MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge Edition - Post PPTQ Edition

"LOL Emrakul" was a given once we knew that BFZ was going to be a 2-set block, to be honest.

Honestly my expectation was that it wasn't going to be a major theme, just something thrown in to complement actually relevant keywords and shit. It's got the Meld word on the card and all, but I don't know how many of those you could actually put in without it just making the set heavy with them. Two sets of two? Three?

hey there judge. im thinking of returning in a casual style for the moment, but i want to know about the modern style. is it fun? most of what i have is older to ancient with G/W ravinca decks being my favorites, only second to infect.

can the two be meshed well, or is it too many style competing for dominance?

"Meld" would have to be one of the mechanics of the set, which means it'd have a decent presence in the set. They wouldn't design a keyword and then put it on 4 or 6 cards.

I'm also not sure how much design space there is for "These 2 things become 1 thing".

Personally I can't stand Modern, but to each their own.

It's just so card disadvantageous, it feels like it'd be guaranteed to be one of the gimmickier bits like, uh, Abberant Researcher, or Skin Invasion. Or Neglected Heirloom.

It's possible that Meld is a keyword but it's usually "Melds with a werewolf" or even "Melds with a creature with Power

You're not understanding what I'm saying.

Meld, as it exists on the supposed spoiler, is a mechanic. It's not just a 'thematic' thing like Skin Invasion flipping from a non-creature to a creature, it's an entire ability that does not currently exist that they would have to write rules for. They don't do that to put a half-dozen cards in a set.

Keep in mind Tribute had 11 cards with that mechanic, Cipher had 13. If they do this, it'll be on 5 or 6 pairs of cards.

Still feels like a waste. I dunno. There's enough that's got me giving this the side-eye that I'd be legitimately surprised if they went with Meld. Especially with how big of a deal Limited is for WotCaHS, putting a dozen cards that require a specific other card in the set seems weird. It also damn near precludes there from being a Rare thing with Meld unless it's bonkers without its other half.

>WotCaHS

What did he mean by this?

Wizards of the Coast (a Hasbro Subsidiary).

Are you now contractually obligated to say that part?

Nah, I just feel like taking the piss every now and then.

if an [artifact - equipment] becomes an [artifact creature - equipment] and a creature with soulbound attaches with it, is that creature influenced by the equipment?

a creature can never be attached to anything. It'll either be illegal to attach, or if it was attached when it was animated it falls off as an SBA.

Creatures can't be attached to stuff.

If you animated an Equipment and then Soulbonded it to something, all that happens is whatever normally happens with the Soulbond. If you're asking "do the effects of an Equipment that's a creature transfer to the creature I soulbond it with", no.

I got a bit confused on the terminology.
Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks.

what happens when a creature has flying and horsemanship?

can it still be blocked by fliers?

It can only be blocked by other creatures with both Flying and Horsemanship.

gA, a couple of questions about how to resolve things when judging at FNM (in all cases, I investigated and determined that no foul play was intended, just honest mistakes).

1) Player A controls a Nimble Mongoose. At some point they enchant it with an aura. A few turns later, player B notices that Mongoose shouldn't be enchanted. What do?

2) Player A resolves Time Spiral. Player B neglects to shuffle his graveyard into his library. This isn't caught until player A has already resolved a Ponder and now has a Snap on the stack targeting player B's Insectile Aberration. What do?

3) Player A controls a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and an Aether Vial (untapped, two counters). Player B Krosan Grips it on end step, but neither player notices yet that B only paid three mana and could not have paid four. Grip resolves, they move to B's turn. B has drawn a card, goes to cast a Gamble, and only then do the players notice that Grip shouldn't have been cast.

For 1) I had A return the enchantment to hand, and had the players proceed. For 2) I had B shuffle hand and graveyard into library and re-draw seven - they hadn't played any cards since the Spiral resolved. For 3) I just left things because it didn't seem like there was a great fix.

I don't feel particularly confident in any of these rulings, but it's tough for me to gauge what's the "right" fix at Regular.

1) Shrug it off and move on. When you notice something illegal happened, you have two options: Rewind, or leave it as is. You should use your judgement to determine which of the two is the least disruptive, and do that. For something caught maybe as far forward as the opponent's next turn? Go ahead and back it up, depending on what all happened. Several turns later? No way in hell am I rewinding that far. Correct anything that's currently illegal (like if the Mongoose had protection from Enchantments rather than shroud) and otherwise just remind them to be more careful.

2) Same situation. Determine what's least harmful to the game state: Leaving things as-is, or rewinding through the currently-on-the-cast Snap and the resolved Ponder. Generally rewinding through draws is fucky- rewinding through a PONDER is even fuckier. I'm likely to leave this alone and remind them to be more careful.

3) Same deal. For this, I'm okay with rewinding through just the turn-based draw of B's turn, because that's fairly easy to do.

So, yeah. You shouldn't try to "fix" things the way you did- outside of correcting currently-illegal gamestates, your options are "rewind to immediately before they broke the rule" or "leave it alone". Don't try to administer partial fixes to try to 'put it right' after the fact, it can just lead to more problems.

Yeah, I figured as much. Thanks for confirming. I'll know better in the future.

I was probably being overly zealous because my tendency would be to leave it unless the current gamestate is illegal, and I wasn't sure if that was okay at Regular.

At Competitive, do you just issue warnings and leave things as they are in those situations? The first one I'd definitely do some more serious investigating, because a player at Competitive should really know how their cards work.

Competitive is the same as Regular, except you also give out an actual penalty. Determine if it's less harmful to rewind or to leave it as-is, and then enact whichever choice you made. This is for GRVs specifically, mind you.

Also, the IPG has a handful of "default fixes" that you apply automatically in certain situations, but outside of those it's just "rewind it or leave it alone".

As for as actual penalties go, last time I checked the standard policy is the player that made the mistake gets a Warning - GRV (GPE, or Game Play Error) and his opponent gets a Warning - GRV (Failure to Maintain Proper Game State).

Neither of these warnings are worth upgrading to game loss unless it's the exact same GPE that's occured several times in a row, and you never upgrade Failure to Maintain.

That part I was aware of, thanks.

You've got it a little backwards.

It's Game Play Error - Game Rule Violation (GPE - GRV) to the offending party, and Game Play Error - Failure to Maintain Game State (GPE - FTMGS) for the opponent.

You list the 'class' of error first (GPE, TE, USC) and then the specific infraction.

Alright. I just got it scrambled.

Out of curiosity, do you Cube, gA?

I don't, but not out of any dislike of Cube or anything. Nobody in my area has a cube, and I don't really feel like building one because I'm fuck-awful at Limited so I wouldn't be the best guy to put in charge of building a Cube.

Also, I only have about 3 friends I'd trust with anything more expensive than a Pauper cube, and I already play tons of EDH, so that's where I'm at. If someone HAS a cube at a GP or something I'll sit down for a cube draft all day, but it's not really a 'thing' in my area.

Alright kids, I need to get some sleep. If the thread's still up when I get to the office tomorrow I'll begin answering questions again- if it slips off the last page while I sleep, I'll just make a new one!

Honestly, the Meld cards strongly remind me of Conspiracy drafts where you benefited by picking Hidden Agenda Conspiracies plus several copies of the same common. If you only have one Lizard Warrior, it gets a boost from your Conspiracy, so it's not completely useless, but if you get five of them, it gets crazy.

Similarly, if you get one Meld card, it's still usable on its own, but if you get both, you get more value.

It's something that has popped up from time to time, although i personally dislike the idea of doing it with DFCs.

My opponent has a Body Double targeting a Progenitor Mimic targeting a Mulldrifter in play.
If I play a Phyrexian Metamorph targeting this amalgamtion of his, will mine also inherit the Progenitor Mimics upkeep trigger or will it just be a regular old Mulldrifter?

Body Double doesn't target. Neither does Progenitor Mimic. Neither does Phyrexian Metamorph.

Anyway, copy effects pick up copy effects, so your Phyrexian Mimic Doubledrifter will be an Artifact Creature - Elemental with Flying, "When ~ enters the battlefield, draw two cards", Evoke 2U, and "At the beginning of your upkeep, if this creature isn't a token, put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of this creature."

tl;dr you get a Mimicfish every turn yes.

Alright, back in the office.

If I play a Maelstrom Wanderer and the first cascade pulls a Worldly Tutor does that resolve first allowing me to stack the top card or does the second cascade go off then I do both?

You'll start to resolve the topmost Cascade, and hit the Tutor, which you then cast. The Tutor is the top object on the stack, so it has to resolve before your second Cascade, so as long as you tutor up something that costs 7 or less, that's what your next Cascade will hit.

Also, just to confirm, does the wanderer resolve last?

It does.

You cast Wanderer, and put it on top of the stack (which is probably empty, but hey, maybe you gave it Flash somehow). Then Cascade triggers, so you have two Cascade triggers ABOVE that.

First one resolves, finds a spell, casts it, now that spell is on top of the stack. Spell resolves. Second Cascade resolves, finds a spell, casts it. Now that spell is on top of the stack. It resolves. Now, after all that, Wanderer can resolve.

From Gather Specimens Gatherer entry:

"1. 10. 2008 - If two or more players have each cast Gather Specimens during the same turn and a creature would enter the battlefield, the creature’s would-be controller (the controller of the creature spell, for example) chooses one of the applicable Gather Specimens to apply. Then the new would-be controller of the creature repeats this process among the remaining Gather Specimens, and so on, until there are no more possible Gather Specimens effects to apply."

Why is this so? I thought that the affected creature spell's controller is still the player who cast it, even after applying the first replacement effect, so he should be the one choosing the order of all the other effects. What am I missing?

Because it's not affecting a creature spell, it's affecting the creature PERMANENT that's trying to enter the battlefield. At the time that the event of "This here fucker entering the battlefield" is happening, the would-be controller is the person who did cast it. Once they apply a Specimens, the would-be controller is the player whose control it's 'going to' enter under now, not the person who cast it.

Oh, thanks, it makes sense to me now.

The rules are very good at hiding the special zone between the stack and the battlefield. (Half-joking here)

I'd say it's more that people think there's a weird zone between them, when there isn't.

Cool, thanks for the clarification!

What happens if you have a Godhead of Awe on the field and a creature with Evolve?

Let's say there's Godhead of Awe and Gyre sage on the board. Does a creature that is normally 2/2 triggers the Evolve even if Godhead of Awe makes it a 1/1 ?

The creature comes in as a 1/1. There is never a moment where the base P/T is not 1/1 while it's on the field- it doesn't enter as a 2/2 and then shift down.

So, to Evolve your Sage in that situation you'd need something that enters with counters beyond the base P/T.

How can I play Odric, Master tactician without hating myself for using him?

Beer

Why would you hate yourself? For being evil during combat?

I feel the same way whenever I play my Gwafa Hazid deck

For the new meld angels, if one of them is your commander and you combine them, does the combined form still deal commander damage?

Can you explain how priority works? It's the one part I find extremely confusing

An example that I have trouble understanding:

Say you play a planewalker with a base of 3 loyalty counter and a player lightning bolts it. Can you do one of your planeswalker's + abilities to keep him alive?

Are planeswalker abilities considered like instant or Sorceries?

Prioirity is essentially "whose turn is it to try casting stuff" during a turn.

You can't respond to your opponent bolting your walker, but you can say "I'm going to play this 3-loyalty walker, and then I'm going to use his + ability" by retaining priority, not giving your opponent a chance to bolt him until you've already added more loyalty counters (since that's a cost!)

I honestly have no clue. That's absolutely something that we'll have to wait for confirmation on, because I don't know if they're considered the same card.

Priority is the system of "who can do stuff, and when they can do it" in Magic. It's why you can't just windmill slam a spell, attack someone, and say "end my turn" in one sentence and deprive them of a response. There's very few actions you can take without priority, and casting a spell is not one of them.

For your planeswalker example, you can't + in response because the Planeswalker abilities can't be used with anything on the stack. The stack must be empty. That said, it depends on how they're trying to do it. If you play a Planeswalker that comes down with 3, your opponent can't just insta-bolt it, they have to wait for priority, and you have to hand it to them. Or, you can activate the + ability to put it out of Bolt range first.

If it's something you've HAD on board, they could just Bolt it during your upkeep or such.

>cont.
Whenever it's your turn, each time a new phase or step starts, you gain priority. You can use that to do things like play lands, cast spells, or activate abilities. Whenever you do any of these things, you still have priority to do other things, until you're done - then your opponent gains priority to do what they want. If they do anything then they keep priority to add things on the stack until THEY are done, at which point you get priority again.

Once both of you give up priority back to back, whatever is the topmost object on the stack resolves. If the stack is empty it moves to the next phase or step.

I have a Kor spirit dancer on the battlefield. I attempt to cast an Aura to attach to it but an opponent counters the aura

Does Kor spiritdancer's draw ability triggers? Are counterspelled spells you play considered ''cast''?

Yep! Stuff like Spiritdancer cares that you CAST a spell, not that it RESOLVED. In fact, the trigger has to resolve before the spell ever has a chance to, so it has absolutely no way to check whether or not it resolved anyway.

Yep! You cast the spell, and that's what spiritdancer checks. Whether or not it RESOLVES doesn't matter.

I asked it yesterday on the commander thread because there wasn't an AAJ thread up, and while I got a response, a RL friend of mine said that I'd best get a judge's opinion to be sure:

I'm working on a brion Stoutarm deck, and I'm wondering about the effects of Gift of Immortality.

If I attach it to a creature, I sac it, it instantly returns but GoI doesn't until the end of turn. If I then sac it again and get it back onto the battlefield again before GoI triggers and comes back, does GoI still re-attach without issue?

I' think it wouldn't because it counts as if the original target of the effect (the creature just returned with the initial GoI proc) is removed, making the effect fizzle. Then again, it's still that same creature, so it might also not matter how many times it's been removed, as long as it's back at the end of turn when the recursion effect triggers.

Gift will only be able to 'track' the creature it brings back the first time. If you throw the Gifted creature at someone, then let it come back and throw it again, then get it back via say, Karmic Guide, your Gift will try to come back attached to 'that creature' (meaning the exact object it put onto the battlefield), but it won't find it because that object no longer exists.

Any time cards move between zones, they become new objects with no memory of (or relation to) previous "versions" of themselves.

A bit more on priority, if I cast a creature, it resolves and it's now on the battlefield.

Priority is mine at this point but I'm thinking about my next move. Can my opponents cast an instant while I still have priority to kill it?

Nope, because they can't cast a spell without priority. Until you pass priority over to them (either by explicitly doing so, or by casting a spell), they can't respond.

Thanks. I thought this was the case, but wasn't entirely sure.

So you think meld + soul forge will work the same way as soul forge + strionic resonator? (Yes, no guarantees before rules are out, I know)

I'm not really sure what you mean by soul forge.

Also, gotta pop into town to buy lunch, back in a flash and a half.

What usually gives priority to other players during your turn?

Is there a place where you can see each time the other players can get priority on your turn?

MTGO.
And you give other players priority on your turn. When you have priority, at any time, your options are to take a legal game action (cast a spell, activate an ability, etc.) or to pass priority. You can't just sit there, hold priority, and do nothing. In order for the game to advance to the next step/phase, both players have to pass priority over an empty stack. In order for an object on the stack to resolve, both players have to pass priority when it's the topmost object. You can cast a spell/activate an ability and retain priority, but you must explicitly state that you are doing so. Otherwise, you're implicitly passing priority to your opponent. The active player (player whose turn it is) gets priority whenever an object on the stack resolves, so they get the chance to do things first.

Really, though, you should find the comprehensive rules and read the section on priority. It's fairly well-explained and straightforward, and you can come back here afterwards and ask any questions you might still have.

>What usually gives priority to other players during your turn?
You passing priority to them. That's it. Of course until you pass priority so they can pass it back, nothing will ever leave the stack - so you have to do it eventually

ah meant soul foundry (pic related)

At the start of each step and phase, the player whose turn it is gets priority, they get priority,
if they want to cast a spell, activate an ability they are the first who can do so, then priority gets passed like this:

1. A player casts spells/activates abilities until they chose to stop , then passes priority
2. Then each other player gets priority and may choose to cast spells/activate abilities, then, if a player does goto 1, (otherwise they pass priority as normal).
3. Resolve the top most element of the stack (the most recent spell/ability), then goto 2, starting with the player whose turn it is (as he/she is the one to receive priority after something reslolved).

The same goes for moving to a next phase, there is also a priority pass then.

I can now confirm that according to Tabak, yes. If Bruna or Gisela are your commander and get merged into Brisela, then Brisela deals Commander damage.

So, Soul Foundry + Resonator just lets you Imprint two things, and pay X as the sum of their costs to get two tokens at a time.

Meld + Soul Forge is a non-thing, since all 6 of the Melders meld from the field, and Foundry eats things from your hand.

ok, last question about this.

So if the first card cascaded is a creature and the second is a board wipe the first creature is killed but the Wanderer itself is not, correct?

Right. You'd cast your guy, then your board wipe, then Wanderer resolves.

Great, hopefully that covers all possible scenarios with Cascade shenanigans

Hopefully! If not, please feel free to ask any other questions you think up. I'm more than happy to help.

Actually, one more.

If The first card pulled is a counter that counters my Wanderer do I still cascade the second time?

Yep! The Cascade triggers are 100% independent of Wanderer the second they hit the stack. You can also just choose not to cast the counterspell if you don't want to, and that stops the cascade but keeps your Wanderer.

That said, Remand is a popular choice for Wanderer decks because it counters Wanderer into your hand so you can Cascade again next turn without eating the tax.

This probably sounds really stupid and probably would be broken as fuck but fun to build around. What kind of rules nightmare would a card have it is said something along the lines of "Your life becomes 1. Prevent all damage dealt by a soucre and opponent controls to you while CARDNAME remains on the field".

I could think of some really fun build arounds, any cards that have fateful hour or death's shadow type shenanigans.

gA refuses to deal with hypothetical cards. I'm not gA

Lich and its variants are close, and they're pretty well covered as far as rules are concerned.

Worship prevents all damage that would put you less than 1 life as long as you control a creature, although it doesn't set your life total to anything.

Form of the dragon sets your life total to 5 each turn, but that's because "fuck you imma dragon"

Misspoke a bit there about worship. It prevents you from taking damage that would put you to 1 life so that you end up at 1 life - but it doesn't prevent ALL the damage if it'd be lethal.

Posting my hypothetical was a thinly veiled attempt at finding out more about rulings to be honest. To see if there were any weird or obscure clauses to where that wouldnt be allowed. Thank you though, ive been curious about similar style cards for a while, I feel like fateful hour has a lot more potential with the right build around.

Forest, Channel for 17, darksteel forge, platinum emperion.

Have fun.

Not that guy, but you'd need two forests.

Thats actually really cool, thanks for the suggestions man. I was under the assumption that Channel only worked when you were like paying for an X casting cost ability, I didn't know you could cast shit with it.

>someone looking to get into playing physical MTG
>severe social anxiety and have no friends who want to play it with me

wat do

Its mtg man, a fuckton of people have severe social anxiety. Go to an fnm or prerelease. Depending on your location, FNMs can be pretty competitive. I was always worried that my decks would be shit and I'd waste everyone's time. But really if you tell them youre new, people are typically chill and willing to help you build a deck or just make sure you have a decent time. Plus, if you don't like it, you can leave at any time man. I've got a pretty small local shop, and a bigger one a little further away. The smaller one is more close-knit and the owner is always down to play with new people if the store isnt busy. Pretty much everyone there will want more people to show up. There will be assholes and exception to that rule anywhere, but the more people who use the shop, the better the shop and the community does.

Watch people play on YouTube like the rest of us...

I only deal with the rules as they pertain to existing cards, sorry!

Munda, Ambush Leader triggers. Its controller looks at the top four cards, puts three on the top, one on the bottom. He is about to attack, when his opponent points out he never revealed the cards. You respond to the judge call.

What is the infraction and the remedy here?

Also, let's say you rule out cheating.

If i use a blink effect like Cloudshift on a permanent with an ability that says "activate this ability once each turn" (for example Patron of the Orochi), do i get a second chance to activate the ability (besides the need of haste to tap)?

...also, it's CompREL.

What else did I forget to mention?

Infraction is easy- Game Play Error - Hidden Card Error. Active player didn't reveal cards he was supposed to reveal. If both players can agree on exactly how many cards are on top/bottom (IE, both tell me that there's one on bottom and three on top) then we'll just reconstruct that 'set' of four cards and resolve the trigger properly.

If the players can't agree on how many went where, I'm going to investigate to find out how many I (personally) think went on top, and I'm likely to side with the Munda player because he was the one handling the cards and he stands to lose the most from lying to me here. We reveal that set, and if that set is all Allies, then gravy- no harm, no foul. Issue the Warning but not the 'fix' because there's nothing to fix and move on. If they don't match up, and I don't suspect Cheating, then we'll just shuffle away the 'excess' (the cards that are not Allies, and thus should not be in the set of 'allies I put back) away, then put the Allies on top of the shuffled deck.

Yep, because it becomes a new object with no memory of or relation to its previous self.