MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge - 「 B L U E M O N D A Y 」

If it is no longer on the battlefield when its ability resolves, the game remembers what its last power was and uses that for how much damage is dealt to the opponent.

if I use praetors grasp to jack a card from my opponents library, is there a way they get the card I exiled back (if I don't cast it right away)?

Absolutely correct! This is what we call Last Known Information. When the game needs information about an object that's no longer in the expected zone, it just looks back in time to find out how that thing last existed in that zone.

The only ones I can think of off-hand require your input in the form of eating the card with a Processor. Both Pull from Eternity and Riftsweeper can only hit cards that are exiled face-up.

thanks. I wonder why I haven't seen the card in any (modern) control decks using black

glad you're doing this AMA stuff btw . if I knew the rule book as well as you I'd help out more

Mostly because it's not super-dependable. They might not HAVE a card you want to strip away and use against them, and if you're trying for a Memoricide effect, it's better to pay 1 more mana for an actual Memoricide to strip away every copy instead of just one. There's also the problem of being ABLE to cast what you steal, since it doesn't have the Gonti clause of letting you spend mana as if it were whatever type.

And happy to help!

figured. I wanted to make a competitive Mardu + snap caster deck with some fast low cmc cards that went on their side and disrupted them. I was kinda banking on the 3 (4) colours to be able to steal a good spell . too bad reigns of power isn't modern legal

I'm tired of my old jeskai / grixis deck getting overwhelmed haha

Especially if you're playing an aggressive deck, I think you have better things to do turn 3 than cast a Praetor's Grasp.

New to magic. When exactly can i use abilities on cards? Lets say i have a creatire that says pay one mana x creatire geta +2/2 can i pay that during my opponents attacking sequence?

When can i use energy counters to buff a creature? Can i do it after blockers are declared but before damage is dealt?

Activated abilities (those worded as [COST] : [EFFECT]) can be activated any time you have priority, including during another player's turn. The exception to that are cards that explicitly say there's a limit on when you can use that ability (usually "Only any time you could cast a Sorcery", meaning just on your turn, during your main phase, while the stack is empty), or have it baked into their keyword rules (like Equip; you can only do that 'any time you could cast a sorcery' because of the rules for Equip, even though the card might not have that reminder text)

All players will get priority at least once between blockers being declared and combat damage being dealt. You can wait until after blocks to pump energy into a spell or activated ability, and still have it 'kick in' early enough to affect the damage step.

I'll be back in a bit!

If I use Nahiris ultimate to find Brian or Gisela and meld them into Brussels, does the card return to my hand at end of turn, or does it become an invalid target?

Stupid autocorrect, *Bruna and *Brisela

Nothing about her ultimate targets, so 'invalid target' doesn't matter.

Her trigger will be looking for the exact specific object it put onto the field. When your Brian and Gazlow meld into Brumbles, they become new objects (technically one new object, but whatever). The trigger will be looking for an object that no longer exists, and will shrug and move on when it can't find it.

What happens if i kill one of two creatures about to meld?

The trigger will go to resolve and see that the intervening-if clause is no longer true. The trigger will do nothing.

Thank you. I look forward to Nagasaki pulling that off.

Does Mimic Vat work with a token creature?

>Whenever a nontoken creature
It doesn't. Even if it didn't say "nontoken" it wouldn't work right; it'd TRIGGER, but the trigger would be unable to find the token as it resolves (because SBAs made it stop existing by then).

I've seen a little bit of praetor's grasp in vintage storm, considering everyone is running most of the p9, it's pretty sweet.

Are there any rules that circumvent mythics having protection from common, uncommon, and rare?

Mostly the fact that the rarities have no effect on gameplay, per the rules. The game wouldn't "know" what rarity a card is.

Weird. What's keeping mythics for taking over formats, then?

I think there might be a few from the unsets that look at rarity. I know thete was at least one that looked at cards being premium, or fioled as most call it now.

Unsets get unrules.

I'm not really sure what you're asking.

Silver-Border Land operates under something very different from the CR.

When preeminent captain brings out captain of the watch, who stays untapped?

The tokens

Just the tokens that the Captain makes. The Captain may have Vigilance, but that only matters for being declared as an attacker; an effect said to put her onto the battlefield TAPPED and attacking, so that's how she's put onto the battlefield. Likewise, your Preeminent Captain didn't have Vigilance when attackers were declared, so he's tapped; granting him Vigilance later in the step doesn't retroactively untap him.

Question about two headed giant. You and your partner have both your decks milled to the last. But you have out laboratory maniac. So when it's time to draw for the start of the turn you lose because your partner can't draw a card or you win because of laboratory maniac?

Let's say an opponent plays shifting loyalties and wants to switch planeswalkers. Couldn't I basically sac my planeswalker with this guy in response by taking all its loyalty counters to make it fizzle?

Although it'd probably be smarter to just go down to 1 or so to keep him from going nuts with it.

You win! Lab Maniac's ability replaces the act of trying to draw from an empty library with "you win the game". So your teammate will try and fail to draw from an empty library, and simultaneously you will win the game, which means your team wins. The game is immediately over, so the SBA that WOULD kill your teammate for having drawn from an empty library never happens.

Sorta. You can Crew any time you have priority, and Heart of Kiran lets you Crew in an alternative way, but doesn't impose any additional timing restrictions on that. I see no reason that you shouldn't be able to just remove all the counters one-by-one in response until you get to 0 to prevent the exchange.

Note that there's no 'sac' involved here; once your Planeswalker is down to 0 loyalty, it's simply placed into the graveyard.

Yeah, should've put "sac" in quotation marks. Like how that other card you already answered in this thread doesn't trigger "when an opponent shuffles his library" abilities.

The rules are nothing if not pedantic!

I control scrap trawler along with a 6,5,4,2 and 1 converted mana cost artifacts. My opponent casts creeping corrosion. after it destroys all my artifacts, can I return all my artifacts that were sent to the graveyard back to my hand?

Well, almost all of them. You'll have 6 triggers, one for each artifact that died. You'll put all 6 on the stack in the order of your choosing, selecting a valid target for each one. You could have the 6 CMC's trigger nab the 5, the 5's grab the 4, the 4's grab the Trawler, the Trawler's trigger grab the 2, and the 2 grab the 1, but you wouldn't be able to grab the 6 because you didn't have an artifact with a higher CMC die.

Hey Judge, I can Bounce a Mistbind that's Championing a Spellstutter to counter a spell right?

Sure! When the leaves-the-battlefield trigger component of Champion resolves, it'll bring back what was Championed; in this case, Spellstutter Sprite, and if the thing it brings back triggers things (like, say, itself) those things will... well, trigger!

Smokestack has 2 counters, it's upkeep and the trigger is on the stack. If i bounce the card i don't have to sac anything right?

No, it'll use the last known information. You still have to sacrifice two permanents.

Not quite. It won't be able to check Smokestack because it's not on board, so the game uses Last Known Information to determine how many counters it had, and makes you sac that many things.

>sick of rock,paper... card games.
>Magic seems complex enough to sink time in

I know this is tg but would magic be worth played digitally? I know it has a game up on steam but how does it compare to the real thing?

I dont have the money to simply buy a mtg cards or a place to play locally

Cockatrice is free, but inhabited by WAAC faggots and people who don't know the rules and will deny that they're wrong.
MTGO makes you pay for digital cardboard, but actually tracks all the rules for you and has drafts.
Both are decent alternatives to paoer play.

the Duels of the Planewalkers games are made for people in your exact position: You're interested in magic and looking for a place to start, and those are a great way to see if you like the game before sinking more money in (or if you have no one to play with)

Pardon the noobish question, but at what point do you actually -have- to state the target of a spell - before or after paying its cost?

The scenario is that Dread Return is in my graveyard, I have three creatures in play, one of which is Mindslicer. If I sac Mindslicer as part of DR's flashback cost, what I presume should happen is that Mindslicer's ability goes on the stack and therefore resolves first - do I need to have a target picked before this happens, or could I target one of the cards discarded with its ability afterwards? Also, I presume that you can't reanimate Mindslicer itself with DR in this case, right?

So, you have a few options. The Duels game on Steam is perfect for you; it teaches you the basics of the game and is aimed at people who are interested in the game but know very little about it. The gameplay there is a bit shallow to keep you from getting overwhelmed, but it's a great step one.

There's some free online applications like Cockatrice and XMage, but they have issues; Xmage is a pain in the ass to set up, and Cockatrice has no rules engine and also is populated by assholes.

MTGO is somewhat buggy.

I'd advise you start with Duels.

Announcing your targets for a targeted spell is a fairly early step, well before paying costs. You will not be able to use Dread Return to target one of the three creatures you're saccing to flash it back.

if sakashima copies, say, kalonian hydra, would he get counters?

Yes. Replacement effects that cause an object to become a copy of another object as they enter the battlefield (like Shimashima's) apply before almost every other kind of replacement effect. So it'll begin to enter as a Hydra, which means it comes in with counters.

And I'm home!

Hey Judge (and also Veeky Forums), this isn't a rules question but I'd appreciate it if you would weigh in. I recently decided I may want to start playing Magic again after not playing since the first Innistrad. I now have some more disposable income so money isn't too big of an issue (as long as I'm sure I'll be enjoying myself). I traded in some old cards for a box of Kaladesh and I'm looking at Standard, which has a pretty good scene at my LGS. I also went ahead and made an account on MTGO cause I love limited but the draft nights at my local store don't work with my schedule.

So, question. One of my friends says standard really sucks right now, I shouldn't even try to get into it. However, I really like playing with newer cards and a smaller card pool. Do you think standard is fun and healthy enough to recommend if I were to buy back into it, or should I just stick to limited on MTGO?

The players I know online all seem pretty jazzed with Standard overall, Looter Scooter notwithstanding. We're also about to get a pretty good shakeup with Aether Revolt, and then Space Egypt in a few months.

I'd advise you to read articles from various sites to see what the metagame looks like and see if the decks look fun or boring, and maybe show up to Standard night in your area to see if it's just your one friend's opinion, or if everyone's feeling pretty listless; it doesn't matter how good a format is, if nobody in your area is into it!

And if you don't mind splitting your 'collection' between paper and digital, keeping MTGO around for drafting whenever you want is pretty baller.

That was pretty much my lean on the whole thing as well. I was actually reading that people were relatively happy with standard, but my friend seemed really irked at U/W flash and B/G delirium dominance. It seems like with R/G Marvel and W/R/b Vehicles the meta is experiencing a nice shake-up, so I'm not too sure if I should believe my friend 100%. Thanks for your answer.

Is it alright if I ask a couple more questions? I know it's off-topic so I can stop now (sorry mods), but I had two more things I'd like to ask if you have the time. First off, is there any good online MTG communities? I posted a bit on MTGSalvation and I tried looking through the MTGO reddits but none seem very good. Also, I was thinking of trying R/G Energy in standard for something easy to pick up/relatively cheap. Do you think that deck is an okay bridge back into standard or would I be better off with something else?

>Is it alright if I ask a couple more questions?
No quota on questions, friend! Ask away. Also, I don't think the 'mods' have ever given much of a fuck about what goes on in my threads, which means I'm King Shit and I say your questions are fine.

I'm not aware offhand; last I looked Salvation had become a cesspool, and Reddit is... well, Reddit. There's some good and some bad, but a lot of complaining either way.

As for asking about actual deck advice, I am like the most fuck-awful Magic player who ever existed, so you're welcome to ASK such questions here, but you're probably not gonna get much in the way of useful answers!

Ha, alrighty. Well thanks a bunch for your time. I'll probably stick to playing mostly online limited and maybe order in some cards for standard nights. Neither of my LGS have Chandra or Scooter in stock except for foils. I want to support local places, but what can you do?

Have a good one, judge!

Personally I think it's absolutely fine to order cards online if your local shop doesn't have them; you shouldn't strictly hamstring yourself to only building what you open and what you can buy from your shop. It's fine to just PREFER buying local when it's possible.

Hi gA, I'm thinking of becoming a judge. The problem is I live in buttfuck nowhere in Australia, and my closest actual judge is at least a 6 hour drive away. I spoke to another guy who wanted to become one but gave up because of distance and time constraints, and he's sent a message to the closest regional co-ordinator. I'm going to a GP in Brisbane, where he is in February so hopefully by then I might be able to help with tournament stuff.

In the mean time, my local store, which just re-opened after a year or two, doesn't have a local judge, should I approach the owner and ask if I would be able to judge some events for free as a "level 0"? And when do you think it's acceptable to start asking for reimbursement?

Day 1 is when it's acceptable. Even if you're not certified, you're still providing him with a service, and your time and effort should be compensated. Plus, I guarantee you that if you start off working for free, it's gonna be like pulling fucking teeth getting him to pay you down the line. I know this from experience- don't work for free. IT devalues your skills.

As for the distance thing, I'd suggest you also contact your Regional Coordinator

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

And they can see what they can do to help you, whether that's setting you up with an L2 mentor to work with you online, helping you find someone willing to travel (or opportunities to meet halfway) or whatever. They'll do what they can to help you.

Thanks for the advice, but I know the guy who owns the shop well enough that I'm pretty sure there's no way in hell he'll pay me unless he NEEDS me there. We get 12-18 people for FNM and the shop isn't certified to do prereleases and stuff yet, if I ask him for payment he's likely gonna say why should he pay me when events run fine without a judge?

I'll bring it up, but I'd rather get some experience than none.

Still, I'll contact my coordinator and see what happens.

If I try to Stasis Snare a Reality Smasher, must I discard a card. My understanding is that as it is only a triggered ability that targets Reality Smasher I do not, but I'd rather defer to a judge.

Is an on cast ability considered to be a triggered ability?

can i block an attacker that is swinging at someone else for them in a multiplayer game such as commander?

>If I try to Stasis Snare a Reality Smasher, must I discard a card
No.

>Is an on cast ability considered to be a triggered ability?
Yes, assuming you mean it's phrased something like "when you case ~, do X"

>can i block an attacker that is swinging at someone else
No.

Here's the thing: if an owner's argument is that he can run events fine without a judge, your counter-argument needs to be explaining the value that you can bring. If you can't do that, then he has every right to not want to pay you, but I still insist that you not work for free. Ultimately it's your choice, but working for 'experience' devalues your skills, devalues the skills of the other judges in your area, and teaches the owner that he can get something for free.

You do not, for the reason you said. Stasis Snare, the spell, has no targets. Stasis Snare, the permanent, has a triggered ability which targets, and that won't trigger Smasher.

If it's worded as "When/Whenever you cast...", yes.

You cannot. The only time you can block 'for' another player is in 2HG, and that's because you're being attacked as a team.

Alright gang, I am beat- more thread tomorrow!

Judge, what even is yo favorite deck?

I don't know if it's been asked before, but let's say I have new Odric and sky skiff out. If I an not crewing sky skiff, does the flying still go to all of my creatures, or would it have to be crewed for that to work?

"if a creature you control has first strike"
Odric specifies you have to have a CREATURE that has first strike, and sky skiff isn't one until it gets crewed, so no.

Oh. Duh. I'm an idiot, disregard me.

So Odric isn't worth making room somewhere in this list to put him then?
2x Metalwork Colossus
2x Pia Nalaar
3x Depala, Pilot Exemplar
2x Gearshift Ace
4x Speedway Fanatic
4x Veteran Motorist
2x Fleetwheel Cruiser
3x Cultivator's Caravan
4x Renegade Freighter
4x Sky Skiff
3x Built to Smash
4x Built to Last
4x Stone Quarry
10x Mountain
10x Plains

Maybe, giving all your dudes haste and flying sounds good on paper. You'd have to test it to find out if you can get enough guys on board to make it worth it.

The main point was giving flying to the bigger threats like Freighter and Fleetwheel, and giving Colossus haste and trample when he hits, usually t5/6

Probably one of my shitty EDH decks.

If Sky Skiff isn't crewed, then it's not a creature, so 'a creature you control' does not have Flying. An ARTIFACT you control does, but Odric don't give a fuck.

Thanks boss! Still going to work him in, just wanted to know how that works first.

Another related question. Can you tap a creature with summoning sickness as the crew cost, since the creature is neither attacking nor using its own ability, but being tapped by the vehicle in question?

You absolutely could. Summoning Sickness only matters for attacking, and activated abilities which have the Tap or Untap symbol in the costs.

An ability that involves tapping stuff, even to pay a cost, can tap summoning-sick things because the ability doesn't explicitly use the tap symbol. Crew is an example of that, but so is Convoke and the ability on Heritage Druid.

Yup! For exactly that reason: The ability belongs to the Vehicle, not the creature in the driver's seat.

Maybe Kaladesh needs a "Don't Drive While Summoning Sick" safety campaign....

Thanks Judge and user!

Sooo... I can play a Vehicle and a Creature on the same turn, use the Creature to crew the Vehicle, tapping the Creature, then using the Vehicle to crew itself, tapping the Vehicle? Because the ability doesn't use the tap arrow?

Correct.

This is something i want to ask but keep forgetting.
Can you tap to crew even if you don't have enough power?

You cannot, just like you can't sacrifice just one artifact to half-activate Breya. You announce the activation of the ability, put it onto the stack,and go to pay costs. If you can't fully pay for it, the game rewinds to immediately before you proposed the ability, undoing every action that happened in the meantime. You can't propose a play that you can't legally carry out.

Ah cool then. This came up when i was playing a casual game with my friend and he tried to crew an already crewed Skysovereign with Gearshift Ace to give it first strike.

This exact reason is why Night Market Lookout is such a good card.

That does work on the defense- he could block with Skysovereign and then tap it + the Ace to crew itself again for First Strike. But yeah, without tapping the Skysovereign he'd need another 1 power from somewhere.

Can I cast Boom//Bust for free from my graveyard using a Goblin Darkdwellers ?

If I can, can I cast both modes or just the "Boom" mode ?

You can. Split cards are weird; for something like Dark Confidant asking "What is your CMC?" it gets two answers: in this case, "2 and 6", so you'd lose "2 and 6" life, or 8.

For COMPARATIVE though, it just asks "Do you have a CMC of 3 or less?" and if the answer is 'yes' for either half of it, the full answer is 'yes'. So Dank-Dwellers gets a 'yes' because Boom has a CMC of 2, which lets you cast that card. But it doesn't limit you to JUST Boom; it's saying "you can cast this card", not "You can only cast half of this card", so you're free to cast Bust for... well, free.

Thanks for the quick reply !

You can say that this ability is busted

BUST IT

Player A attacks Player B with Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. Player B has no response to the trigger, but halfway through exiling the top of Player B's library, he concedes and scoops his cards up, shuffling them in. Note that B was not revealing as he exiled, just peeling cards off the top of his library and looking at them, then conceding and began shuffling after looking at about 10 or so cards.

TO/Judge is called, A explains the situation and argues that because the exiled cards were considered free information, he should have been able to view the cards before B concedes. B conceding halfway through exiling his 20 cards means that B was purposely withholding free information. B argues that it's in the rules of the game that he can concede whenever he'd like and the game will end immediately, and that it was the same thing as conceding mid-Brainstorm. Whether or not he was showing the exiled cards to A is irrelevant.

Who was correct?

TO wound up saying that Player A was correct, then mentioned something about a game loss next time it happened (but didn't give a game loss this time because B had already conceded, game loss would mean that's match, interest of fun, etc). Also mentioned that Player B can concede mid-trigger, but must reveal all cards that were already exiled.

B is correct that he can concede whenever they want, but they can't do it in the middle of an action. There's no 'during' the mill; all 20 cards are exiled, face-up, at once. If Player B did not want Player A to have access to that information, they're welcome to just scoop to the trigger. They can't half-resolve an effect and concede in the middle of it, ESPECIALLY when done like this; it looks super shady (for example, maybe Player B realized they had forgotten to desideboard before this Game 1).

I'm fine with a player conceding in the middle of a spell or ability (between ACTIONS of that spell/ability), but I'm less fine with someone conceding mid-action, especially something like this.

I thought it was kind of sketchy as well, but made sense because this was a game 2 and he probably turned over an important sideboard card. It was at FNM so nothing huge came of it but I'll let them know this week. The TO technically isn't a real judge (something about being expired and we don't have a real judge) and he's given out some bad rulings before. Just wanted to double check.

Also, for since Yahenni's Expertise has the same text as GDD, you could Bust off of it was well right? Choose Boom, cast Boom//Bust?