MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge - Friday Morning Edition

Good morning boys and girls! The weekend is almost upon us, so feel free to double check any questions you have before FNM tonight or any events you have going tomorrow!

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Hey galvanicAutogenitor, how's it going?

I have a ruling question for you, how does the card Parallax Dementia work? I assume I cast it on either my creature or my opponent`s creature, and the fade counter pops off during my upkeep, right?

And like an idiot, I forget the picture.

I'm alright, thank you for asking!

You are correct in thinking that you can put that aura on an opponent's creature if you wish; it'll get +3/+2 until Parallax Dementia leaves the battlefield. At that time the Aura will trigger and destroy what it was attached to. Normally that'll be two turns later- on your next upkeep you remove the fade counter, and then the upkeep after that Fading kills it because you have no more counters to remove. But if the aura were to be disenchanted or something, that would also kill the creature.

You've given me an awesome idea for a janky indestructible removal combo for 4 mana, thanks! I appreciate it.

I hope by "indestructible removal" you don't mean "A way to kill an indestructible creature", because that ain't gonna work.

Wait, the sacrifice is referring tot he aura being removed as a result of fade counters not the creature being removed? Well that sure put a wrench in my plan.

Yeah- you remove the fade counter from the aura, and when you can't remove any more, you sacrifice the aura.

Then, when the aura leaves the field it triggers and destroys what it was attached to. The only thing getting sacced here is your aura.

It's still a neat trigger for Mazierk. Do you know any other obscure enchantments or auras that have something similar?

If not, how the heck does necrotic ooze work? I heard it was abilities listed as (M):[effect] but I'm not sure of any useful effects that would take advantage of that.

Necrotic Ooze takes any activated ability, which is anything formatted as [COST] : [EFFECT]. Things like Deathrite Shaman, or Arcanis the Omnipotent.

Cool, thank you very much. I'm glad you post here.

I hope you have a wonderful day, I'm off to my FLGS to purchase some eternal masters packs and register for the eternal masters draft. Take'r easy!

I'm glad you find the threads helpful! Enjoy your draft.

If I go first and play turn 1:

> swamp
> dark rit
> entomb
> exhume
> Griselbrand into play
What are the chances that my opponent scoops if they don't have a Force of Will in their opening hand?

Three.

Ahh, a countdown joke. Nice. But, if it's in play, shit all you can really do about it since I can keep drawing.

Policy question: at FNM, what should I do if I have a player with (unintentionally) marked sleeves? From what I can tell, the options are
1) allow the match to continue (seems bad for obvious reasons)
2) require them to re-sleeve in the middle of the match (takes time)
3) give a game loss and then go to #2 (I dislike giving a GL at regular)
It's never actually come up, not sure if it will, but it puzzles me a little. And since I made L1 a couple weeks ago, I figure I should make some effort to find out.

Yeah, best option is having a turn one Swords, but even then you can dump 7 life into drawing deep and try to keep the shit going.

If the sleeves are marked, there is not a pattern that they could derive some advantage from, and you believe it to be unintentional, you pretty much let the game finish up and then take them aside and ask them to resleeve.

You should not be giving GLs at Regular unless it's someone doing the same thing wrong over and over at the same event, period. And disrupting the match for the re-sleeve (even between games) is not ideal if it's minor marking, especially at FNM. Just let him wrap up his match and then ask him to resleeve.

What if it is a pattern, though? Like, sleeves are not fully opaque, DFCs in deck without using checklists. Let's say it's a kid that doesn't know any better. I'm not really worried about some random dirt or smudges.

>You should not be giving GLs at Regular
Yeah, I know. That's why it seemed a little tough to fix to me.

>turn one Swords
I mean, Karakas is probably better since it's uncounterable, but you're also probably not winning after the Reanimator player draws 14 cards on turn one.

If there's a pattern (like all his lands are foil, and a little bent) or something that he could take advantage of if he noticed it (like the DFCs) and you honestly believe it wasn't intentional, you should probably wait until he finishes a game before stepping in to correct it.

Is it sad or funny that it's not difficult for a good Reanimator deck to do this turn 1?

Eh, neither. The format has good enough hate (plus Force) that the trade-off seems reasonable. There's a reason you don't usually see reanimator in the top8 of anything significant. If you're gonna play Legacy, you'd best get used to dying turn one or two and being able to do jack shit about it sometimes.

Cool, thanks!

Happy to help!

Man, I wish I could justify getting into Legacy. It's such a neat format, but I'd never get to play it so I can't justify the cost.

Or you should notify a judge then and there and have them deal with it. Because for all you know it is intentional cheating. I let some shit slide by once at a prerelease because I was winning, and the kid did the same thing in his next match against this cute girl. Not that the player being a girl or not made any difference, it's just pulling the same shit twice in a row.

Considering the person who asked was talking about 'giving' a penalty, he's acting in the capacity as a judge. I wasn't saying that a person as a PLAYER should be telling their opponent whether or not to resleeve.

Xmage, bro. It's what I use for testing. Although it would be nice to have better opponents. I don't think I should be X-1 against D&T as SnS, although my record against it in paper is still pretty good.

I was asking because I am the judge. Obviously I would call one over if I were playing and it came up.

Nah, I don't much like playing on things like Xmage and Cockatrice. I know they aren't terrible, but there's just a little bit too much venom and vitriol when your opponent is just an anonymous username rather than a person sitting in front of you.

I stick to EDH because while it can still be costly in the long run with the amount of foiling I do and decks I build, I at least get to play it every weekend.

In over a hundred matches, I've maybe once or twice had an opponent get salty, and I don't think they were ever really nasty. Just a bit annoyed. I've also only once or twice had an opponent DC (in which case I guess you just scoop the match and move on, not like it matters for anything). Overall, the people that talk to me have been friendly. A nice thing about Xmage is that you can allow do-overs if someone misclicks or f6s by mistake. Allows for better testing, IMO.

I guess I should read more posts then. Duely noted.

Eh, happens.

But while we're on that topic, I'll toss out the PSA

If you are playing in an event (or just spectating at one) and you think something is fucky, call a Judge. If you suspect your opponent might be cheating, call a Judge. If you think something illegal accidentally happened, call a Judge. If you and your opponent can't agree on something, call a Judge.

You should very rarely, if ever, be 'fixing' things yourself, because you might cause more harm than good. We're being paid to be there to help out and keep things right, so please call us and let us help. Your problem or question is not stupid, you are not bothering us, you are asking us to do what we are HAPPILY there to do. Please let us do our job.

>We're being paid to be there to help out and keep things right
I work at the store where I judge, getting a judge call means I get to stop doing something boring (like putting hundreds or thousands of cards into boxes) and interact with people.

If something does come up in a game I'm playing and I know the fix, I will let my opponent know and then offer to call for another judge anyways (at Legacy night it's usually another L1 playing in the event since there are a couple and the other store employees aren't certified). I want to make sure they're comfortable with the way that the game proceeds. But that's RREL and a casual event besides.

RREL?

Regular REL.

What's REL?

Rules Enforcement Level. It's basically how 'strict' we are at... well, enforcing the rules.

Regular REL is what the vast majority of Sanctioned events are. This will be your Friday Night Magic, your Game Day, your Prerelease, your random Thursday drafts. It's very relaxed, with a focus on community, learning, and fun, so most of our job as a judge here is just "unfuck things". The only real penalty is a finger-wag or a DQ, barring repeated offenses.

Competitive REL is going to be Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifiers, Day 1 of a Grand Prix, a Grand Prix Trial, the Starcity events. This is where we're more stringent and give out penalties like Game Loss and Match Loss, per the Infraction Procedure Guide, or IPG.

Professional REL is Day 2 of a Grand Prix, and the Pro Tour. It honestly shouldn't exist because the only difference between Competitive and Professional is at Professional a spectator can't stop a match to call a judge.

Question. You know when someone taps a few lands, and then stops and u gaps those and taps their lands in a different combination. What's that called and is it legal in the three different RELs?

It's called "double-checking your sequencing". As long as you don't take it back after you've played and resolved the spell it's nothing.

Trying to change what lands you tapped for what spells after they've already gone on and off the stack is a very weird thing that could end up being a number of penalties, none of which are good.

Pretty much as long as you haven't actually clearly COMMITTED to a play, we're gonna treat it the same way you treat moving a chessman without taking your hand off of it- you're still 'thinking'. Now, if they're tapping lands and watching for a reaction depending on how they tap we might have to look into it, but if someone taps a few lands, checks their hand again, then switches how they tapped so they leave up 1U BEFORE they formally announce the spell, then yeah, nbd.

If you answered this question yesterday or saw the answer, please don't give it away. I want to see how many people get it right.

You play bear cub.

Then someone plays turn to frog targeting the bear cub.
Resolves.

Then liquimetal coating targeting what is/was the bear cub.
Resolves.

Then become immense targeting what is/was the bear cub.
Resolves.

Then twisted image targeting what is/was the bear cub.
Resolves.

Then nameless inversion targeting what is/was the bear cub.
Resolves.

Then clone choosing what is/was the bear cub.
Resolves.

Then agoraphobia on what is/was the bear cub.
Resolves.

Then aerial maneuver targeting what is/was the bear cub.
Resolves.

Now, what is the creature that is/was the bear cub and what is the clone?

I did answer it yesterday, and missed one little bit towards the end.

I was impressed though. Most people are off by a long shot.

I mean, I am a judge.

You'd still be surprised how many judges miss that question. It just rarely goes that far into the layers during matches.

When I first calculated it, I was off by one as well.

I guess it would go:

>bear cub 2/2
>frog 1/1
>frog 1/1 that's also an artifact
>frog 7/7 that's also an artifact
>frog 7/7 that's also an artifact and you draw a card
>frog that's 10/4 and also every type of creature and an artifact
>frog is still 10/4 every type of creature and also an artifact, and a 2/2 bearcub
>frog becomes a 5/4 every type of creature and is also an artifact, and a 2/2 bear cub
>frog becomes a 6/5 flying frog and the bear cub is still a 2/2 bear cub

You end up with a 6/5 flying frog and a 2/2 bear cub

Did I get it? I think I mixed up the values as a result of that thing that swapped power and toughness since I wasn't sure how it resolves, but I think I'm close.

Not quite.

Well fuck, guess the brainteaser has stumped me. That was pretty neat. I'll think about it a bit longer.

I'll put the answer in spoilers.

It's a 5/6 blue artifact creature named Bear Cub. It has flying and first strike, and no creature types.

Wow, I wasn't as far off as I thought I was. Thanks judge-san. Double checking my work, you're totally right, I misread a couple things.

The main thing you missed is that you were looking at them in chronological order, rather than actually going through the layers in order. Twisted Image will be the absolute last thing to apply here, despite coming chronologically before the +3/-3 and -5/-0

I actually forgot to include that it was an artifact the first time so calculated it.

Hi judge!

If my friend uses Cackling Counterpart to copy an Archeomancer, can he use the created Archeomancer token to bring back Cackling Counterpart?

Oh I get it,that's neat. I would have never thought about the timing since each individual activation resolved, but the turn didn't end, ergo the swap would have lasted the entire process and resolve last. Thanks! That's super educational.

As an unrelated question, are there courses I can take to become a judge? The judges at my flgs are pretty much grognards and refuse to tell me how to join their secret club.

He can! By the time the Archaeomancer's trigger needs a target, Cackling Counterpart has fully resolved and is in his graveyard.

For even more fun, use Ghostly Flicker instead, targeting an Archaeomancer and an Avenger of Zendikar!

Yeah- the Layers system is fun. It basically tells you the order in which to apply continuous effects no matter when they 'started'

There's not "courses", per se. There's some judge classes that are offered in areas, and I could probably dredge up the slides for them, but it's not quite the same as taking the actual class with a Judge teaching it.

If your L2s are actually just actively refusing to test anyone, that's not great. You might want to report that to your area's Regional Coordinator. Regardless of if they're being shitty or not, I recommend you contact your RC, because he or she can put you in touch with an L2 who wants to help.

blogs.magicjudges.org/contact/contact-a-regional-coordinator/

Good old studying online would be the best way. Perhaps the "Judge's Corner" videos on YouTube might be the best place to start.

Thanks guys, I appreciate that. Do I need have a certain win-ratio relative to my DCI number in order to qualify? While I may be well versed in rules, I'm sub-par in deck building, and my local meta is pretty intense.

Do shops have boxes of commons/Uncommons customers can look through along with the bulk rares? How are shops usually organized?

It's a common joke that judges judge because they're bad at Magic. All you need to become an L1 is a passing grade on the exam, to not be a complete shithead (IE, pass the interview to determine shit-headery) and understand the basic structure of tournaments.

A lot usually do. In my experience they just have a donation box of whatever chaff the community donates and it's free to take from, but there's no organization to speak of.

That sounds pretty do-able. I have already completed an exceedingly hard, randomized 100 question test on business continuity that also had an interview as part of the process, so I think I'll do fine. Thanks for the support, I'll post a thread here if I ever get lucky enough to be a judge.

Contact your RC, see what they can do to help. If you're interested, I really hope you get the opportunity.

Eh. I'm going to a shop soon and didn't know if I could snag a couple of the common/uncommon werewolf creature playsets and didn't know what they cost.

Depends on the shop. With the recent stuff, I know MOST shops I've worked with have a donation bin for draft chaff or the parts of cracked boosters that aren't the rare, and would happily let a player dig through them for commons and uncommons for a deck.

In other places, they have no such box, and charge like 10 cents a common. Depends on where you are.

Thanks.

Happy to help.

Also, I'm home, so bump.

If brago is enchanted with rancor and you have a creature with shroud and brago deals damage to the opponent when you blink can you attach rancor to the creature with shroud?

You sure can. Auras only target when cast as spells. IF you're putting an aura directly onto the battlefield, it simply enters attached to something it can legally attach (of your choice). There's nothing preventing an Aura from BEING on a Shroud creature, it's just a little difficult to get it there. This is one way you can do that.

This might be obvious, but I'm a bit new to magic still, if I were to declare an attack with a creature with menace, and my opponent only has one creature on their field, could they summon a token with an instant and thus block or does the declare defenders step end before they can cast their instant?

Less of a card ruling question and more of a game ruling question.

At my FLGS, we only have one judge for FNM and events. The weird thing is, he actually pays and sits in ON the events and drafts/plays against people in pools.

Is this legal? It seems totally not kosher.

Never worry about an 'obvious' question. I help people who have been playing for 10 years and people who have been playing for 10 minutes.

Anyhow- They can cast their instant during your Declare Attackers step, so that they have it in time to block with. You also have a chance to blow up one of their dudes before that, but after they get the token.

100% legal. For a long time it wasn't allowed to play and judge at the same time, but a few years back they rolled it back for Regular REL. If you suspect that the judge is using his position unfairly or cheating in any way, you need to report that behavior; we're only allowed to play and judge because we're expected to be honest about it, and the Judge program is not kind to people who use their status to cheat.

Thanks, I didn't really think of it as the declare attackers step not ending when I'd finished, but before they declare defenders. I figured it just skipped as they couldn't make a legal defence

Is it worth it to be a judge? I know you cant speak on the perks of judging for all local lgs, but youve been around for a while. I think it would be something fun to do, but im not sure if it would be worth the time invested or not. I guess I'd just like to get something substantial out of it, and all the lawsuit fuckery has scared me out of being as hyped as I was.

ok, i know this comes up all the time, but i want to make sure this is legal.

let's say i have selvala, explorer returned in play and panglacial wurm in my deck. i activate a fetch land. technically, while searching, you are not allowed to re-order your deck until your search is complete and the ability instructs you to shuffle, so i look at the top card of my library. i want this card in my hand, so i grab the panglacial wurm, announce casting it, and activate selvala's ability to pay for it. my opponent and i draw our cards, panglacial wurm fails to cast, it goes back into my deck, my non-selvala mana abilities are reversed, i get my land from the fetch, and shuffle.

this is legal, correct? i can use panglacial wurm + selvala + any search for free peaks and draws off the top of my library?

also, let's say i activate a manland and then cast riding the dilu horse on it. a few turns later i activate that same land and attack. power and toughness are derived info right? i don't have to tell my opponent anything? and if they try to block i can call a judge on them?

Obviously gonna vary by shop. Mine doesn't, just a few thousand 50-cent (mostly) rares in boxes on a table.

Define "worth it". You generally don't get comped what your time is "worth" if you're a professional that makes a decent salary. It is fun, though. It can also be a way to spend time at a Magic tournament and get some compensation.

>selvala plus wurm
Not gA, but legal as far as I know. Although this does require putting both of those cards in your deck.

>dilu horse
Depends on REL. All derived information is considered free at Regular. You can obviously call over a judge if your opponent tries to make an illegal block. That's what we're there for.

Well, "worth it" is subjective. I just mean in a general sense. Like if you were to take the fun aspect out of it, would you feel like your time was well spent basically.

I guess no? Being a judge is not financially lucrative. It did help get me a raise, but that's a fairly special case. Being a judge is like a subset of being a Magic player. It's not about the money for the vast majority. It's a hobby.

if I have Hidden Strings Cyphered onto a Guttersnipe and I then cast a spell, does Hidden Strings allow me to tap two of my my opponents lands before he can counterspell?

Is there any motivation or benefit to drive someone to be a higher level, outside of personal interest? Im really interested in being a judge, but I like to look at this stuff with my emotions out of it to see if it still has any luster. Do they still do judge promos?

No, for two reasons. Firstly, when you cast a copy of a spell your opponent can still counter it. But secondly (and more importantly), cypher only triggers when a creature deals COMBAT damage.

Yes, judge promos are a thing. Not 100% sure how they're given out these days.
You shouldn't take emotion out of this decision. Firstly, making L1 at least is pretty easy and you're not out much time even if you don't enjoy it. Secondly, there really isn't a reason to be a judge if you don't enjoy it.

Well, I tend to take emotion out of a lot of decisions I make, it may be a flaw but it's paid off decently well. Is there like a list of shit you need to do to be an L1? I seem to recall something about having to judge a ptq or something first?

Ah, Guttersnipes passive burn isn't combat damage? Well, there goes that idea

Nothing is combat damage except for damage dealt by creatures via the combat damage game action in the first strike and regular combat damage steps. "Passive burn" means nothing in the context of Magic. Guttersnipe has a triggered ability. The trigger condition is "whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell". The ability goes on the stack, and deals its damage when it resolves.

For me, I had to talk to the L2 that was running an event in my LGS, find a date that he was judging in that store again, practice for the test, judge part of that event with him, take the test, and that was about it. The interview was kinda a short formality since at that point he'd interacted with me a bunch and knew me reasonably well.

If you cast Catalog, draw an Instant + w/e and discard Broken Concentration; do you have the opportunity to trigger the Madness and then play an instant you drew off the Catalog in response, then cast the counter for its madness cost targeting the instant? Or is Catalog still resolving when Madness comes up so you don't have access to the new instant?

My opponent was trying to flip his Thing In The Ice if anyone was wondering why such an absurd thing would be done. I suggested he could have made this play after we finished, but he disagreed.

Gotcha, thanks for the info man, I'll look into being an L1 tomorrow.

Sounds similar to my experience except I practiced long distance and only traveled once, for the test, since it was a 3 hour drive.

Madness triggers when you discard a card with madness, but isn't put onto the stack until state-based actions are checked (after Catalog resolves). BC will be in exile at this point, since part of Madness is a replacement effect that puts it into exile if you discard it. Once Catalog has resolved, the triggered part of Madness is put on the stack. Your opponent can cast an instant now, but it will resolve before the Madness trigger does. Either way, BC will be put into the graveyard when the Madness trigger resolves, as there presumably isn't a legal target for it so it can't be cast.

If you opponent wanted to actually cast BC, they'd have to cast a spell, hold priority, and then cast Catalog so that when the Madness trigger from BC goes on the stack, there's actually a spell there for BC to target.

Make sense?

Go for it! Unfortunately, I can't easily judge big events due to my job, but the judging I do now is fun. How familiar are you with the rules and policies? A big thing to brush up on is two-headed giant and EDH rules, since they come up on the test and people don't tend to know them all that well.

Everything on a spell happens as best it can. Anything else that was triggered waits until after the spell is done before it happens.

I'm pretty good with the rules in edh and 1v1. I'll look more into 2hg, thanks for the tip.

so there's no point at which BC is in exile and you can cast an instant, then cast BC targeting the instant you just put on the stack. Because BC cannot be cast until the Madness trigger resolves, and it will only do so once there's nothing above it on the stack. Okay, thanks for the help!

Incidentally, has anyone ever seen a Madness trigger get Stifled? Because that sounds hilarious.

Basically, you have to have a target already by the time the madness is triggered (a.k by the time the card is discarded). You can't discard-exile to madness then have a spare counterspell in exile just in case.

Question about the wording on Offering.
"You may cast this card any time you could cast an instant by sacrificing a and paying the difference in mana costs between this and the sacrificed . Mana cost includes color."
If hypothetically, a permanent with higher mana cost was sacrificed for the offering effect, like Goblin Dynamo(5RR) for Patron of the Aki(4RR), would you still have to pay the difference of 1?

And a follow up question, how does it work with hybrid mana costs (Boartusk Liege for example)

If you reduce it to 0 or below, you pay 0. Or did I miss part of the question?

No, that clears it up. That's exactly what I thought.

Hey Judge, if I strap a Splinter Twin to a Humble Defector, do the token copies of Humble Defector get exiled at the end of the turn if I activate them and they end up under my opponent's control?

If only there were a place where cards gathered, that might have notes on those cards. A kind of, gathering, of cards.

6/15/2010 The token is exiled at the beginning of the next end step regardless of who controls it at that time, or whether Splinter Twin or the enchanted creature is still on the battlefield at that time.

>seen a Madness trigger get Stifled
Eh, I think watching Miracle triggers get stifled is funnier. Or Griselbrand activations.

Storm also

Asking about control effects. I was able to find them in the multiplayer rules section but I'll leave them here anyways for people's reference.

Player A, Crown of Doom's owner casts it and gives it to Player B. B gives it to Player C, C loses before giving it to anyone else. Does the previous control effect still apply and give it back to B or does A take it back as its owner. Goes to B as the previous controller

Second scenario. B reanimates a creature from A's grave. B loses while they still control it. What happens to the creature? There was no previous controller, it goes to exile.

This is gonna sound like a dumb question

How much of the checklist card needs to be shown for it to be acceptable to put in a deck in place of the actual flip card?

I'm asking because I was sharpie-ing out all but the startled awake on one and I accidentally got a little bit over the (2) on the mana cost. You can still tell it's (2) but I don't want to take it to a big event and have some guy call judge for any reason. I'd assume if I at least show the mana cost on the flip card itself I'd be fine, but I don't want to take chances.