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

Then tell me how he proposes a shortcut through a beginning of combat trigger?
The very first thing he says to the judge when he came over is to acknowledge the trigger. The judge literally waived him off.
Worst case, shouldn't he have backed up to the trigger? Why force a shortcut he clearly didn't propose?

Because proposing a shortcut doesn't propose one 'through' a trigger. "Combat?" when you have something that fires at beginning of combat means we're jumping to the opponent having priority, with your trigger on the stack, unless you forget it.

Even if we back up to the trigger, he wouldn't be able to target the vehicle with it, because it's not a creature, because he didn't crew it during his Main Phase.

And we're not 'forcing a shortcut he clearly didn't propose'. We're ENFORCING a shortcut he very clearly did propose, because that shortcut is established as a standard one in the Magic Tournament Rules.

Like I said, we can debate all day whether or not the rule itself feels good, but there's exactly zero room to debate whether or not it was the policy-backed correct call.

Then I guess my argument is that the rule is shit.
Why are judges always so concerned about letter of the law regardless of intent?
Are they naturally inflexible or is that Wizards doctrine?

>Then I guess my argument is that the rule is shit.
Now THAT we can discuss! I can see why it looks super shitty in this specific spot, but basically it was put into place to STOP shitty "wow, that sucks" moments. It used to be that people could use the "Combat?" question to create ambiguity of whether the opponent was responding while we're still in the Main Phase, or in the Beginning of Combat step, which breaks the asymmetry of information. It led to a lot of 'gotcha' feelbad moments of weaponized vagueness, and that sucked. The change was put in so you couldn't try to bait that ambiguity. And ninety nine times out of 100, there's no difference between doing whatever you were gonna do in the Main Phase instead. In those few instances, you still have that option by just communicating clearly. For example, if your opponent has floating mana you don't want them to access, just say "I would like to move to me having priority in my beginning of combat step". As long as you're clear about what you're wanting to do, there's no issue because we don't have to worry about the abuse of ambiguity.

>Why are judges always so concerned about letter of the law regardless of intent?
Because that's our job. Our job is not to determine what you INTENDED to do (outside of 'was this a brain fart or was this cheating' situations), our job is to apply the written policies and documentation to the game.

As someone who just came in the thread with no knowledge of what happened: what happened?

I asked this before but forgot to check on the answer.

Am I allowed to counter my own spell?

Is your spell uncounterable? If not then yes.
Is your counterspell worded so it can only counter spells an opponent controls? If so, then no.

But, seriously, when Gnuyen calls the judge over and says "can he crew during declare attackers?" like he doesn't know what the fuck is going on, at what point is rules lawyering unsportsmanlike?
It almost seems like Segovia could have had his Behining of Combat Step if he had a more eloquent argument in English.

I just wasn't sure if by some weird way priority is worded that by the time i can react on the stack again it would already resolve.

You cast a spell and can retain priority

Player A controlled a Weldfast Engineer, some artifact creatures that are irrelevant to the point, and a Vehicle. Says "Combat?", wanting to crew and target the Vehicle. This is not possible, because he does not have priority (thanks to the shortcut) unless his opponent takes an action, and his Vehicle was not a creature as the Beginning of Combat step began, so it wouldn't have even been a legal target for the Engineer trigger anyway.

People got very upset about this by-the-book, literally-a-listed-shortcut-in-MTR-section-4.2 ruling.

Sure.

Rules lawyering is never Unsportsmanlike.

It can absolutely fall into the grey area between "Sporting" and "Unsporting", but that doesn't have a penalty. The only way you're gonna slip into actual USC is if you're badgering or demanding a penalty for the opponent. Asking that your opponent not get a take-back due to a technical mistake at the Pro Tour is not 'rules lawyering', it's holding your opponent to their misplays at the highest level of competition.

Also, they brought over translators, so 'more eloquent argument in English' is a poor argument.

Just cast the spell and explicitly retain priority.

Doesn't matter if its "unsportsmanlike". This is the Pro Tour. Keep your gameplay tight and correct ,and shit won't get called on you.

So what the issue? Seems like player A tried to be a shitbag, but player B wasn't having it. This is the PT. Both players knew exactly what they were doing

I mean, technically things can be Unsporting at the Pro Tour- Unsporting Conduct is still an entire section of the IPG.

Usually, to explain this, we break things into three categories. The first is "Sporting": this is just being a super nice person. This is allowing takebacks on dumb plays, stuff like that. It's not at all expected of you, but if you want to go for it, it's a really good look.

The next is Unsporting; this is stuff that's actually penalized in the IPG. Calling your opponent a lucksack when they outplay you, insisting this will be an easy game because your opponent is female, threatening people, bribing people, cheating- this is all Unsporting, it is not okay, and it will be penalized.

Everything inbetween is a grey area. Not letting someone take back a legal-but-stupid play isn't Unsporting or Sporting. Holding your opponent to a stupid misplay might not be Sporting, but it's not Unsporting either.

No malice was found in the investigation; it's less that A was being a shitbag, and more that A made a misplay and B wasn't gonna let him have it.

Both are me

You put it better than i did. Being a rules lawyer during the PT isn't scummy. It's expecting your opponent to handle their shit, and not demand a "take-back".

And if intent was OK i retract my shitbag comment

's all good. If the judges thought that A was attempting to slide an illegal play through on purpose, that'd be a DQ. As it stands, no malice was found in the investigation, so it was just "Wow, that sucks for you man".

So this is same category as that guy that lost because he asked "Damage?", and had a combat trick in hand that would have won him the game?
(and asking "damage?" is a shortcut for pass priority)

How do I get better at playing fast? I really love combo decks in modern and legacy that have intricate combos (such as eggs or four horsemen), what is the best way to go about playing these decks without getting dqed for slow play?

On a side note, say I have a Jesters Scepter in play, then I sacrifice it to Krark Clan Ironworks, are the exiled cards still kept face down? If I cast Faiths Reward later that turn and Jesters Scepter is returned and exiles another of my opponents top 5 cards, will it's activated ability still be able to look at the cards from the first casting of the spell?

Sorry for the super long post, thanks in advance

Corollary to this, playing vintage last week (10-proxy unsanctioned in an undlsiclosed location to protect WPNstatus) I have a field full of moxen, and I go "paradoxical outcome, response?" My opponent then goes "no responses. You had zero targets so you draw 0 cards, JUDGE!" And tried getting me a game loss for repeated DEC Penalties.

Is he correct? By asking for a response have I locked in zero targets?

Right, basically. "Damage?" isn't a baseline, established-by-the-MTR shortcut the way "Combat?" is, but unless they've established it to mean something else in the game so far, I can't imagine most judges would interpret that as anything other than "I offer a shortcut that passes through until you have priority in the Combat Damage step".

Basically, there's this concept about asymmetry of information. Since the Active Player has priority first in every step, they're the one taking the first action. They don't get to see what the opponent will do before making their choices- that's the asymmetry of information. During your turn, you have to offer information up first, and your opponent is able to act based on that information; it doesn't go the other way around. That's the reason for the Combat shortcut, for example- to keep you from trying to bait information out of your opponent and acting upon it, when you shouldn't be able to.

You won't ever be DQed for Slow Play. Slow Play is a Warning (and that can escalate to a Game Loss if you get it repeatedly throughout an event), but STALLING is a DQ. You don't have to worry about that unless you're intentionally slowplaying to weaponize the clock.

The best advice I can give you for intricate combo decks is to practice with them. This is a place where goldfishing can be okay, because you need to know your deck well enough to execute the actions in a timely manner, and know all your lines of play so you can choose between them quickly. I wouldn't go for Four Horsemen though, since that deck basically doesn't work.

The cards remain facedown because nothing says to turn them face-up. You'll still be able to look at them for the rest of the game. If you bring back the Scepter, the activated ability is only 'looking' at the 5 cards that the ability is linked to exiled; the other 5 are just 'gone'.

4 horsemen is an automatic DQ once they realize what you're playing.

For other intricate combo decks like Eggs or ANT, practice. Know the lines so you can go through them like clockwork.

If jester's cap leaves play, the cards it hit stay exiled face-down. When it comes back in you'll exile another 5 cards, but can't use any of the cards from the first cap because it's a new object.

>Undisclosed location to protect WPN status
Did that clarification not get to your store? It's 100% fine to run proxy events, so long as they're unsanctioned.

>actual question
Declaring targets is a very early part of casting a spell. Your opponent gets to know how many things (and WHICH things) you're targeting when they respond. Honestly, in that exact scenario, I'd have ruled with your opponent- you cast your spell without declaring any targets. Now, 'tried getting me a game loss for repeated DEC penalties' would have gotten them a Stern Look, for several reasons:

1) You do not decide whether or not your opponent is penalized; I do. "Demanding" your opponent receive a penalty is Unsporting Conduct - Minor.

2) You have not actually broken any rules at this juncture. Unless he said "yeah, it resolves" and waited for you to start drawing cards, you didn't actually draw any cards, so you've committed no infraction. If he -did- wait for you to start drawing to try to bait a penalty, he would get an Unpleasant Talk for knowingly allowing you to break a rule, in order to gain an advantage. That talk would end with a word that rhymes with "Swiss Dollification".

3) Drawing Extra Cards is not an infraction anymore.

4) Even if you DID draw, that would be, at worst, Hidden Card Error, which is a Warning and a fix, not a Game Loss.

>4 horsemen is an automatic DQ once they realize what you're playing.

This is not at all correct.

Yeah, he said "resolves" and then called a judge when I picked up my board and drew the 8 cards.

The judge on site rewound to me starting to cast the spell again, pointed out all the targets, and gave my opponent a chance to respond again.

Yeah, if he let you pick up your board and draw 8 cards and then called Judge and said 'he cast that with no targets and drew 8 cards', my first question would probably be "Why did you wait until he finished resolving the spell to call me if you knew he cast it with 0 targets", and the second one would be "So you knowingly allowed a rule to be broken in order to gain an advantage?". There would not be a third question.

I understand that it's "the rule, so this is the shortcut you use", but it feels like it's constructed poorly and also outdated, although I don't know exactly when it came about. For this situation, I know that his +2/+0 trigger couldn't hit the vehicle, since it's not a creature when the trigger goes on the stack - but since Segovia hasn't resolved the +2/0 trigger yet by indicating a legal target, and he is aware that it exists, wouldn't it mean that he's still in the Start of Combat step, and thus able to crew in response to the trigger?

There are other times where the beginning of combat phase matters, too, so clarification would be nice. Let's say the following situation happens:

I have a raging ravine, four untapped lands, and a hellrider, with a Built to Smash in hand. My opponent has an untapped ghost quarter and some cards in hand.

I know he plans to GQ my raging ravine after I spend the mana to activate it. But if I activate it in my mainphase, he can GQ before I move to combat, meaning I don't get the hellrider trigger OR built to smash. If I activate it during my Start of Combat step, he can still GQ it and stop the hellrider trigger, but I can float the mana from it and use that to cast Built to Smash later on.

How would I go about this? The people I'm used to playing with at local events typically just say "Combat." or "Move to combat". Not as a question, just letting your opponent that you're moving from Main 1 to the Start of Combat step. It also gives them time to respond to start of combat triggers (like citadel siege), as well as other actions such as tapping down/bouncing attackers. Needing to say "I am moving to combat phase but holding priority in my start of combat step" is clunky when one word suffices. It's akin to your opponent passing the turn and you saying "upkeep brainstorm". When you do that, you're not passing priority to your opponent by saying upkeep, just clarifying that you're casting brainstorm before drawing.

>since Segovia hasn't resolved the +2/0 trigger yet by indicating a legal target, and he is aware that it exists
Two arguments exist here. The first is that he's missed his trigger by not indicating a target yet. The second one is that the trigger is on the stack... but he doesn't have priority, because the shortcut passes it to the opponent. In neither scenario does he have the chance to crew 'in response' to anything, because by definition this shortcut jumps to him not having priority.

>but I can float the mana from it and use that to cast Built to Smash later on.
You absolutely cannot. If you float the mana in your Beginning of Combat step in response to the Ghost Quarter, that mana goes away as soon as you move to a new step. When you move to Declare Attackers, that mana is gone, so you won't have it available to cast Built to Smash.

>How would I go about this?
Well, you're kinda fucked no matter what in the scenario you proposed, but in scenarios where you aren't? Clearly communicate exactly what you're trying to do. Remove the ambiguity, and there's no problem. For example, change it to you having the Ravine and your opponent having a single white mana floating; you want to move to Beginning of Combat so they don't have that mana for a Path to Exile (we'll say they're tapped out). Just say "I pass priority", meaning they have to Path your Hellrider now, or give up the chance to respond this turn. Or say "I would like to move to my Beginning of Combat Step, with me having priority." Make it explicitly clear exactly when you are trying to activate these abilities.

It may seem clunky, but one word does not 'suffice', because "Combat" and "move to Combat" mean 'move to beginning of combat step with you having priority'. There does not exist a single word that means 'move to beginning of combat with me having priority'.

Opponent plays Notion Thief while I have Tomorrow and am attempting to draw, what happens? My assumption is that Notion Thief wins out.

Would you mind explaining to me what the first 3 lines of Isochron's Gatherer rulings mean?
gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=413765
And lastly, what happens if I take the exiled card out of exile, like with Mirror of Fate?

>draw
There's two replacement effects that both want to modify the same event. Since you're the affected player (you're drawing, after all), you choose which to apply first. If you apply Thief first, there's no longer a draw for Tomorrow to replace. If you apply Tomorrow first, there's no longer a draw for Thief to replace. Basically, your Tomorrow no-sells his Thief.

>Scepter
1) IF someone were to use Pull from Eternity on the exiled card in response to your activation, your Scepter whiffs because it has no 'exiled card' to make a copy of as the ability resolves.

2) If someone Disenchants the Scepter in response to the activation, the game will use Last Known Information to find out what card was exiled, and the copy will still be made properly.

3) This one's pretty self-explanatory. The ability itself doesn't leave the stack until it's done resolving, and casting the copy is part of that ability. So for a brief moment, the currently-resolving-ability is NOT on the top of the stack; it's under the copy of the spell you just cast.

4) If you do it in response to the activation, your activation whiffs. If you do it some other time, you basically make your Scepter useless.

Got a silly question about pic related for you: Do I have to pick at least one color, or can I choose to make a permanent no colors and make something colorless? I don't see myself ever doing that, I just need to know for rules purposes.

Colorless isn't a color.

can i cast the exiled card even if Kheru Spellsnatcher is no longer on the battlefield?

It's like hitting F6 on mtgo when you meant to F4.
Everyone knows what was supposed to happen, but the interface is unyielding to human failings.

I suppose that "by the rules" it's correct, but I still feel it would be cleaner to remove the rule on the shortcut, but classify any attempt to trick your opponent by pretending to pass priority as USC. I think we're going to see a lot more abuse of this, where people will jump on opponents that say "combat" and stop them from doing anything else, like activating manlands.

This definitely feels like they should have ruled by intent, though.
magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/ruling-intent-2004-11-11
Weldfast's trigger is mandatory, and Segovia's intent was actually to crew the vehicle and give it +2/+0. It was sloppy play, but because it was a mandatory trigger, it "feels" more correct from the viewpoint of a non-judge, for the judge observing to put the game state back to when the trigger was put on the stack, targetting one of the scrapheap scroungers, and allow for the crewing.

It would satisfy rule 2 (no advantage may be gained by sloppy play - actually suffering a disadvantage), and only fails rule 1 because of the ambiguity of saying Combat moving him to a point where it's no longer legal to crew (and passing priority during a mandatory trigger).

Sure, but you don't say "f6" in real life. Players adopt their own ways of playing, whether you're ending your turn by saying "go ahead", waving your hand, or stating "I pass priority to you in my end step" - but nobody says that because it's obtuse. I bet most players don't even realize that saying Combat is a hard rule, unlike mtgo where you KNOW what f6 does. It's a rule that was made because a few groups abused how passing priority works and now we have a case where the rule itself is abused. It gets more complicated when you have foreign players who don't speak english as a primary language, and yet Wizards expects everybody to read an encyclopedia-sized rulebook.

Oh well. Thanks for clarifying, gA, though I'll continue to think the rule itself is dumb.

He gA, long time follower and previously a Lvl 1 judge here. If you have some time I would like to hold a bit of discussion with you.
What are some "WotC MTR APPROVED" shortcuts for Competitive and Professional REL to convey that you want to change Phase, will be putting your pertinent triggers in the stack (without saying what those triggers may be) and then hold priority? Because saying "Beginning of combat, this triggers" may be providing information that your opponent is not currently keeping track of, ex: MP1 I play a Goblin Rabblemaster, my opponent has Lightning Strike and enough mana available to cast it but has never played against Rabblemaster and doesn't bother to read the card (competitive REL). If I say "Combat" here, then I've lost my chance to make a Goblin token. If I say "Beginning of combat, this triggers" then I'm providing info that my opponent wasn't keeping track of (really free info, but keeping board awareness is a skill). Saying "I concede priority" defeats the purpose of shortcuts. Is saying "I want to start my Combat PHASE" my only option here?

Wait are you telling me I'm allowed to play four horsemen?

You're allowed to play four horsemen for as long as you're not guilty of slow play (aka not advancing the board state). Specifically speaking, you have a set amount of times you can shuffle your deck without putting anything in play, before you get a warning and eventual loss. I think three times?

That being said, it WILL piss off the judge and he'll be watching you like a hawk, ready to fuck you over when you start flipping over your deck.

Colorless is not a color.

Yep! The duration is set by the ability's resolution, and that duration is 'for as long as it remains exiled'. It doesn't say anything about Kheru Spellsnatcher being on board, so it doesn't need to be.

How would that be cleaner? "This is 'allowed' now, but you'll get in trouble.". The vast majority of the time, there's zero advantage to taking an action in your Beginning of Combat Step over taking it in your Main Phase. For the rare exceptions, just clearly communicate what you're trying to do.

>Weldfast's trigger is mandatory
Which does not matter.

>And Segovia's intent
Does not matter. I 'intend' to win games I play, that doesn't mean we ignore my misplays. He made a legal, but stupid, sequence of plays. I'm not going to rule based on intent, because that's not what we do.

I understand that you disagree whether or not that should be policy, but that's another argument entirely.

There aren't any. There's only a handful of "these are standard" shortcuts in the MTR. If you want to move to Combat and retain priority, the words you need to say are "Pass priority" in your main phase. There does not exist a secret sequence of words to trick your opponent out of being able to respond to your shit.

Jein. You can play it, but you're gonna start racking up Slow Play penalties pretty quickly unless you're luckier than my cousin Larry.

Specifically speaking, you have a set amount of times you can shuffle your deck without putting anything in play, before you get a warning and eventual loss. I think three times?

Not quite. We don't have a 'set amount of times' thing, but at some point you're just repeating pointless actions and not advancing the game state, so your options will be 'take a different action' or 'begin receiving penalties'.

If what you intend is casting a counterspell targeting itself, then no. Otherwise sure, like other people said.

Yup, the duration that you may cast that is
"as long as it remains exiled", so its independent of the snatcher.

Under the current MTR are the following legit exchanges at a GP?

"I would like to retain priority in beginning of combat?"
"Why?"
"You'll see then, depends whether you want to do something in my main and I'd like for you to not know in advance what I plan to do."
"Since you didn't explicitly tell why you want priority at beginning of combat, you're now declaring attackers, have fun."

"I'd like to go the beginning of combat where I cast xyz on a."
"In response, activate Aether Vial. Resolves, Meddling Mage names xyz."

In response being during main phase when the priority passes to NAP.

Scenario one can easily be accomplished with just "pass priority" in the main phase. But for the scenario as proposed, Other Player is being a dick, because that's not how that works.

Scenario 2 is you volunteering information you don't need to volunteer yet in a shortcut, and your opponent using that information. No different than "I cast Clone, copying your Primeval Titan" and you responding by saccing it to Claws of Gix.

Just say "I'd like to move to my beginning of combat step". You guys are making this so much more complicated than it actually is.

The way I understood it from the blog posts back when was any phrase involving the word combat and not specifying a reason to hold priority at beginning of combat is a shortcut for passing priority until you can turn dudes sideways.

Hey gA! I can activate the abilities of Vehicles (e.g. Peacewalker Colossus's ability that costs (W)(1)) without having to activate their Crew ability, right?

Then either there was a misunderstanding, or the blog posts are not correct. The whole point of that shortcut is just to prevent people from creating and abusing ambiguity about where we are in the turn, and to keep the AP from fishing for information they shouldn't have before making a choice.

If all you're trying to do is clearly and explicitly move into the beginning of combat step so you can take an action there, your opponent does not get to flip that shit around and say "nuh uh you hafta tell me what you're gonna do before you even try to do it, so I can preemptively prespond to your action before it happened".

Correct.

Thanks for clarifying. I play modern and commander but I see huge potential in some of these vehicles.

In a game of EDH, I have Mindslicer and Nath of the Gilt-Leaf in play. If I play mass removal like Toxic Deluge, do I get the potential million elves from Nath as a result of Mindslicer's ability?

You won't. All the things will die together, but nobody discards until Mindslicer's trigger resolves. By that point, Nath is long dead, so he isn't on the battlefield to 'see' your opponents discard.

so let me see if I understand this correctly

people are saying "combat?" Meaning they are in their main phase, and they are asking "can we move to the part where I declare attackers?", which makes sense, because a lot of turns in magic will proceed as such, the opponent has nothing, and the first decision made after the active player passes main phase priority is declaring attackers

But I'm slightly confused here, because the active player saying "combat" doesn't make a skip happen on its own, right? Both players have to agree to the skip. So if the active player in his main phase says "combat?", and the opponent says "that's fine", wouldn't it just be the declare attackers step at that point? In casual games it will go like that 95% of the time, is that wrong though? Is the opponent actually supposed to say "that's fine, AND I also have nothing in the beginning of combat" ?? Basically saying "I pass priority to me having priority, then I pass it again" ??

I guess that's not that confusing, but I feel like it helps the opponent. Because when the active player says "combat?", and the opponent says "no effects", in 90% of magic games, that would signal to the active player to begin declaring attackers. But according to the rules, apparently, the opponent can stop him and say wait I still have things, despite having already gained information (how the active player will declare attacks)

Now of course if we trained the active player to not declare attackers immediately after the "combat?"--"no effects" exchange, then there would be no problem of giving up information, but the problem with that is that it's not really a shortcut anymore, is it? The only thing cut out is the active player's priority in the beginning of combat, the opponent is still receiving priority in the main phase and beginning of attackers step, having to pass twice

I guess I just feel weird about the idea of the opponent passing priority to himself.

> because the active player saying "combat" doesn't make a skip happen on its own, right?
Right. It's them requesting/suggesting a shortcut; the opponent either accepts it, or declines it by acting somewhere in the middle.

>So if the active player in his main phase says "combat?", and the opponent says "that's fine", wouldn't it just be the declare attackers step at that point?
More or less. "Combat?" means "I'd like to skip ahead to where you have priority in my Beginning of Combat Step", meaning you're jumping to their last chance to respond before you attack. If the opponent has a response there, they'll say "Sure- before attacks, X". If they have no response, they'll usually say "Yeah, no response" or "go ahead" or etc.

> despite having already gained information (how the active player will declare attacks)
Well, that varies. If I just untap, draw, and sideways some dudes, that's on me. I jumped ahead without giving you your chances to respond, and gave up information I shouldn't have. We back up, and now you have that info because I'm a moron. If I want to move to attacks, and you explicitly let me, and then say "Wait, I have responses" AFTER I declare my attacks, tough shit. You got your chance, you don't get to fish for information by pretending to not have a response.

The vast majority of the time, accepting the 'combat?' shortcut is going to be taken as 'go ahead and declare your attacks, I have no response'.

You didn't really explain the issue I'm having though

Let me clarify:

When the active player asks "combat?", if they receive a "that's fine", they still need to wait before doing anything, and if the opponent is hesitating, the active player may have to ask "move to declare attacks?" Because it might not be clear if the opponent is thinking about responding or thinking about future turns and so on

So how is that any different from the active player saying "pass main phase priority", and then the opponent saying "pass main phase priority", then the active player saying "pass beginning of combat priority", and the opponent saying "pass beginning of combat priority", before the declare attacks step happens?

They still went active player passes>opponent passes>Active player passes>opponent passes, they just used different words

They didn't really shortcut anything, is what I'm saying. What am I not getting here?

>the vast majority of the time, accepting the 'combat?' shortcut is going to be taken as 'go ahead and declare your attacks, I have no response

Right, but isn't that a problem? The opponent could have something in declare attacks, and in order to prevent being misinterpreted, he would have to volunteer this information by saying "no I only pass main phase priority", at which point the active player is now aware of something incoming, and has priority so they could enact some plan based on that information, before going to declare attackers as they had originally planned

It's more of a mental shortcut than a gameplay shortcut.

Wait wait I think I figured it out, where i was confused

>"Combat?" means "I'd like to skip ahead to where you have priority in my Beginning of Combat Step", meaning you're jumping to their last chance to respond before you attack. If the opponent has a response there, they'll say "Sure- before attacks, X". If they have no response, they'll usually say "Yeah, no response" or "go ahead" or etc.

My thought here was, "But what if the opponent had something in the main phase? Then when they did their thing, it would still be the active players main phase, and the active player could do main phase stuff"

But I realize now that that isn't really a problem, because the opponent isn't giving away any information at the wrong time. If they had something that had to be done in the main phase and not in the beginning of combat, then no matter what the active player would get main phase priority after it happened, regardless of whether a shortcut was attempted

So the active player can say "combat?", and then declare attackers if the opponent doesn't stop him, and that's fine, the opponent doesn't prematurely reveal anything by declaring their intentions at this point

Right. Basically what you're saying when you offer that shortcut is "I'm done with my Main Phase and I have no effects in my Beginning of Combat. I would like to move to declare attackers, so I am proposing a shortcut where we jump to your last chance to respond before that point". If your opponent has a response at this point, it's assumed they're acting in the Beginning of Combat step unless they explicitly say "In your main phase". If they have no response and accept your shortcut, we're now in Declare Attackers.

If you offer the shortcut and get utter silence, just prod. If they give an affirmative-seeming answer, but you're not sure if that was "I acknowledge your proposal, and am thinking about it" or "cool, no response, attack away", just clarify.

The vast majority of inter-player issues in tournaments can be solved by just communicating as clearly as you possibly can.

>The vast majority of inter-player issues in tournaments can be solved by just communicating as clearly as you possibly can.
Seriously, this. Nobody ever got yelled at for making sure everybody was on the same page.
Many people have been yelled at for assuming things and being wrong about it.

Based on a section in one of the blog posts, if I want to move to the beginning of combat step and retain priority, I have to explain what I intend to do.

>There are actually very few situations which could lead AP to have to act in Beginning of combat while they could just as well act in Main Phase one:
>A few (mostly obscure) spells and abilities can only be cast/activated during combat
>AP needs to empty NAP’s mana pool.
>AP needs a beginning of combat trigger to have resolved to be able to play on.

>If such a contextual situation, AP needs to proactively indicate why they’d need to keep priority in Beginning of combat:
>Beginning of combat, cast Cauldron Dance / animate Jade Statue
>Leaving Main Phase, do you want to use that floating mana?
>Beginning of combat, target with Surrak

blogs.magicjudges.org/whatsupdocs/2016/05/26/attacking-blocking-and-shortcuts/

You're misreading it.
If you WANT to propose a shortcut from MP1 to BoC with you having priority or doing something, you have to (no shit) explain your shortcut.
If you just want to get to BoC you just say "passing priority" of "go to BoC with me having priority?" and they're responsible for doing their shit and if you don't accept a shortcut they propose you'll eventually get to BoC with priority.

>If you WANT to propose a shortcut from MP1 to BoC
>If you just want to get to BoC
What is the difference between these two?

There's really not much need for a 'shortcut' that consists of exactly one priority pass.

>if I want to move to the beginning of combat step and retain priority
'i end my main phase'

I'm still confused. Can you explain this statement:
>the active player can’t request to move priority to beginning of combat without stating what they are doing there.

Basically, the intent behind it is to keep from 'tricking' NAP to responding in the main phase. If you have some reason to act in the precombat main phase (and that's literally the only good reason to ever be doing shit there instead of in the main phase), just say so. "Beginning of combat, Toolcraft Exemplar trigger" is an example. The point being that if your action could be taken in the main phase and it be no different than the Precombat (IE, your opponent is tapped out and you just want to crew a vehicle), there's no reason to muddy shit up by awkwardly moving to your beginning of combat step. Just do your biz in the main phase and say "combat?" as normal.

I control my opponent's turn via Emrakul, the Promised End. They control a Ring of Ma'ruf animated with a Karn, Silver Golem and equipped with Assault Suit, but all of those cards belong to me.
I activate the ring and use a cantrip or their draw step or something. Do I add a card from their sideboard to their hand, or mine?

Assuming it's the first one, if we're playing casually, so we are using our collections instead of sideboards, if I loan my friend a card, can they give it back to me before I can cast it, or can they not because I control their actions due to Emrakul?

How does days undoing work with nekusar and madness spells? I think the day undoing will cancel the nekusar triggers by ending the turn but how does the cleanup phase of the madness card going off interact with this scenario. My rules knowledge is too limited and the local judge is part of my EDH meta so I dont want him to know all my tricks.

Can someone explain what is the problem with playing four horseman deck?

Theirs. It's THEIR turn, and THEIR effect, you're just calling the shots- just like if you cast a Demonic Tutor while you're controlling their turn, they don't search YOUR library.

Since Day's Undoing ends the turn as part of the effect, any triggers that were waiting to go onto the stack (like Madness and Nekusar)... don't. You jump straight to the cleanup step.

Can you explain how your post fits into this post, ?

Cool thats what I thought, I wanted to make sure if I flashed days undoing out on my turn it would end the turn instead of giving my opponents a chance to sneak out value.

Comp. REL sealed event question:

1. My opp. has a lifecrafter's bestiary in play.
2. He resolves an aetherherder but does not acknowledge the two energy in any way.
3. Next turn he casts Greenbelt Rampager and triggers lifecrafter's bestiary to draw additional cards.
-I realize what is happening after the second card is drawn from the deck and in his hand.
-Call judge

What happens?

If I use Displace on Spire Patrol and Deadeye harpooner, I can't tap a creature with Spire Patrol and then destroy it with Deadeye, right? Wouldn't the target need to be legal as it etbs?

Four Horsemen is essentially four steps.
1: Get Basalt Monolith and Mesmeric Orb into play
2: Mill yourself until you get three narcomoebas on the field
3: Put dread return, sharuum, and blasting station into your graveyard BEFORE hitting emrakul, because dread return is a sorcery
4: Finish killing your opponent

Step 1 is just playing two cards, which is fine. Step 2 is guaranteed because at any point you CAN just flip over your deck, even in response to hitting emrakul as your first mill, and when you hit narcos you put them in.
Step 4 is guaranteed as well for the same reason as step 2.

It's the third step where the combo gets muddy. You're not guaranteed to have your cards in the right order, and any time emrakul is on top of any of those cards (DR, Sharuum, BS), the combo fails and you have to restart that. Assuming each card is a 1-of, you only have a 25% chance of success.

If you're performing a combo, it's preferred that you can say "I execute this combo this many times, and this is the result of those actions". For instance, splinter twin can just say "I tap to make a deciever exarch, it enters the battlefield and untaps the original deciever, I do this 100 times and make 100 decievers with haste". Infinite mana via something like Palinchron can say "I tap these lands for X mana, cast palinchron, untap, and repeat for a net gain of Y mana".

Four horsemen can't do that. On any iteration, you get a random result of either success or "failure". Of course, without opponent interaction, horsemen has a 0% chance of true failure because there's no way to lose the game, and as you repeatedly perform the combo, the chance of eventual success reaches a mathematical limit of 1. But that could mean three shuffles, or ten, or a hundred, or a hundred thousand before you finally get the cards in the right order. If you play Quicken, you could use that to cast dread return at instant speed, but then you're adding more cards to the combo.

How does being the monarch work in a team format like 2HG or Archenemy?

For example if the Archenemy played a Marchesa's Decree, and then team not-Archenemy swung on its shared turn, lost a bunch of life, but all hit the Archenemy. What happens, just pick one of the team to be the Monarch and draw a card?

I hadn't read the blog post, but now that I have, it makes sense.

If you want to act in your Beginning of Combat Phase for whatever reason, say why. Because if you don't have a reason, you can (and should) just do it in your Main Phase. I'm not gonna say "haha sucks to be you we're in declare attackers because you wouldn't say why", but I'd say "If you don't have a reason to be acting in your Beginning of Combat Step, then just do whatever it is you're going to do in your Main Phase".

Honestly, we're spending way too much time and effort on this. In the vast, vast, vast majority of cases, there is literally zero difference between acting in your main phase or your BOC step. I hate to be an ass about this, but the point has been talked to death, and I'm officially moving on from it.

Sure, but it only works if you flash it in on your own turn, just remember that.

Counters being placed on something mean that the trigger is missed as soon as they take an action they couldn't take with the trigger on the stack. By not placing counters on themselves (or in some way visibly demonstrating that their energy count went up by 2), they missed their trigger.

If my investigation leads me to believe they intentionally 'missed' their Aether Herder trigger to double-cast their Rampager, we are going to have an unpleasant talk.

Correct, for exactly the reason you stated. You need targets for both of those triggers as soon as they go on the stack, and Harpooner's trigger needs a 'target tapped creature'. If it read "destroy target creature if it is tapped", that'd be a different story.

Each creature that domed the opponents sets off a "my controller becomes the monarch" trigger. The Shared Team Turns rules tell us in the instance of multiple triggers controlled by the team, the team collectively decides the order to put them on the stack. So basically, they'll order their triggers to 'pick' the Monarch.

And to finish off this post, because each iteration of step 3 is random, you can't use a shortcut of saying "I repeatedly perform it until the conditions are finally met", like you can with guaranteed combos. Additionally, since you're not affecting the board state, it's considered slow play after a while. You can contrast it with eggs, which was hated for a different reason. Eggs did affect the board state constantly, but it also had a chance of randomly fizzling, meaning your opponent had to sit through your entire turn while you durdled for twenty minutes. It ended up being "soft" banned by Second Sunrise being banned in modern and replaced with Faith's Reward, which costs more mana and makes the combo much harder to pull off, discouraging people from using the deck.

Thanks again gA

>There does not exist a secret sequence of words to trick your opponent out of being able to respond to your shit.
Please don't assume I'm trying to trick anyone into anything, as I said; I'm trying to reveal as little as possible of my plans for future phases. My thoughts are not free information.
I find it quirky that the MTR has a definition for what something players have been saying for decades means in a competitive environment and it doesn't mean what players think it means, but doesn't have a rule/definition for saying what they're trying to say.
Anyway, after this tournament I think we will have to get used to saying/hearing the phrase "pass priority" a lot.

Sorry, think I spelled it out poorly. I'm wondering what action the judge would take.

Opp draws cards because of missed energy. Rampager needs two energy or it returns to your hand. He "forgot" to get the energy from a previously played card.

Like I said, I investigate. It looks really fishy because that 'missed' trigger lets him draw an extra card off of his Pokedex. If I believe that he intentionally 'missed' that trigger to facilitate that play, we will have an Unpleasant Talk.

If my investigation leads me to believe it was an honest mistake... There's PROBABLY nothing to be done. Depending on when he played the Aether Herder last turn, we might be able to issue Missed Trigger and give you the option of putting his trigger on the bottom of the stack, but probably not.

I'm not witnessing it but i would assume the intention is both way. user is glad his opponent missed the trigger (because he didn't know about the Rampager in his opponent's hand) and his opponent intentionally missed it.
Yes, i always expect the worst off any person.

how does trample interact with protection? had an argument where the other fella said a 10/10 trample attacking into a 1/1 pro-whatever would repeatedly deal 1 damage to the 1/1 and none to face. i thought 1 is assigned to little guy and 9 to face, even if the 1/1 can't take damage.

next, can you explain why rishadan port is not trash? seems pretty bad to me and i do not understand why it has such a fearsome reputation
>i have 3 island and port
>you have 4 forests
>use UU on my turn
>in your upkeep tap U and port to tap a single forest
>main phase you still have GGG available
it looks like i would be trading 2 available mana for a single mana from you. that seems quite bad. the only exception is to tap down a shrine of nyx or cabal coffers.

You were right. You assign lethal, before any prevention or replacement effects, then if that lethal isn't lethal oh well you tried.

Rishadan Port is good because:
It can lock down that one important land.
If you have more land, you can fuck with the other guy's curve.
If you have repeatable land untapping you can lock down most or all of their land.

>rishadan port
Oh yes, and you can also color screw the other guy.
And you can use it as a mana sink.

>you have 4 forests
Sure, not very useful in that situation, but think about
>you have 3 forests and 1 island
Port locks you out of any blue spells.
If you play 1st, you can slow the game by lowering the opponent curve while you build up resources for your control deck.

Trample means that once you've assigned 'lethal damage' (which is defined as 'marked damage equal to the creature's toughness'), any remainder can trample over. The game doesn't know or care whether that damage will actually kill the creature (or in this case, even happen), only that you assigned it like that. So a 10/10 trampler getting chumped by a 1/1 pro-whatever could still trample for 9, because you ASSIGNED lethal damage to the blocker.

Port is good because it can shut down specific land (ones that make more than 1 mana, or do something other than make mana), and because you can crush someone's tempo in a deck that's designed to not need a ton of it, OR which has the mana to spare.

Also, color screw.

Gets better the better lands they're playing.

Plus you don't have to commit two lands if you don't want to or have other things. It can be powerful and it's very flexible.

It's not a land that can be p;ayed in every deck.
When you play the Port, you play it in a deck that's designed to be able to run on minimum mana. You are prepared for it, your opponent aren't. Afaik, it's usually run alongside things like Wasteland to choke your opponent even more.

best way to play magic online ?

Depends.

Cockatrice is free and easy to set up, but has no built-in rules engine, and a notoriously toxic (and rules-blind) playerbase.

Xmage is like Cockatrice with fewer assholes and a built in rules engine, but setting it up requires an Arcana skill check that might make you cry. The community is also nicer, but smaller, so it might not be the best if you play an 'odd' format.

Magic Online is buggy and costs money, but has a mostly-functioning rules engine, and supports every format you could ever want to play.

Cockatrice with people you already know.
Xmage if you're able to follow instructions.
MTGO if you're not and willing to shell out dosh.

>the words you need to say are "Pass priority" in your main phase.
I specifically recall an article by a judge saying that those words invoke the shortcut and end up with you not having priority.