MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge - June Edition

How the hell does doublestrike work with blocking? If a blocker is killed by the first strike damage, does the normal damage get through?

In the last thread you said that the legend rule cares about card name (in case of creatures not walkers), does that mean that I can have both Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre(or whatever) and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger in play at the same time if I wanted to?

Also, can I have both Karn, Silver Golem and Karn Liberated in play, since they're different card types?

You'll target whatever you want to target and sac your guy. Undying or Persist triggers but can't go on the stack yet, since we're resolving a spell.

Spell finishes resolving and sets up a delayed trigger to bring back the thing you sacced and the target later, then exiles Rescue.

Trigger from sacced creature goes on the stack. When it resolves, it brings the creature back.

At the beginning of your next upkeep, the delayed trigger Rescue created will bring back the targeted creature, and TRY to bring back the one you sacced, but be unable to find it. The trigger will still do all it can and return your target, though.

Only if your blocked creature has trample. If not, it doesn't do damage to ANYTHING in the normal damage step.

Legend Rule cares about exact same name only. You can have both Ulamogs, because Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre is not named Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger.

You can have the Karns because Karn Liberated is not a Legendary permanent named Karn, Silver Golem, and Karn, Silver Golem is not a Planeswalker with the subtype "Karn".

The sacrificed creature's undying trigger will go on the stack above rescue from the underworld, and that creature will return to the batefield efore rescue starts resolving. When rescue's delayed triggered ability happens, you will return the targeted creature card to the battlefield, and the undying creature won't move, even if it has since died again before rescue's trigger at end of turn.

Sorry, this is correct. I derped and forgot that Rescue's sac is a cost and not part of the effect, so it'll come back BEFORE Rescue starts.

My bad. I misread shit when I'm hungry.

Thanks, i figured i would get my undying creature back aslong as it had no counters on it.

Hmm, typing that out made me realise that i kinda also want to know what happens if i use an undying/persist creature as the sac target if it has a counter on it.
Do i get it back without a counter?

>My bad. I misread shit when I'm hungry.
No worries, not like i worded my question particularly well.

First, the only target for the spell is the creature in the graveyard. You don't target what you're going to sacrifice.

Second, it'll come back without a counter when the delayed trigger from Rescue resolves, unless it was a Skullbriar.

Here's a question that's related. If you use rescue from the underworld and then use delve to empty your graveyard into exile for a cheap creature, do the two creatures still comeback to the field at my next upkeep or do they stay in exile?

Nope. When cards change zones, they become totally different objects with no memory of, or relation to, their previous selves, with only a few exceptions, and this isn't one of them. The delayed trigger is going to be looking for specific objects in the graveyard, and those objects aren't in that zone (and technically flat out don't exist in this game anymore), so the trigger just shrugs and goes home.

Dammit.

So I bought a bunch of proxies. I want to play at fnm...what would you do if you found someone playing with fake cards at casual rel?

First, there's no such thing as casual REL.

Second, do not do that. At absolute best you're an asshole and you'll be told "Either find replacements within the next few minutes, or you're gonna be replacing all of your counterfeits with basic lands". At worst, you're going to be DQed.

Don't use counterfeit cards in tournaments. I honestly dislike people buying them at all, but in my capacity as a Judge I just recommend that you keep them out of sanctioned events.

So to get Into a tournament with a prize worth $24 I must spend the full $600 for my mama base?

You want to play in a sanctioned Magic event, have Magic cards. If buying the deck you want is too expensive for the prize pool available, either build a budget deck or don't go.

Buying counterfeit cards to play in a tournament makes you an asshole.

Not really. A sanctioned tournament is only a front for Jews of the Coast to force people to either make shitty budget decks or pay the insane price tag to have a fighting chance.

"I feel entitled to this thing, but I don't want to pay for it, therefore the people who make me pay for it are greedy jerks and I'm being exploited".

You're an entitled asshole. Get over it.

Will Slate of Ancestry kill my Psychosis Crawler?
What about wheel effects?

State based actions arent checked during the resolution of a spell, so your crawler will live.

Keep sucking wotc cock you little faggot

>Wahh these people found a way to play my game without throwing away thousands of dollars like I did, I'm a whiny jealous bitch so that makes THEM the assholes

>people who made a competition hold a contest based around said competition that will pay money
>asshole wants money without paying people who made competition their due
Eesh. I hope you don't go into threads to discuss the changes to mtg. As someone who doesn't pay for their goods you have 0 say in said goods.

Fucking DOTP. Then again, that's what I get for playing a modded version.
Uh oh, I found a way to enjoy magic without paying for every single microtransaction, don't panic.

They will not, because SBAs aren't checked during the resolution of spells or abilities.

It's just a common excuse. What it really is is "I feel entitled to play this game, but don't think the people who developed it deserve compensation for it". It's the same kind of person who pirates all their games and complains about DRM.

Can you please give a short list of all the "additional things" that can be paid when you cast a spell for free. Play EDH so I'll use that as a reference frame

So when I cast a spell off of, say, a Mind's desire, I know I can pay a kicker cost, but I cannot pay an overload cost. Is there anything like a kicker cost that I can pay or is it limited to kicker?

Kicker is an additional cost, overload is an alternative cost. When playing shit for free you can
1.) Cast it for free and then pay additional costs
2.) Pay the alternative cost
3.) GA hates lists without three items

...

Anything that's an ADDITIONAL cost can be paid. Anything that's an ALTERNATE cost cannot.

Basically, it's as simple as "Am I paying this INSTEAD of the mana cost, or in ADDITION to it?"

Also, morning bump.

This is probably really simple, but I want to make sure I have the rulings right. I'm relatively new, so I want to make sure I know all the interactions my deck has and when to use them.

I have an Iona. During combat my opponent casts a combat trick and I flash her onto the battlefield, naming the color of the spell my opponent cast. Iona enters, but the spells would still resolve right? Since Iona says they can't cast spells of the chosen color, but the spell's already been cast and I'm responding to it.

Right. Cast =/= Resolve. Iona won't ever work as a counterspell, she's a preventative measure.

Makes sense. Not as good as I initially thought for the deck I'm using her in, but I think she'll still work if my opponent goes shields down for a turn. Thank you!

Pre-lunch bump.

Hey yo GA, what crazy rule interactions are you expecting for Eternal Masters?

I'm expecting a lot more "Pointing out Mana Crypt triggers" in my local area once I won't be the only person who has any.

For EMA drafts themselves, nothing immediately jumps out at me. I'd have to look over the spoiler again.

If you eat too much, you'll end up with an after-lunch bump

What's the question you've been most surprised to get called for?
What's the trickiest question you've been called for?

Surprised? Unsure. One of the big things we push is for players to always feel comfortable calling a Judge, so we try to stress the mentality of "What seems simple for you might seem complicated to someone without the level of experience you have with the rules, so keep that in mind". So, I always try to approach even an 'obvious' call with a mentality of helpfulness rather than being confused they had to ask THAT, because I don't want subconscious 'surprise' to translate into condescension, even unintentionally.

As for trickiest, it's never a RULES question that makes it tricky- it's a question that tells me "I need to investigate something right now".

Thred is ded.
In your experience, what part of or interaction with Split Second generates the most confusion among players?

Yeah, not sure why it's so slow today. Anyway-

The biggest thing is people thinking that The Stack works the way The Chain does in Yugioh- that you and your opponent take turns responding to each other until nobody has a response, and then everything resolves in one fell swoop. That core misunderstanding is why so many people think that they can use Split Second as some sort of counterspell insurance for their "main" spell.

What is your stance on rare-redrafts? Should they be allowed? I'm just tired of paying $15 to draft, lose to mana screw and then have to give all my rares to the guy who """opened""" double avacyn.

At literally any point during a draft you can get up and walk away with your cards. Everything you draft is legally your property the instant you draft it.

Yeah, and get banned from every store in the greater Columbus area and have every local player refuse to sit down across from me at the GP.

>Should they be allowed?
So long as they aren't breaking the law, a store owner should be allowed to make whatever choices they want. Whether or not those choices are SMART is another question.

>Opinion
My opinion of them is that they're a way for a store to get out of giving prize support. They're also pretty pointless, since nothing (other than getting banned from the store, I suppose) stops you from just getting up and walking away with your cards once you're done.

I understand why some people prefer them, but to me they'll never be anything but a lazy excuse to not provide proper prize support but still charge people to run an 'event'.

One store actually put up a sign stating that all cards in limited events are property of the store until the conclusion of the event, at which point they become the property of their current owners. Is that illegal?

To quote DBZ Abridged's version of Cell:

Well good for you, you're wrong.

Direct quote from the Magic Tournament Rules, section 2.10, "Dropping from a Tournament":

>Players who drop during limited events own the cards that they correctly have in their possession at that time. This includes any unopened or partially drafted boosters.

Like GA said, the moment you take a card from a pack it's yours to keep forever.

IMO any store that rare redrafts is a store not worth going to. Twice i've been suckered into going to an fnm with re-drafting and both times i straight up left after the fourth round with my cards. The second time was a MM2 draft and I opened a foil cryptic command and drafted U/W affinity. Ended up going 3-1, losing in the final due to a stupid misplay on my part. The guy who got first was actually reaching for my cards before I had a chance to put them away. I smacked his hand (the look on his face reminded me of when you tell a little kid no), and kept cleaning up. I waited untill prizes were being handed out, with my personal property being the big one. When my ex-opponent looked at me with the smugest of Pepe's I told both him and the store keep that I will call the cops for petty theft over it. I walked out and never went back. The feeling of seeing the closing sale on the stores window provided a sense of satisfaction thst was profound.

tl;dr >fuck rare re-drafts, and be the biggest asshole you can be if you are forced to be in one

Agree on how the prize are distributed before doing the draft or don't enter, as simple as that.
My lgs does both and i never enter the rare redraft ones.

I can agree with "just avoid redrafts" being the best way to avoid drama, but I've seen a non-zero number of times where someone pays 12-15 dollars to get in on a draft and only finds out it's a redraft after the end of the event.

I know, that's what i said. Ask before entering.
Also, around my place, people pay for packs only. Let's say a pack is 3 bucks. A $9 draft? rare redraft. A $12 draft? drafter/keeper 4 2 1 1 prize.

I know not all place are the same that's why i said ask first before entering.

After Living End Resolves, lets say both players have creatures enter the battlefield with triggers.

How do they stack or who decides how they stack?

So, the Active Player (the one whose turn it is) will place all of their triggers on the stack in the order of their choosing. Then, the Non-Active Player (the one whose turn it is NOT) does the same. NAP's triggers will all resolve before AP's resolve.

>$12 drafts with prize support
>$9 drafts of anything
>implying the store won't make more money selling the packs for $4.25 apiece plus tax
How the fuck does your shop even stay open? They're throwing money away with shit like that.

They'll make more per pack at 4.25 vs 3, sure. Thing is, when I can get a pack 6 cents cheaper at Walmart, a lot of players are going to. Having decent drafts puts asses in seats. Asses in seats means incidental purchases- snacks, drinks, singles (your highest profit margin items), sleeves, board games, dice, etc. 3/pack is a little bit low, though.

>Let's say a pack is 3 bucks
It's just an assumption. It's actually 3.45, i'm just too lazy to count. I dunno why they didn't round it up either.

fuck, even 4.25 is crazy low for a pack.
>when I can get a pack 6 cents cheaper at Walmart, a lot of players are going to.
where the actual FUCK are you? Walmart hasn't sold any TCG stuff for years because it only ever gets stolen. They never see a penny of it.

Man, where are YOU? Every big box store I've been to (Target, Walmart, etc) sells packs at 4.19 each, and that's a recent increase. For years they were just a flat 3.99. Most every game store I've been to sells packs for between 3.5 and 4 dollars, with a lot of them doing "3 for 10" even when their price is 4 flat.

If 4.25 is 'crazy low' for packs where you're from, either you aren't in the US or you are getting absolutely fleeced.

South side of Columbus, Ohio. The one run-down Kmart has some Born of the Gods at 4.83 apiece plus tax, the local game shops range from 4.50 to 4.75. $15 drafts means the store gets almost nothing in added revenue, which is why they never pay out prizes - they're taking too much of a loss.

Your stores are either lying to you or they need a new distributor. MSRP on a pack is 3.99, so either they decided that's not ENOUGH profit, or they need a new distributor.

Make the effort to find another store user. That business does not deserve your money

>they decided that's not enough profit
This most likely. Our store here in Indy cancelled and refunded all the EMA pre-orders, they're only cracking their case to sell singles because they would have lost almost $2000 in EV. Then again this seems to be normal for shops anymore.

i don't claim to know a store's condition or whatnot but those prices are a bit steep.

That isn't why they don't do drafts - they don't do drafts because it's not worth it to spend 4 hours extra work for an extra $12.

>Spend 4 hours extra work
Drafts should not involve 'work' at all. You get 7 people signed up, get their money, sit them down, and tell them to draft. Once they're done, set a 30 minute timer for them to build a deck, then generate and post the pairings every 50 minutes.

If all of that is "too much extra work" your store is doomed to fail.

>extra $12
It's all about the volume user. The more you buy from the distributor, the more you can push them for a price cut.

I know that this isnt the proper thread for this question but there doesnt seem to be a legacy thread up right now.

How much do re-releases like Eternal Masters affect card prices? I havnt touched the game in years and havnt been around for any of the Modern Masters releases but back when I did play I always desperately wanted to build a UW miracle deck but the absolutely bonkers card prices put me off. With things like Jace, FoW, top, etc. being reprinted the game has caught my interest again.

Also in a sort of related note does anyone know if there is a cheaper alternative to the revised ed. dual lands in miracle or are they pretty necessary?

It requires an extra employee to be there to do that -and they need to be paid for that time. assuming they make min wage, that's $29 paid out, to generate $12. a $15 draft loses the store $2.12 per player. Simple cost accounting.

Volume isn't relevant, because those packs were going to be sold anyway.

>how much do rel-releases like Eternal Masters affect card prices?
Simple answer is "it varies". if MMA was any indication, expect EMA mythics to go up, rares to stay the same, uncommons and commons to go down.

>does anyone know if there is a cheaper alternative to the revised ed. dual lands in miracle or are they pretty necessary?
My initial thought would be to try the Ravnica shocklands. They're fetchable and can come in untapped whenever you want (if you have the 2 life to spare) but if your meta is burn heavy it's rough. Still, it's hard to beat replacing $3500 with $50.

If demand skyrockets, and the supply is barely increased, then prices will go through the roof. ANd duals are necassary in Legacy, period, end of story (unless you paly belcher, opps, or manaless dredge). It sounds liek your not quite ready for legacy user. GO ahead and watch more videos and read more primers before you buy into the format.

Also dude, is it really that fucking hard to hit ctrl+f and type legacy? holy shit, it took me 2 seconds to find a legacy thread

Noone's going to buy or open packs if it's not for gambling user, at least not around here. Draft is some kind of gambling with skills.

It really depends. Some of the cards in MMA had their values go UP, because the release of MMA increased demand more than supply. There's also situations where you can get the 'new' version for fairly cheap, but the 'older' version has prestige to it, so the price doesn't suffer a ton.

You can technically use shocks instead of duals, but you'll 100% be running a sub-par build. The duals are pretty much strictly better than the shocks, and the shocks are the closest replacement you'll find.

Again, I disagree. If your store's employee can't fill-and-fire a draft while doing their normal duties, then your store is making insane sales already. And, again, volume. Sure, that 12 dollars isn't "enough", but what if you've got 3 or 4 drafts going in a given day? Doesn't that justify it?

I don't mean to be a dick man, but I've worked with plenty of shops, and I've talked to plenty of vets in this industry. If you can't "afford" to run drafts because they're costing you too much money, then you're in a bad spot and need to get out of it fast.

My FLGS actually stopped doing all MAgic tournements EXCEPT draft, because a $15 draft makes them bank. Plus they make sure that new players get a free pack if its their first time showing up, and for major-ish event, like pre-releases and EM they give every player a booster pack, regardless of standings. Heroic Knights in Issaquah, WA is the only FLGS I go to anymore. All other stores are shit

>what if you've got 3 or 4 drafts going in a given day
If we accept the insane idea that a draft takes an entire paid employee to run, then you either run them all at once and use 3-4 employees to do so or run them in sequence and pay the employee for 3-4 times as long.

And I'd bet you they make absolute bank off of repeat business.

Put it this way: Most shops I know of are paying at most 85 dollars per box. That means about 2.36, 2.37 a pack. 24 packs for the actual draft, and if they give out the remaining 12 in prizes, they effectively "sold" that box for 120 dollars (8 people, 15 dollars each). That's not quite full MSRP, but you're gonna chew through those 120 dollar box 'sales' much faster than you'll find people wandering in to drop 144 dollars a box.

I was more going to say "Okay, you're paying an employee JUST to handle the events, that's all, at least have him running multiple events"

But yeah, thinking that running a draft is something you need a dedicated employee for, your store's already hurting.

cracking packs is slots, draft is poker

Yeah, a draft practically run itself. All you have to do is register the dcis, random seating, match pairing and timer.

How does the interaction between Tarmogoyf and Toxic Deluge work? Same as with Lightning Bolt?

Let's say there's nothing in the graveyard and one Goyf in play. I cast toxic deluge and pay 1 life. Does the Tarmogoyf die?

depends. yes. no. you are exactly right