MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge - Monday Funday Edition

Since it has protection from instants, does that mean my opponent can't counterspell it since it's an instant? Does he lose if he tries?

Protection only works on the battlefield.

So it's not illegal? damn, thought I could get free wins off that...

Why would someone lose from making an illegal play? You just undo it.

Yeah, that's not how that works even if it is 'illegal'. If I goof up and try to Doom Blade your pro-black guy, I don't auto-lose the game.

At an FNM level, it's going to be resolved by "Whoops, can't do that" almost immediately, and then a 'takeback' since you can't do that. Even if I'm called, I'll just back the game up and wag a finger unless it's happening a LOT, or I suspect the player is intentionally trying it, hoping their opponent lets it through. That gets more serious.

In a Competitive REL game (PPTQs, GPs, etc) we'd just back it up to immediately before you attempted an illegal action, and you'd get a Warning. Do it enough in one day and they turn into Game Losses, but no, I'm not going to GL a person for making a simple GRV that takes 2 seconds to fix.

Hold up galvanicAutogenitor, when Newmrakul hits the battlefield, you get the cast based trigger the same way you would with newlamog, but it can still be countered and removed from the battlefield before your mindslaver effect procs?

If you cast Newmrakul, and in response sundial of the infinite, does it skip the trigger for the counterspell due to instant speed resolution, or would you still be able to put things on the stack, assuming no one has split second.

You cast Newmrakul (it doesn't fit as well as Newlamog, we need to find something else), and she triggers. Your opponent can respond to this trigger by countering Newmrakul. If they do, you still get your trigger, because triggers on the stack exist independent of their source.

If you cast Newmrakul and then Sundial, your Newmrakul and her trigger are exiled and do nothing. If you do it in response to a counter, again, it'll exile everything on the stack.

Also, there is no such thing as 'instant speed resolution'. There's no such thing as 'speed' in Magic.

>Yeah, that's not how that works even if it is 'illegal'. If I goof up and try to Doom Blade your pro-black guy, I don't auto-lose the game.

Why not? you tried doing something illegal and I caught you. That's cheating. If I didn't catch you then it's good, and if I realize it later I have to shut up or else I lose.

Thanks for clearing that up, I'm pretty excited about this card in general!

So, if I understand correctly, by paying Ememerakul's Erm-rakul? Emmy? You're right, we need a name for this bastard asap casting cost, you get an uncounterable mindslaver, then whatever happens to it as a creature resolves? Would your opponent be able to counter the casting activation of the mindslaver effect instead of the creature, or assuming you have two counters, do both?

meme-rakul ;^)

I have Hypersonic Dragon. My opponent pays pic related. Can I remove pic related with a sorcery played at instant speed, or is he immune?

To be honest, I can't think of anything more clever, so that works.

Cheating requires three things.

It requires that you

1) Break a rule
2) Intentionally
3) To gain an advantage

All three points must be present. If you break a rule UNINTENTIONALLY, then you aren't Cheating. I understand your position on the point, but that's not how current policy works, and policy is what we enforce.

Also, cheating is not a Game Loss. Unsporting Conduct - Cheating is punished with Disqualification.

I mean, it's not uncounterable. Stifle is a thing. But outside the small handful of things that hit triggered abilities, you aren't gonna be countering the trigger. A regular counterspell won't work because triggers aren't spells. You need to use something that hits triggers, or give yourself Hexproof to make the game rules counter it for you.

There is no such thing as 'speed' in Magic.

Emrakul 2.0 has protection from cards with the Instant type. A Sorcery cast during someone else's turn is not an Instant, and is thus not stopped by said protection.

Socratic answer: Is a sorcery an instant?

Non-socratic answer: Yes, protection from instants does not mean "protection from sorceries played at weird times".

Hey, that's my schtick!

...

>stifle
Oh tits on toast, I'm going to stock up on those before they hit a huge price spike in response to modern getting up in a tizzy about another grixis control thing. Trickbind looks pretty neat too.

How can playing an instant against something with protection from instants be anything other than trying to break a rule to gain advantage?

>stifle
>in modern

u wot m8

There's these cool new things called "mistakes".

How does Kurkesh work? What are some things it'll actually work with? I get the general principle but I'm at a loss for how it could be useful, outside of very specific circumstances.

Somebody does pic related. How do you react?

If you allow that then what's stopping people from doing that and then lying "oh sorry, it was a mistake"?
There's a reason the rules are zero-tolerance, because if they aren't people can and will exploit them.

user, only sith deal in absolutes. Cut that shit out, the world is just various shades of grey. Sure, some are clearly darker than others, but in almost any situation you can logic your way into relativism.

Read the card

I cast multiple Emrakul 2: Electric Boogaloos in the same turn. How many turns does my opponent get? How many do I control?

Voltaic key can untap two artifacts for 1R, T. Jayemdae tome can draw 2 cards for 4R, T. Hangarback walker can add two +1/+1 counters for 1R,T.

Iron Myr cannot tap for RR for R,T because it's a mana ability.

As judge I operate outside the rules. It's like how platinum angel can't save you from game loss penalties. He's getting a deck check and a dilly bar.

...do they actually make dilly bars anymore?

>dilly-bar
the act of falling off of a height and landing, anus first, onto a fence post, steel rebar, or the like. the name refers to a popular dairy queen frozen treat in which a stick is stuck straight into a dallop of ice cream.

"did you hear the story of the guy who jumped into a ditch full of water and dilly-barred himself on a fence post? dude now shits out of a hole in his neck."

Thank you, urban dictionary. Also yes.

Oh, that makes perfect sense, thanks! I just needed some clarification because it's only activated abilities instead of triggered abilities and I couldn't think of anything it would work with.

An activated ability is any ability worded as [COST] : [EFFECT]. An activated ability is a MANA ability if it isn't a loyalty ability, doesn't target, and could feasibly add mana to a mana pool as it resolves. So Kurkesh will work with, say, Hangarback Walker's ability to make more counters, but not Sol Ring.

I make liberal use of my L2 At-Will power: Baleful Stare.

You will control their next turn several times over, because Mindslaver effects stack poorly. Then they will take multiple turns in a row without your interference and you will be sad.

What's stopping them from lying is that half my job is to investigate bullshit liars and throw them out of my event.

They sure do.

Also, the rules aren't zero tolerance. I quoted to you the exact criteria for USC - Cheating. It requires a rule to be broken, ON PURPOSE, for an advantage. That second point is big.

It has to be intentional. By the 'zero tolerance' rules, there needs to be intent and knowledge.

Yeah, activated abilities are easy to spot, they have a colon ( : ) separating the cost and the effect. If you pay R you get double that effect as long as it's not a mana ability. (If it includes the phrase "to your mana pool" it's a mana ability like 95% of the time)

The other 5% of the time is Deathrite Shaman and Koth.

Are those the only two, or just the most common two?

DRS is the most common one, actually. The only time 'is not a loyalty ability' comes up so far is with Koth, Sarkhan Unbroken, and Xenagos.

As for 'abilities that make mana, but also target', I actually don't know of any besides DRS off-hand.

Well, many tabletop games aren't played in large-scale tournaments. You do want some kind of impartial authority to resolve rules disputes in tournaments, since there's incentive to cheat or at least argue in circles about a rule.

And, as gA said, judges handle a lot of the tournament logistics as well. You also want someone to keep score in whatever system you use, give out pairing for each match, etc.

Can the new Emrakul be countered? I am a little fuzzy on my protection rules, so I'm not sure if "protection from instants" applies while it is being cast.

Abilities only function on the battlefield unless they say otherwise or would make no sense otherwise. So no, protection does not generally work on the stack. For it to stop counterspells, it would need to say something like "As long as ~ is on the stack, it has protection from instants" or somesuch.

Nahiri is crashing this plane with no survivors.

And the chairs, don't forget the chairs.

Also, the Scorekeepers aren't always judges. There's a non-zero amount of L1 and L2 Scorekeepers, but a lot of them are Candidates or L0s, and while they aren't acting as Judges they are magical fucking people who should be showered with praise and candy.

Blessed be the Scorekeepers.

Yes. Protection only works on the battlefield.

How is decided what counts as "outside assistance" on a card alter? I guess it's just up to the head judge's judgment but it just seems very arbitrary to me

I feel you. I work in a game shop and judge/scorekeep/whatever our weekly events (got L1 last month so I can do bigger ones too) and I push in a lot of chairs.

Oh, and the trash. That reminds me of a Judge joke I heard once:

How many players does it take to change a lightbulb?

"Let's put trash in it"

HJ's discretion, basically. The usual metric is that a TINY thing like a Trinket Mage holding a Top is fine, but something that we'd consider notes (like "Board me out against X Y Z") is bad. It is a bit 'arbitrary', but that's because it'd be nigh impossible to nail down the exact specifics of what is and isn't okay. And also, like with Slow Play, we'd have people skirting the exact edge of that line in a way that might be worse than if we leave it to discretion.

Grats on the L1!

Also, I'm popping into town to nab lunch. I'll be back in a tick.

For you.

In competitive REL, is it true that if you try to cast a spell with an invalid target, you still have to cast it but with a valid target? Like say trying to bolt a hexproof creature so now I have to make it go to my opponent's face and can't "take back" the spell? What about if there is no legal target at all?

I'd rule that it's outside assistance if it's giving substantial advice. Like, if you painted sideboarding notes or the expected 75 of a meta deck into your card's art. Or some kind of decision tree to help you blind name on Therapy or Pithing Needle or whatever.

Basically, I'd avoid having your alters convey any information related to the game either visually or textually.

For what it's worth, I don't think I've ever seen any alters that I would consider in violation of this policy.

>Grats on the L1!
Thanks! These threads helped me start down that road quite some time ago!

>Oh, and the trash
Don't I fucking know it. The kids especially, jesus christ.

No. If you did it on purpose to gain advantage, that's cheating and a one-way trip to Dairy Queen. If you did it by mistake, then you get a warning, put the Bolt or whatever back in your hand, and rewind any mana abilities that you used to pay for it that can be rewound.

>no one makes mistakes ever

>one-way trip to Dairy Queen
Because of this now means something completely different.

the outside assistance rule is relatively new right? I remember watching a legacy match from a few years back where a player had written "NONLAND" as big as possible on his phyrexian revokers

Illegal move you can take back, misplays you can't. ex. bolting goyf and realized that won't kill it.

Dunno. I wouldn't rule that that counts as outside assistance, though. It's just repeating a word on the card. It's not like it helps you make any decisions - you can't legally name nonlands with Revoker anyways.

>There's no such thing as 'speed' in Magic

chromatic sphere takes issue with that statement.

If you cast a spell at an illegal target, you aren't forced to continue casting it at a legal one. You just get a Warning for Game Play Error - Game Rule Violation and we rewind to immediately before you made the error. We're not going to force you to pick a legal target from what's available because that's not how the rules work.

It's actually a bit circular- Dairy Queen and Dilly Bar are common (Dilly bar less so) slang phrases Judges use for "Disqualification"- because DQ. "take a trip to Dairy Queen" = getting DQed = getting disqualified.

Nah, it's been in effect for at least as long as I've judged, so going on 6 years now. I also wouldn't bat an eye at "NONLAND" on a Revoker, because naming a land isn't legal in the first place, so all he's doing is reminding himself how his card works.

There isn't. It's not 'faster' than other things, it's just that you can't respond to mana abilities. This isn't Yugioh.

What does Progenitus NOT have protection from?
Surely there must be some exception.

Progenitus has protection from everything. Protection means that it can't be damaged, enchanted/equipped/fortified, blocked, or targeted by whatever the object has protection from. So Progenitus can't be damaged, enchanted/equipped/fortified, blocked, or targeted by anything. It can still be affected by effects that don't do any of those things (like Wrath of God). It can also be countered if it's cast, since protection abilities don't (typically) work on the stack.

It has protection from everything. All types, all supertypes, all subtypes, all players, all colors, multicolor, monocolor, colorless, everything.

What that effectively means is that Proggy cannot be Damaged, Enchanted/Equipped/Fortified, Blocked, or Targeted by anything.

Anything trying to do one of those things will fail. Anything trying to do something else will not.

Progenitus has protection from exceptions.

Progenitus can be damaged by Malignus

Progenitus has protection from unpreventability.

It's not unpreventability that's trying to damage him

It's Malignus

Progenitus tries to prevent it with his prot everything and Malignus says nah

It's a joke. Veeky Forums has a running joke that Progenitus has protection from even abstract concepts. Or "protection from being sacrificed".

Ha ha!

>malignus
Damn that's a nice card. He's going in my Heartless Hidestugu deck for hilarious double-strike shenanigans.

He pairs really really well with Xenagod

It's less fun with double strike than you might think. It still does a ludicrous amount of damage, but it won't outright kill them (unless it's multiplayer and you're attacking the guy who does NOT have the highest life total)

Holy shit, you're right. Maybe I need to rebuild my xenagos beat down deck. I remember it was pretty stronk, and now that I have some new rocks, it could be game breaking. Personally, I wanted to dictate of the twin gods otk people with hidestugu, but I can still do that in xenagos, while also having access to the best ramp cards printed in magic. Thanks user, you're a real charmer.

Oh, wait, so the damage is reduced once the first strike hits, and recalibrated based on the player's current life total for the regular strike part of double strike? That's neat. Can I cast things inbetween a creature attacking with double strike?

Yep. Malignus has a Characteristic-Defining Ability that constantly updates itself. If you throw a 10/10 double-striking Malignus at your only opponent who has 20 life, the SECOND Malignus deals 10 damage and reduces them to 10 life, Malignus shrinks to a 5/5.

You absolutely can cast spells or activate abilities between First Strike and regular damage.

Progenitus has protection from nah.

and judges explanations

and sarcastic laughter

How does the Eldrazi displacer and thought-knot seer combo work out? If I blink thought-knot does he make the opponent draw first or does he look at the hand first?

So, it's been out a while and you blink it with Blinky the Eldrazi. As soon as it leaves the board you have the LTB trigger fire, but it can't go on the stack while an object on the stack is resolving, so it waits. Then you bring the Seer back, and it triggers again, but that trigger waits. Ability has fully resolved, SBAs are checked. Now, all triggers waiting to go on the stack may do so.

You control both triggers, and they're going onto the stack simultaneously, so you choose the order in which they go onto the stack. You can have them draw and then you strip away a card, or the other way around. Protip: Pick the first one.

Sick. Thanks friend.

I didn't know that, nifty. I can't see how it would be useful. How would the timing work on double strike? Is it declare attacker, declare blocker, first strike damage calculation, regular strike damage calculation? In my head I'm trying to think of an elaborate example where I can tap a creature to remove it from combat so the second half of double strike fizzles, but the more I think about it, the less I think it works that way.

It's not always useful, but it's there if you need it. How the timing works is this

COMBAT PHASE

Beginning of Combat Step
Declare Attackers step
Declare Blockers Step
First Strike Damage Step
Combat Damage Step
End of Combat Step

That 'first strike' step only really 'exists' if First/Double strikers are involved in the combat. Otherwise there's just the one.

Also, tapping a creature hasn't removed it from combat for well over a decade.

If I give a creature first strike after first strike damage, before regular combat damage, it will not do any damage this combat right?

Incorrect.

702.7c. Giving first strike to a creature without it after combat damage has already been dealt in the first combat damage step won't prevent that creature from assigning combat damage in the second combat damage step. Removing first strike from a creature after it has already dealt combat damage in the first combat damage step won't allow it to also assign combat damage in the second combat damage step (unless the creature has double strike).

Wow, they actually thought of that when writing the rules and made a built-in exception? Neat.

Does anything special happen with giving/losing Doublestrike?

Okay, let me give you a concrete example of what I'm talking about:

>opponent is using fencing ace, for arguments sake, he's a 2/2
>block with my silumgar the drifting death
>in response to declaring blockers, opponent casts an instant giving fencing ace +2/+2
Now, where I'm getting confused, is that in this situation, if I could cast an instant between the damage steps to return siliumgar to my hand, it would go back to my hand, the second half of the first strike would fizzle on siliumgar's "shadow" and combat would resolve without me taking damage, yet still having my creature in my hand? Or would would my fancy dragon still wind up in the yard?

It's more a clarification than anything, because the rules say that the only creatures who assign damage in the First Strike step are the ones who had First/Double strike as that step began, and the only ones that assign damage in the 'normal' step are the remaining attackers/blockers that had neither First nor Double Strike as the previous step began, and also the ones that currently have Double Strike.

Nah, same thing. I quoted 702.7c, and 702.7 is First Strike. Double Strike is 702.4.

But the situation is also covered by 702.4b, 702.7b, and 510.5

Well, you're using some terms loosely here, like "in response" to a turn-based action, "fizzle" for something that isn't a spell, and "resolve" for something that doesn't use the stack.

But yes. You could bounce your Slugmar at any point before the normal Combat Damage Step to 'save' it. You could bounce it in response to the pump spell, you could bounce it post-pump but pre-first-strike, or post-first-strike.

Different user here, but in the case of the Slugmar situation, if user bounces Slugmar after opponent has pumped his Ace, the Ace deals no damage to either Slugmar or user, right?

Sorry for using the terms loosely, I'm working on getting the correct vernacular and it's a little... oppressive. Now the biggest part of my question was how much damage would you take as a player? I'd wager zero, assuming the creature was removed post-first strike.

Correct. A blocked creature remains blocked for the whole of combat, even if everything blocking it no longer exists.

Unless it has trample, it will deal no damage to anything.

Yeah, the jargon can be a little arcane at times. The problem is that in Magic, words mean VERY specific things, so you can't use some interchangeably like you normally would.

For fuck's sake, I stop myself and rewrite sentences so they don't contain "when", because I'm afraid it'll imply that whatever I'm talking about is a trigger when it isn't. That's how ingrained this is in me.

Anyway- zero. Like I said in the post just after yours, a blocked creature stays blocked for all of combat. Since it doesn't have trample, it can't hit you, and since there's no blockers in front of it anymore, it can't hit ANYTHING. This is important if it were, say, a Felidar Sovereign that he gave Double Strike to and you bounced in response. Since it's not damaging anything, he gains no life.

Thanks!

>Trample
So, another question with a rather obvious answer I'm guessing, but assuming in the previous example the Ace had Trample as well, it could assign all 4 damage to defending user right?

Yep. There's now 0 toughness between the Ace and your Face, so it can assign full damage to aforementioned face.

Thanks again!

I've got to give props where props are due. You always explain things so succinctly and clearly, thanks so much. Do you judge for a living?

Other user here, what if the defending creature gets bounced after the first strike? The defending creature gets assigned the damage for the first strike combat step, then all the damage goes to face in the normal step right?

>judge for a living
Pic related, I like eating too much for that.

I love Judging, but unless you shack up with an outfit like Starcity it's really hard to judge for a living. I have a day job, and I judge events on the side for a combination of 'extra scratch', 'somehow my hobby involves performing skilled labor on the weekends', and 'I enjoy helping the community'.