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

If I've stolen my opponents' lands with Herald of Leshrac, then somehow it becomes Imprisoned in the Moon, and then destroyed while it has no abilities, do I get to keep the stolen lands?

When someone in a multiplayer game concedes while there's spells or triggers on the stack, what exactly happens? I've been told the stack exiles immediately, but that sounds like bullshit.
If the above is true, are there any rules safeguards to prevent political conceding?

[CR 800.4a] When a player leaves the game, all objects (see rule 109) owned by that player leave the game and any effects which give that player control of any objects or players end. Then, if that player controlled any objects on the stack not represented by cards, those objects cease to exist. Then, if there are any objects still controlled by that player, those objects are exiled. This is not a state-based action. It happens as soon as the player leaves the game. If the player who left the game had priority at the time he or she left, priority passes to the next player in turn order who’s still in the game.

It doesn't gain shroud back. Also even if it DID have shroud, you could probably sac it either way since i don't think that there are any sacrifice effects that target creatures specifically.

Literally my first complaint when I heard about it was "Oh boy, 6 more months of fucking Gideon"

It lost Shroud for the turn, because that was the duration of the effect created in layer 6. The effect does not end once your opponent stops controlling it, so it'll still not have Shroud.

Herald's control-changing ability does not give a stated duration. The only reason they NORMALLY go back is because the triggered ability says so. Stop that ability, and they no longer get their lands back.

Any objects that player owns leave the game with them, any control-changing effects of theirs end, and anything remaining gets exiled (IE, if they use Threaten to take your creature, you immediately get it back when they die; if they stole it via Bribery, it'll get exiled). Absolutely nothing happens to spells or abilities on the stack that they don't control.

Can you play a Simic Growth Chamber turn one? My friend said they looked it up, and that you can, but I'm not too sure...

You can, but it doesn't accomplish much. You play it, it comes in tapped, and the triggered ability goes on the stack. As that ability resolves, you most likely only control Simic Growth Chamber, so since that's your only land, it's your only choice of "land you control" to return to its owner's hand as that trigger resolves.

So you -can- play Simic Growth Chamber on turn 1, it's just that in most situations, you shouldn't.

To note, some of the more busted starts from the Amulet Bloom deck in Modern used Spirit Guide to cast Amulet, play a G/x bounceland. If you stack the triggers correctly you can get mana from it before it bounces. Use that to cast Summer Bloom and you can power out a Primval Titan turn one.

I did say 'most'.

I'm just not sure what you mean. I know it can come into the battlefield, but I don't know whether it goes back to the hand or not since it's the only land on the battlefield. Is that the case? You probably explained it but I just on't get it.

Yes. You can play it, but when that trigger resolves, you only control one land. So you -have- to choose that land as the one to bounce. Simic Growth Chamber not only CAN bounce itself, it -has to- in this situation. If it was intended to only bounce other lands, it would say so.

Many thanks, Iudex

I I have an Abyssal Persecutor out in EDH, and all of my opponents are at negative life, and then the Persecutor leaves the battlefield, is there an order in which my opponents lose?

Also, if the Persecutor is out, can my opponents pay life into the negatives? Obviously if something has "Lose X life" as a byproduct, that's no problem, but can they "Pay X life" into the negatives?

We had some good fun with Abyssal Persecutor last week if you couldn't tell.

You can't pay life that you don't have.

For example, you can't kill yourself with Griselbrand if you're at 6.

Nah, the game ices all of them simultaneously.

You can't pay a cost if you don't have the resource- if you're at negative life, you don't -have- life to spend. Just like you can't cast a spell without mana.

Opponent only has a Heart of Kiran and a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar out in play. They +1 Gideon turning him into a creature that is still a planeswalker and then pays loyalty to turn Heart of Kiran into an artifact creature.

If I were to cast To the Slaughter and Delirium were in effect could the opponent sacrifice Gideon to satisfy the creature ruling and then say no Planeswalkers are in play, saving the Heart of Kiran?

Well in the triple-kill scenario, second place mattered (at my LGS in the winner's table, 1st gets three packs, 2nd gets two, 3rd/4th get one each).
Is there a rule on how to determine second/third/fourth place in that scenario? What's your judge opinion?

For this, they choose a Planeswalker and a Creature they control (which must be different objects), and simultaneously sacrifice both. It's not "pick a creature, sac it, then pick a planeswalker and sac it if you still have one".

Per the rules, you won and everyone else lost simultaneously.

From a TO standpoint, I could maybe see an argument for "whoever had the higher life total at the time they lost will be second place", but that (or any other) deciding point would be completely arbitrary.

>which must be different objects
Is this due to some specific wording? Because i'm pretty sure one can choose dual lands twice to sac towards Sundering Titan's ability.

I'm not 100% sure, but my guess would be it's in the wording. I'd imagine that if Titan said to choose a Plains, an Island, a Swamp, a Mountain, and a Forest and destroy each of them you wouldn't be able to choose the same thing more than once.

You can't sacrifice one artifact creature and be good if your opponent casts a spell that makes you sacrifice an artifact and a creature, same deal.

Actually now that I've had some tea and woken the shit up, I realize that the word 'choose' does not actually exist on To the Slaughter, and that's probably the key thing. With Titan, you are choosing a bunch of stuff, and then nuking it, but To The Slaughter is saying "Hey, sac 2 things".

Galvanic,

How do cascade spells work with card with kicker? I'm thinking about Goblin Bushwacker with any of the cascade 3 spells (eg. Bloodbraid Elf)

a) Can I pay the kicker cost?
b) If I do, do I have to pay for the cost?

Cascade lets you cast the spell without paying its mana cost. You are still permitted to pay ADDITIONAL costs like Kicker (and you -must- pay mandatory ones). If you cascade into a Bushwhacker, you can pay R to kick it.

Thanks!

If you have a Walking Balista and you activate the ability of Vault of the Archangel, does it turn into a "Remove a +1/+1 counter from Walking Ballista: Destroy target creature. You gain 1 life" ?

More or less.

Like deathtouch and Lifelink are applied to abilities ?
The "it " from "it deals 1 damage" refers to the Balista itself right ?

Yes and yes.

Effectively.

Absolutely. The "more or less" is referring to the fact that it's still 'do 1 damage', so a damage prevention effect would stop it (whereas if it truly turned it into 'destroy', it wouldn't)

I have pic related on the battlefield. I attack an opponent with a 5/1 creature with trample. They block with a 0/5. What happens?

Also, if I have an effect that deals 1 damage to all creatures multiple times (like pick 3: you may pick the same option more than once and one of the options is to deal 1 to all creatures) is each damage reduced by half rounded up (so 1) or is the total damage rounded down?

You are sad.

The game doesn't look far enough ahead to know what happens to the damage once it's assigned out- this is why you can trample past a 0/1 Indestructible, or a 0/1 with Protection from Creatures. The game neither knows or cares that the damage you assigned won't kill it (or in the latter case, even happen)

Unfortunately, that same logic works AGAINST you here. The game won't let you move to assigning damage to your opponent until you've assigned 'lethal' to the blocker. It does not know, or care, that 3 damage will kill the creature, so the game wants you to assign 5 damage to it before you can move on to trampling. By then, you're fresh out of naps to hand out (a 5/1 can only hand out 5 naps), so there's no damage to assign to the defending player. Damage happens and the 0/5 gets the shit knocked out of it, but your opponent takes no damage.

Fiery Confluence? That's not one instance of 3 damage, but three instances of 1 damage. That means your opponent's creatures will take 2, and 2, and 2, but yours will take 0, and 0, and 0. Three different damage events.

Wait, do you round the amount of damage you reduce up or the already reduced amount of damage up?

You win some you lose some.

You round the damage you or permanents you control down after halving it.

You prevent half, rounded up. So you prevent half of 1 damage, which is .5 damage... and that rounds up to preventing 1.

What happens if I activate the 2nd ability of Thespian's Stage on a permanent enchanted with Imprisonned in the moon?

It'll copy that permanent as it exists in Layer 1.

Notably, the layer where it's not trapped in Moonjail yet. So your Thespian's Stage will be a copy of the unmolested card- meaning if it was a creature, Thespian's Stage is now that creature, except with the ability to copy lands.

That's ridiculous! Also does the same thing with song of the dryads?

Yep! Song of the Dryads applies in Layer 4, the type-changing layer. But copy effects look at the object as it exists in Layer 1; the only thing a copy effect will ever 'pick up' is OTHER copy effects. So for example, if you sent a Frost Titan to Moonjail, then copied it with Thespian's Stage, and then played a Clone copying your Thespian's Stage, it would be a Frost Titan with the ability to copy lands- because that's part of the copy effect from Stage, which means Clone picks it up in layer 1.

Can you say you're explicitly not using the MTR shortcuts and want priority @ beginning of combat?

Here's how you get priority at beginning of combat:

1) Have a reason to be acting here instead of your Main Phase

2) Explicitly state exactly what you are doing

The end.

As in you can't have priority unless you're "showing your cards" during main and risk getting blown out by Vialed in Meddling Mage or such?

This I wanna know too.
If I'm at a tournament playing vehicles, do I have to declare I'm retaining priority every time I say "entering combat" or can I tell my opponent from now on I would like to always retain priority?

Pretty much. The general philosophy is you need to have an actual reason to be acting there instead of in the main phase (otherwise it doesn't matter), and that you need to remove the potential advantage gained from ambiguity of "what step are we in?"

Just crew during your main phase. Outside a very small number of situations (Toolcraft Exemplar and a Crew 3 guy, your opponent has floating mana that you don't want them to have access to, etc) there's literally zero advantage to doing it in the beginning of combat step rather than your main phase.

IN those few situations, you can just cite the reason why: "Moving to Beginning of Combat Step- do you wanna spend that floating mana?", or "Moving to Beginning of Combat Step, Toolcraft Exemplar trigger on the stack?"

As with most things in Magic, you can stop a lot of problems before they exist by just communicating clearly.

So even if you like draw a graph of the turn structure to your Timmy opponent and point w/ your finger where you want to go that's a no-no because Icy Manipulator hurt someone's feelings?

The Judge would probably ask "Do you have a reason to be acting in BoC?"

Your answer will be no.

Crew in your main phase.

If you happen to have a legit reason that one time out of a thousand you're being forced to show your hand and get fucked accordingly (basically any set of cards that care about whether it's combat phase and whether creatures are attacking) in advance because a completely arbitrary set of people think players can't handle technically correct plays from the pov of the core rules of the game. I just feel having the shortcuts be a function of judges' notion of probable plays is 200% retarded.

If you have a creature whose P/T is equal to the number of cards in your hand and an effect causes you to discard your hand and redraw cards does the creature survive through the entire effect or does losing your hand cause it to die?

combat or main phase*

>You're being forced to show your hand
Bingo. That's half the point. Active Player -always- has to tip their hand by acting first because they have priority first in every step. It's what we call Asymmetry of Information, and it's a big reason we have this shortcut in the first place.

The vast, vast, vast, vast majority of the time, there is zero difference between acting in your Main Phase or your Beginning of Combat Step. In the few situations that exist, you can explain why you're deviating. "I'd like to move to Beginning of Combat Step- do you want to spend that mana?". "Move to Beginning of Combat- triggers?", etc.

I understand you disagree with policy, and that's fine, but it's not going away just because you don't like it.

Nope! SBAs (the things that kill a creature for having 0 toughness) aren't checked in the middle of resolving a spell or ability

Has to tip their hand first =/= tell what you are doing n phases beforehand. The current policy is almost as bad as telling that I'm Entombing at their eot so they can Ponder for a Surgical instead of playing a Delver.

I'm not a super huge fan of it in those situations either, but the policy is the policy. We don't get to ignore it just because we don't like it.

"The existence of this shortcut is based on the fact it’s never in NAP’s interest to act before he has to. And we do not want NAP to be in a situation where he was perceived as acting in Main Phase one unless he actually intended to.
This admittedly potentially requires AP to reveal some additional information about the game state or their intent. This is an acceptable trade-off to achieve the goals this shortcut was designed to achieve primarily: Make sure NAP acts whenever they intend to act.
This is similar to the fact we require NAP to be extra proactive if they want to cast a Vendilion Clique during their opponent’s draw step. NAP can’t expect to be given priority at that moment, hence they need to thoroughly indicate that they want it, usually by casting Vendilion Clique."

Also, here's a good article that goes more in-depth

blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2016/10/18/do-not-pass-go/

Dinner bump

If Myr retriever dies and goes to the graveyard can it target itself to be returned to my hand? I'm 99% sure the answer is no but I just wanted to make sure.

It can't- because it says 'another'. You can loop two Retrievers though.

So what's your favorite ruling, play, and card with or related to Devour?

>Another

Fuck me, I didn't notice that.

Flashing in a Skullmuncher in response to a boardwipe.

Favorite card in general with it, Mycoloth.

If my opponent has four Aetherflux Reservoir, and I use Consulate Surveillance on one, can the other three still damage me? Further: Can he respond to Surveillance's activation by reactivating the same Reservoir?

1. yes they can
2. assuming he have another 50 life to spare, sure why not?

First question: Yes. You only prevented damage from that one, specific source, not all sources with that name.

Second question: They can, if they've got another 50 life to dome you with.

Thanks