -1/-1 counter on it."

-1/-1 counters aren't +1/+1 counters

Well, it's not really supposed to be a discussion and more a question to a judge. Since, you know, that's the purpose of these threads.

I said that more for his benefit than anyone else's, since we just discussed it recently elsewhere.

Last we found he felt that due to tournament rules, you can't name persistent nightmare for IO, but that the comprehensive rules don't stop it, to summarize.

Not gA, but gimme a minute to collate all the unanswered questions.

>how do I assemble a contraption?
idklol. That's the official answer thus far. That said with Kaladesh you never know...

well has it right. Unblockable used to be a keyword that sudden spoiling would have been able to shut down, but the rules change just sets a blocking condition - not an ability of the card.

It'll put a +1/+1 counter on finks, which will sweep away the -1/-1 counter that persist put on it. What fun!

Yes you can, it just doesn't do what you want.

Do you have any sweet judge promos?

>It'll put a +1/+1 counter on finks, which will sweep away the -1/-1 counter that persist put on it. What fun!
I...highly doubt that, buddy. Hardened Scales only puts +1/+1counters when you'd put a +1/+1 counter anyway.

So here's a question. I summon eldrazi devestator, an opponent uses control magic and takes control of it. Next turn a third player plays naturalize on the control magic and I get it back. Now the person who played control magic uses his turn to take it back. At the main phase of my turn I destroy the enchantment again. Nothing else happens to the devestator until my next turn. At what point does it lose summoning sickness?

A question regarding infinite loops and shortcuts. I am playing EDH, my commander is Gitgud toad, which I have in play. I also have skirge familiar for mana and Wild Mongrel as a discard outlet. My library contains Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and an Ebony Charm as my only remaining wincon. It also contains several other lands.
I have a Dakmor salvage in hand. Can I perform the following loop:

Discard salvage, dredge it back with the Gitgud toad's trigger, repeating this for infinite mill, which will mean infinite draws with gitgud toad every time the dredge hits another land, repeatedly shuffling my library with Kozilek?
Can I then repeat this until I draw the Ebony Charm? Further, can I then re-shuffle with Kozilek and repeatedly draw through my deck until I draw my Ebony Charm again? Can I shortcut this as "draw through deck 40 times, casting Ebony Charm 40 times per opponent, powered by Skirge Familiar"?

Would it be hard for me to become a judge? I already know the rules well, including a good chunk of the advanced rules, and my interpretations of the advanced rules during discussions always seem to line up with judges.

Also, if I became a judge, how long would it be until I'd be allowed to run events at a store level? (FNM and such) I'm wondering because a store opened recently in my area but doesn't run official events because they don't have anyone to run them.

Yes

Really? I've heard some people say there's a random element involved so you can't do it.

It looks like you'd have to rely on drawing lands enough times to do it from here.

I was more saying yes to the "can I perform the following loop" but I imagine that most playgroups would allow you to shortcut it if they don't have a response. Maybe in a tournament you wouldn't be allowed but then >Competetive EDH

You might be able repeat it indefinitely, but you can't do it "Until I draw X". The reason you can't do that is because it's not an event that's certain to happen at any given iteration. You'd just have to manually walk through it.
Also, if I'm understanding the loop right, it's not even a loop guaranteed to draw you Ebony Charm.

>it's not even a loop guaranteed to draw you Ebony Charm.
You reshuffle your library if you mill the Ebony Charm until you do hit it. You have infinite carddraw and infinite shuffles.

Actually, repeated enough times, I'm pretty sure it would. He might just have to cycle it back a few times with Kozilek.

I say it works, but I'd personally make you run through it until it does. In competitive, that'd run your clock down.

No matter how many coins you flip, you're not guaranteed heads.

Wouldn't this run into the not advancing the board state problem 4horsemen has?

But the chances of flipping that many tails in a row grow smaller and smaller as time goes on.

And never reach 0.

Wew lad, seems pretty impossible you wouldn't hit Ebony Charm as many times as you'd like given infinite tries. That's like half life, you just assume it's 0 after some divisions.

Yes, it would.

Magic game rules =/= mathematical limits. It's not the same.

It is for practical purposes. Do you really think a 0.0000000000000000001% chance is feasible? Are you going to ask the person to do the loop as many times as necessary?

>Wouldn't this run into the not advancing the board state problem 4horsemen has?
But you're drawing cards. Heck, you might also use your infinite mana to cast some stuff inbetween.

Let's say each shuffle loop has a 1/2 chance of getting you Ebony Charm.
That means a 1/2 chance of not getting it.
Each trial, assuming you are properly shuffling, is independent.
Hence, each loop has a 1/2 chance of getting you Ebony Charm.
The number of prior loops doesn't matter. No matter how many times you've tried before, you can't be sure you'll get it this time. Or next time. Or any time.
Since you're never guaranteed to get Ebony Charm for any given trial, no number of trials will guarantee getting Ebony Charm.

Yes, and yes. The rules are very clear on this.

If you can't say for certain how many times you need to do it to get the desired result, then it's not a loop.

Sure, and the chances of that never happening are 50% * 50% * 50% and so on for each try. Repeat it as many times as you want.

>doing the loop
Do you have any friends? After it's been demonstrated once, there's no need to do it over and over again. Unless, of course, you believe he's never going to get the 50% outcome in infinite tries.

The actions needed to have a go at it are a loop, since you can dredge as long as you have cards in your library, and Ulamog shuffles everything away. So it's technically infinite.

>The actions needed to have a go at it are a loop
no it's not.

They can be repeated infinite times, you can dredge your library as many times as you want if you have a way to shuffle your graveyard back. That's the entire idea behind the Gitrog deck.

> The shortcut to loop Monolith/Orb until you reach a game state with a specific graveyard composition does not qualify as a being 'clear where the game state will end up as part of the request.' You are looking for a random configuration of cards that includes three specific cards in any order: Dread Return, Sharuum, and Blasting Station.
> 'It is also slow play if a player continues to execute a loop without being able to provide an exact number of iterations and the expected resulting game state.'
That was easy.

And since you can't say for sure when you'll hit the shuffle, it's not a valid MTG loop.

My bad. it's still early.

It loses summoning sickness only after it's gone through an untap step under the same controller as it had during the previous one. So the last turn of your sequence is the first turn it's not summon sick.

Doesn't matter - there's no "infinite" in magic, only arbitrary large numbers. And since there's no way you can declare the EXACT number of loops it will take to get the desired result (even though it's a near statistical certainty to get it) you can't shortcut it.

Yes it's not very intuitive. No, it doesn't matter.

Please come back soon, as usual retards with no idea what they're talking about try to answer questions when you're gone.

I'm sorry to hear you're so butthurt about misunderstanding loops.

So it doesn't matter! Thank you, it's what I've been trying to say all along. If they have no way to stop the actions and both players know what the desired outcome is, asking to demonstrate it is only a way to extend the length of the match. Unless someone believes it's never ever going to happen no matter how many times you try.

The problem you run into is how shortcutting actions work. You have to do three things in order to be allowed to shortcut through a series of repeated actions:
1) Demonstrate the actions are repeatable
2) Define how many repetitions will be made
3) Demonstrate the End State

Point 1 is easy to prove - you have a loop of repeatable actions. Point 2 is where you run into trouble - you cannot state exactly how many times you'll need to dredge and draw (and possibly cycle your deck) to get ebony charm into your hand. And because of that you also fail at part 3, you can't know exactly what the ending state will be (what cards are where, and in what order)

tl;dr Not a loop you can shortcut. Attempting this in a competitive setting will get you disqualified for stalling.

That makes sense, thanks. I believe there's another problem because after the actions resolve there might be a chance there's no change to the board state and that's also slow play? Like two Seeker of Skybreak infinitely untapping each other?

That's a slightly different thing, because your loop makes no changes to the game between the beginning and end states.
It would be different if there's something else that's keying off that otherwise "useless" loop - in your case, seeker of skybreak looping would make an opponent's gideon's avenger get huge (phthisis, anyone?) Or looping 3 oblivion rings with each other would create a shitload of constellation triggers for a grim guardian

Somehow forgot to mention, but yes it's still a textbook example of a slow play error - as in it's what the IPG uses as its example (or used to)

Does Coat of Arms only count the number of creatures and not include their type? Recent game a friend played coat of arms and got all his elves huge and then claimed the ones that were warriors also got the +1/+1 for being warriors, I told him it didn't work that way.

Correct, it only counts the number of creatures. If your opponent has 10 elves and three of them are also warriors it doesn't matter, they all still ""only"" get +9/+9.

It doesn't. Read the additional rulings at the bottom.
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