MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge - People Need To Quit Putting Gyms In My Hood Edition

You can't do that. You can't cast Path to Exile on the Snapcaster until it's on the battlefield, at which point the trigger is on the stack, and removing the source of an ability on the stack does not stop the ability inherently.

Lunch bump

Does multiple copies of minds dilation trigger on opponents first cast?
So 2x dilations lead to 2x exiled cards off a single cast?

Yep! Each one triggers from the same event, and each trigger resolves separately. You'll exile the top card of their library (and maybe cast it), then exile the NEW top card (and maybe cast it). It's important you do it in order, because the first card you flip over (if you cast it) will have to resolve before you can get to the second one.

Thanks for the info. Seems too spicy to ignore for my BU brains tides control standard deck.

Now I just need to figure out if I'm going to run two or four of these puppies

I cast Certain Death on my own creature while I'm at 2 life.
Do I lose the game?

What are some shortcomings of magic judges (including yourself) and how do you work and prepare to become better at what you do?

Nope. You'll gain and lose 2 life simultaneously, so you're never actually at 0. Even if they were separate instructions, SBAs don't check things while objects on the stack are resolving. It's why Wheel spells don't kill Psychosis Crawler.

The most common shortcoming is that a lot of judges are too eager to go the extra mile. That's great, but it also leads to two very common problems: Judges working for free (or damned near) because they want to help and are exploited by shitty TOs, and Judges working themselves half to death, either by running some sizeable event 3 out of every 4 weekends, or just running 10 hours straight and not taking breaks.

As for working and preparing, it's actually not that hard- there's a running joke that the Judge program is a cult of self-improvement that runs tournaments on the side. There's seminars and conferences, there's articles and discussions. Pretty much any aspect of Judging that you want to improve, there's either a wealth of literature about it, people chomping at the bit to share their own knowledge about it, or both. It's just a matter of seeking it out.

Can you cast Escalate costs on a card you didn't pay to cast? for example flashed back with Goblin Dark Dwellers.

Yes! Escalate is an additional cost (technically it's a static ability of a modal spell, but it leads to an extra cost) and thus you are able to pay it if you'd like to use it.

As opposed to Entwine which was a part of the casting cost right?

No, Entwine is also an additional cost.

When you're casting a spell for free, you can pay any additional costs you like (and MUST pay mandatory ones). It just prevents you from using OTHER alternate costs; if you used Goblin Dark Dwellers to hit a Counterflux in your graveyard, you can't Overload it because Overload is an alternate cost and you're already paying the alternate cost of 'free'.

Courtesy bump

Question from a friend:
What's the dumbest cheater you've seen?

Question from a friend:
What's the dumbest cheater you've seen?

Fuck sakes mobile really?

Dumbest cheater I've seen in general is a guy in our playgroup. He had two decks for a long time, a Razia "Chaos" deck and a Relentless Rats Marrow Gnawer deck. Almost without fail, his opening play with Razia was a turn 1 Land Tax, and his opening play with the Rats was a turn 2 Demonic Tutor to find Thrumming Stone. We knew he was cheating because any time we'd remind him to present his deck for a cut he didn't have those plays, but nobody ever called him out on it because he was kind of pathetic, and he never won anyway.

Dumbest cheater I've seen while JUDGING was... well, either of them. One of them flat out quoted the criteria for USC - Cheating to me when I asked him a question, and the other one attempted an insanely easy to spot cheat that three people saw through.

Thanks.
Not related to spoilers but another buddy was asking, when a card says "target creature gets +3, +3" does that count as 3 +1, +1 counters? I Don't play Magic a whole lot so he was wondering

>and the other one attempted an insanely easy to spot cheat that three people saw through.
story time?

...

Cards do what they say. +3/+3 is not three +1/+1 counters. If it was supposed to give +1/+1 counters, it would say that.

Modern event, guy's playing Twin. He gets hit with a Koka-Kola Command and discards Dispel. Cracks a fetch, flips through his library, stops, puts it down and rifles through his graveyard for a second, then picks his library back up, picks his land, shuffles, presents. Then he taps out to cast a Pestermite, it resolves, taps down one of his opponent's like... 5 lands. He untaps, drops a land, casts Twin, opponent responds with cryptic. He casts Dispel.

Opponent is curious, since those decks rarely run more than one, and remembers the graveyard thing. Asks to see it. Whoops, there's no Dispel there! The table next to him was getting deck checked at the time, so both players were just casually observing the match. Both of them, and the opponent, confirmed 100% that he had discarded a Dispel. A quick card-count told me that he had one more card in his hand than he should (given that he discarded just last turn), he claimed he didn't discard Dispel, blah blah blah, Dairy Queen.

Mausoleum Wanderer
U
Creature - Spirit
Flying

Whenever another Spirit enters the battlefield under your control, Mausoleum Wanderer gets +1/+1 until the end of turn.

Sacrifice Mausoleum Wanderer: Counter target instant or sorcery spell unless its controller pays X, where X is Mausoleum Wanderer's power.

So people are saying that in response to your opponents instant/sorc, you can flash in rattlechains, get this guy +1+1 and then use his effect to counter unless they pay 2? Is this correct?

Since sacrificing is a cost wouldnt it not be there to get the +1+1? Or am I thinking of yugioh rules.

God damn the stack is complicated.

Full spoiler is out, just post the english card.
>magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-image-gallery/eldritch-moon

>200.1. The parts of a card are name, mana cost, illustration, color indicator, type line, expansion symbol, text box, power and toughness, loyalty, hand modifier, life modifier, illustration credit, legal text, and collector number. Some cards may have more than one of any or all of these parts.

>212.1c Some card sets feature collector numbers. This information is printed in the form [card number]/[total cards in the set], immediately following the legal text.

>Collector Number
>A number printed on most cards that has no effect on game play. See rule 212, �Information Below the Text Box.�

I'm bad about the Collector Numbers starting at 13 in Eldritch Moon. I don't see anything wrong about it, but it feels wrong.
How do you feel about it?

Cute coincidence but its because colourless non artifact come before white.

>God damn the stack is complicated.
The stack literally behave like a stack structure. That's where it gets it's name.
And stacks are one of the two simplest structures that exist. Period.
That's about as far removed from complicated as you can get.

>Top
Some inst/sorc
>Bottom

Player adds Rattlechains.

>Top
Rattlechains
Some inst/sorc
>Bottom

Rattlechains resolves.
Add Mausoleum Wanderer's trigger.

>Top
+1/+1 until eot
Some inst/sorc
>Bottom

Mausoleum Wanderer's trigger resolves.
(Mausoleum Wanderer is now 2/2)

>Top
Some inst/sorc
>Bottom

Activate Mausoleum Wanderer's ability. (X is 2)

>Top
Soft counter ability
Some inst/sorc
>Bottom

Mausoleum Wanderer's ability resolves.
From here this can go two ways:

(cont.) If they pay X (read:2) mana...

>Top
Some inst/sorc
>Bottom

Some inst/sorc resolves.
The stack is now empty.

>Top
>Bottom

Does casting a spell for the Emerge cost change the converted mana cost, follow up question if someone casts Blasphemous Act for 2. Can I still counter it with Disdainful Stroke?

(cont.) If they don't pay X (read:2) mana...

Some inst/sorc gets countered.
The stack is now empty.

>Top
>Bottom

They don't start at 13. The colorless non-artifact cards (read: eldrazi) make up 1-12.

The converted mana cost of a spell never changes unless it has X in its cost and it's on the stack.

You can counter any blasphemous act with disdainful stroke.

>Does casting a spell for the Emerge cost change the converted mana cost
No. Nothing will ever change a cards CMC.

>if someone casts Blasphemous Act for 2. Can I still counter it with Disdainful Stroke?
Yes. It has CMC of 9, which is 4 or greater.

I got beat to the punch one minute before my temporary block expired.
>pic related

Why isn't the spoiler laid out i order?

>Why isn't the spoiler laid out in order?
Because fuck you that's why

So the stack can start to resolve and then be interrupted and start stacking again? I was under the impression once it starts resolving it finishes the stack first.

So I should look at it as cards resolving not stacks?

because the stack does not resolve, objects on the stack resolves.

>So I should look at it as cards resolving not stacks?
that's how it is.

Thanks man, I know these simple questions probably burn you out but it helps new players like me.

it's nothing at all.
And i think there are several people who answered questions when gA isn't here.

>karmic guide is on my side of the field, and the only creature I control
>I cast altar's reap
What happens? I think it just fizzles, but I'm not sure.

Altar's reap doesn't target a creature, so you can sacrifice Karmic guide to cast it.
If you couldn't sacrifice anything you wouldn't be able to cast Altar's reap in the first place since the sac is an additional cost.

You sacrifice Karmic Guide. Pro black does not means you can't use it as a cost.

bunch of spells/abilities on the stack, and the players do nothing:

the spell/ability on top resolves, then the active player (his turn) receives priority, and may perform actions. When he's done, the other player gets priority, so on and so forth until neither player does anything. Then the top spell/ability on the stack resolves.

Protection stops DEBT

Damage
Enchant/Equip
Blocking
Targetting

Pro-black still gets hit by altars reap/diabolic edit, pro-white still gets hit by wrath of god

Can you do the same permanent exile trick with the new creature Spell Queller like you could with Oblivion Ring?

Sorry if this has been asked before

It stops Enchant/Equip because it stops targeting.

No, they tweaked the wording on oblivion ring-style cards since... theros' vanishing light?

O-ring itself has two abilities, one that triggers on ETB and one on LTB, so yea you can do shenanigans in between the triggers to have them happen in backwards order and permanently exile things.

More recent cards are reworded so its a single ability that you cant get in the middle of. Sucks to take out the advanced interaction when you had some bounce/enchantment sac available, but it was a really difficult interaction to grasp for new players that was very feel-bad the first time it gets pulled on you.

But that messes with the acronym, and the word target doesnt appear outside of infrequent reminder text for enchant/equip, so its more helpful to players who are looking for the info to get a slightly redundant list.

but Spell Queller is worded liked O-Ring was

Not really.
If something already enchanted with Pacifism is given Pro White, then the Pacifism will fall off.

It's there because it's a different thing altogether.

Cool, thanks anons. I was mostly wondering if there were any sorts of shenanigans I could get up to with it, but I guess not outside of the usual revilark nonsense.

Fair enough, I am familar with that acronym, which is why I knew wraths would hit it.

Well shit, I guess I should have read the card. Yes then, o-ring shenanigans will work, which is nice with all the new sacrifice stuff.

I also have the same question, how does blinking a Spell Queller work? will the spell be exiled permanently?

Yep.

Bad spell on stack.
Cast queller.
Queller ETB, trigger on stack.
Reponse to trigger, bounce/blink/sac/destroy/whatever to get rid of queller
LTB trigger on stack.

LTB resolves, doing nothing, then ETB resolves, exiling bad spell, high fives all around
Im not sure if blizzard used this old wording intentionally with all the new sacrifice, or if it would just be too weird to do "exile permament until ~ leaves the battlefield" when youre not exiling permanents but spells

Blinking : no unless there's 2 or more spells on the stack
Bouncing : yes

Ask gA when he's online later for a better explanation.

Follow up as im thinking about this, true "flicker" effects that immediately return the creature would just make its ETB target the same spell again (assuming that Bad Spell is the only thing on the stack), so you would need a delayed blink that doesnt return the creature until end of turn or whenever, or bounce/sac

OK so my opponent and I both have three life left, I attack with everything, he blocks and loses three creatures with a zulaport cutthroat under his control, but still loses 3 life.
What happens?

Can't the second ETB just not target anything?

Here's the thing - you HAVE to target something with spell queller if there's a legal target. the new ETB trigger you get from it coming back from blink will still have to target the spell you wanted to exile forever, and that has to resolve before the first ETB trigger (the one that would exile it forever since its LTB trigger has already gone off).

tl;dr blinking spell queller will NOT exile a spell forever. Killing it, bouncing it, or exiling it until later (not instantly returning to play) will work.

Damage doesn't use the stack, so damage happens and he dies because cutthroat triggers never get to resolve.

Exactly correct.
We had this entire conversation with gA last thread
Incidentally, pic related.

No it cannot. The trigger does not say "may".
If there is a legal target you /must/ target it.

Nope, because it's a mandatory trigger unless there's no legal target.

It's not a may effect. If there's a spell on the stack, you have to hit it.

Keep in mind there will be two ETB triggers at the end of it - one will return the spell when it dies, the other one exiles the spell forever. If there's a second spell on the stack you can oring that, and perma-exile the one you want (in fact you'll be required to do that)

On Volrath's Curse, with that effect where the enchanted creature's controller can sacrifice something to negate the ability... They can choose to do that at instant speed, can't they? Say, sacrificing the enchanted creature in response to the aura's controller trying to pull it back to use on something scarier?

yes you can

...And to be clear, responding to a "Return [this] to your hand" effect by dumping [this] in a graveyard in response makes that effect not do anything, right? I'm suddenly unsure because the effect doesn't require targets or specify "from the battlefield" or something.

Shouldn't be. If an ability doesn't specify from where, it's usually only from the battlefield.
Still, ask again when gA is online just to be sure.

>10/4/2004 If the creature this card is on is sacrificed to this card, this card is put into the graveyard before the ability to unsummon it can be used.

Good god I am so sorry, I ended up having to run errands and just got home. Working through questions now.

Yes, that's how it works, and it's not really very complicated. Flash in Rattlechains, Wanderer triggers. Allow trigger to resolve, then sacrifice Wanderer. The stack isn't "Lock everything in and then it all resolves", you get to respond between things resolving.

CMC never changes. CMC is the sum of the symbols in the top right, no matter what you paid. Blasphemous Act has a CMC of 9 whether you paid 1R, RR, WUBRG, or two fishsticks to cast it.

The stack does not resolve, because it is a game zone. OBJECTS on the stack resolve, one at a time, and after any object on the stack resolves all players have priority to do stuff again before the next one does.

Pro-black means Karmic Guide cannot be Damaged, Enchanted/Equipped/Fortified, Blocked, or Targeted by any black spells, black permanents, or abilities from black sources. Altar's Reap does none of these, and so Protection does nothing.

No, it stops targeting AND enchanting. If I give pro-green to your guy with a Rancor on it, the Rancor can no longer legally enchant it so it falls off. It's why the white enchantments that give protection have to say 'this effect does not remove CARDNAME'.

You can, because of the way it's worded (an ETB and LTB trigger, rather than an ETB with a duration), but you'll want to be using either a delayed blink like Long Road Home, or a sacrifice/bounce. If you just use a normal there-and-back-in-the-same-spell blink like Essence Flux, you'll have to target a spell again when Queller enters, so unless there's ANOTHER legal target for that trigger, you'll just use ETB 2 on the spell you want to perma-exile, then LTB1 and ETB1 do nothing.

RTFC happens to everyone.

Nope. You never get to decide a targeted trigger just doesn't target something. Even if it's a "may" trigger, it still goes on the stack and you select a target, you just choose not to perform the action as it resolves. And there's no 'may' here, so you HAVE to counter the target if it's still legal.

He dies before his triggers even go on the stack, let alone resolve.

There's no such thing as speed in Magic, but yes. Special actions (of which this is one of thems) can be taken any time a player has priority unless that specific special action's rules say otherwise.

Right. When a card refers to itself by name, it means "THIS EXACT OBJECT". The Volrath's Curse in your graveyard is represented by the same physical card as the one that was on the field, but the game looks at them as two wholly different things. That ability is gonna be looking for the Curse that existed on the battlefield, and not find it because it no longer exists.

>18:26:13
>18:32:33
>18:35:08

Is there already a definite ruling about whether Tamiyo's +1 can draw you two cards if both creatures deals combat damage or just one?

Triggered abilities say "When" if they could only happen once, and "Whenever" if they could happen more then once..
"When" and "Whenever" are functionally identical, but that's done as a style choice.

If it could only get you one card it would specify that requirement in the trigger and say "When", or say "Whenever" and specify that requirement in the ability.

Incidentally, if you used an effect to get an additional combat phase you could draw 4 cards that turn of off Tamiyo's +1.

Can a creature block its own attack due to some red effect changing its controller?

When it changes controller it is removed from combat. (no longer attacking or blocking)

You can still block with it right?

If it changes control before blockers have been picked, it can still become a blocker.

I thought the question was can it block itself. No but it can block anyone that attacked at the same time as it did.

If it changed controllers during the declare attackers step, then yes you could in theory block with it.

...I think.

Assuming the effect that changed controllers also untapped it.

We don't have a "ruling", but based on the wording I can't imagine it NOT triggering per-creature. If it were meant to only work once, it would be worded as "Whenever one or more of those creatures..." if it was only supposed to work once per turn, no matter the number of creatures.

Creatures changing control removes them from combat.

You could, but the 'attack' it was making stops existing. So yes, you can block with a creature you just stole, but no a creature cannot block itself.

what's the policy for altered cards, the WoTC site is shit and the rulebook explains it badly, how can I prove the authenticity of a card beyond doubt? I have videos of me altering them for what's worth, and I always leave the name almost intact, isn't this enough?

The metrics are:

1) Cannot obscure name or mana cost
2) Art must be recognizable
3) Can't be offensive (judgement call, really- if you put naked chicks or fucked up gore or racist nonsense, that's a no)
4) Can't give excess strategic info (a Sensei's Top with the fire and ice from Counterbalance is fine, but a card with notes would not be)
5) Must be indistinguishable from other cards without looking at the face

6) The HJ's discretion. This is the big one. Even if it meets the other 5 metrics, the HJ can still just flat disallow it. His or her word is final. If the HJ has any reason to suspect that you painted a "Tarmogoyf" on top of a Runeclaw Bear, they're going to disallow it. The smartest thing is to just make sure you have non-altered backups, run the alters by the HJ before the event, and be prepared to swap them out if they get disallowed when you do so.

How do you think the escalate mechanic will work with Mizzix?

Pretty straightforward. Escalate is basically just Mega Entwine- if you select multiple modes, you have to pay additional costs. You add up the Escalate cost before you apply Mizzix's cost reduction, so that goes well, but even if you're paying 3RR for Collective Defiance, it has a CMC of 3, so it won't tick for a Mizzix that's already got you at 3 or more experience counters.

What do you think of sjws infesting the magic community?

Gotcha. That's how I thought it would go but I wanted some confirmation. Thanks!

If I flicker an Enchantment that is a creature due to Starfield of Nyx's ability, will it come back with a +1/+1 counter on it if Starfield's of Nyx's ability clause can be met? Would there be a difference if there was enough enchantments on the field already to turn other enchantments into creatures or if the returning enchantment was the last one needed to meet the requirements of Starfield of Nyx's ability?

Sorry I should have clarified that the card used to flicker is Long Road Home.

>return that card to the battlefield under it's owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it

>card
>not creature

It comes back with the counter no matter what.

+1+1 counters dont need to be on creatures, they can theoretically go on any permanent. So even if you dip under the 5 enchantments for starfield, it will get the counter. Of course, +1+1 counter on noncreature is just a meaningless placeholder until it turns back into a creature

if a source with trample would kill with lethal combat damage my goldnight castigator would the trample damage be doubled again?
ex:
>reality smasher swings for 5
>block with castigator 9thoug
>damage gets doubled ->10
>trample damage would be 1 (10-9)
but would castigator double that 1 damage again making it 2?

The Smasher will not trample through the Castigator.
It will assign 5, gets doubled into 10 and kill the Castigator.