MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge - 「 T H U R S D A Y ' S C H I L D 」

I have questions!

If I have two Zadas out, do they bounce the copies back and forth forever?

Do Zada copies resolve in any particular order, or simultaneously? Also, do they count as casting spells for things like prowess? thx, much love

IF you have two Zadas out, one of them dies because they're Legendary.

Assuming you had Mirror Gallery out, they would not bounce back and forth forever. The copies created by Zada's trigger are not cast, they're just created on the stack. As such, they wouldn't trigger the other Zada. You'd just get two copies of each spell aimed at all your dudes.

The copies are put on the stack in the order of your choosing, and resolve one at a time.

No because it's looking for a spell that's been cast. The copies are not cast. So they also don't count for prowess etc.

I think the only thing that makes copies of spells that are then cast (for free) is Isochron?

No, since copies aren't cast.

In whatever order you damn well please, since you're the one putting the copies on the stack you do so in the order you want.

No, since copies aren't cast.

>You'd just get two copies of each spell aimed at all your dudes.
You'd only get one copy per dude.

Right, shit- Zada triggers only when you cast one aimed at her, so the other wouldn't trigger.

RTFC, self.

afaik things that create an instant or sorcery copy that are not on the stack must be casted.

So mostly no fun allowed. Thanks for the help dudes!

Bingo. Anything that creates a copy of an instant or sorcery card in a non-Stack zone will have you cast it.

There's Elite Arcanist, Arcane Savant, Scepter, Eye of the Storm, Mizzix's Mastery, Panoptic Mirror, Reversal of Fortune, Spellbinder, Spellweaver Helix, and Spellweaver Volute, if I remember right.

>RTFC, self.
I've learned that the hard way.
Hell, I've learned that the first step when any player ever has a question about a card is to have them read it aloud to me. About 15% of the time, that resolves the issue on the spot.

The good old Socratic Judge Call.

Noobish question but how does exactly Magus of the Tabernacle work on your upkeep? If you sac him to his ability first, what happens with the rest of your critters?

He makes each creature create a trigger that says "Pay or I die".
Imagine this as each of your guys throwing a grenade at themselves because he said so.

Getting rid of him once the triggers go on the stack won't stop the remaining triggers.
Imagine this as the guy who said "EVERYBODY GRENADE YOURSELF" dying while the other grenades are still ticking. Doesn't change a thing.

Magus gives a triggered ability to all your creatures. At the beginning of your upkeep, ALL of those abilities trigger and go on the stack. Getting rid of the Magus will not undo the abilities that have already triggered.

tl;dr it doesn't

Someone casts living death and An Elesh Norn from one player comes in and a Bane of progress from another comes in at the same time. The bane of progress hits 3 targets, does the bane of progress live?

Bane of Progress doesn't target anything.

But no, it won't. The trigger will fire when it enters, as will any other ETB triggers. Living Death finishes resolving, is put into the graveyard, and SBAs are checked. Bane of Progress, along with any other creature that has 0 toughness because of Elesh, immediately dies. Then all triggers are put onto the stack (including Bane's), then those triggers resolve.

I'm considering going to GP Orlando for the main event since I live nearby, and while I'm not the best at the game I am able to at least go 2-2 with a shit deck (the LGS I play at is a mix of competitive and casual players, myself being more in the middle).

Thing is, I've never touched a Competitive REL and I doubt I'll make it far enough to even fathom Professional. So my question is just what are some basic pointers you would give to someone who has touched nothing more to an FNM regarding the REL and the general environment?

Never trust your opponent.

That's not to say they're cheating, but they absolutely do not have your best interests at heart. If something feels fishy, call a Judge. If you're not sure how an interaction works, call a Judge. If you and your opponent don't agree on how something should work, call a Judge. If you want to make sure a card does what your opponent SAYS it does, call a Judge. Don't ever hesitate to call a Judge if you have a question about basically anything.

Beyond that, it's really just tighter technical play. Be aware of your triggers, don't offer anything for a match result (or request it, or vice versa), etc.

Quite honestly, if you don't dig the competitive scene, I'd say avoid the main event. Save your cash and just go hang out. GPs are like Magic conventions anymore- there's hella side events, plenty of random people to jump into games with, artists, cosplayers, vendors.

So if I deal 5 damage to an indestructible sigarda I have to toxic deluge for 5 life to kill her still?

Yes.

Yes, because damage does not reduce toughness. That Sigarda is not a 5/0, or a 5/1, she's a 5/5 with 5 damage marked on her.

I recently got into a little spat with a friend during a friendly kitchen-table game.

The game had dragged on to the lategame, and I have a tendency of stacking my lands one on top of the other for simplicity's sake; by this point I had quite the pile.

My opponent was at low life, and had just tapped out to draw a bunch of cards with Invoke the Firemind. I noticed that if I activated my Treetop Village and attacked with everything, it'd be just enough damage to kill my opponent. I do this, my opponent has nothing to respond with, and I swing for lethal.

My opponent was upset afterwards. He had a Shriekmaw in his hand (that he did not draw with the Invoke the Firemind), and he said that he would have killed one of my creatures with if if he knew I had a Treetop Village. However, since he couldn't see the Treetop Village (as it was obscured by lands on top of it) he felt safe to spend all his mana to draw.

What I want to know is, did I break any rules by accidentally covering my Treetop Village? Do nonbasics and/or manlands have to stay in distinct piles?

So, this is an odd grey area. There's not a rule that you have to put them in distinct piles, but you can't try to obscure what you have. I know it wasn't your intent to "hide" your Treetop Village, but your opponent couldn't see it and took game actions based on that assumption.

Your opponent is able to request that you spread your lands out more, because they're entitled to know exactly which objects are in a public zone like the battlefield. In the future, I'd recommend spreading your lands out a bit more; I usually keep mine stacked up by what colors they can produce, cascading (like in this poorly done MSPaint)

This way, your opponent can see what lands you have more easily than if they're just in a haphazard pile.

Do I have to explicitly announce I'm using Cavern of Souls's second ability to make something uncounterable or can I just tap it along with other lands for mana and let my opponent make the attempt

The opposite, actually. It was ORIGINALLY ruled that you're using the colorless mana unless you explicitly said otherwise, but the design team (yes, the DESIGN TEAM) spoke out against that. So the default is that you're using colored mana unless you explicitly state that you're using colorless (or using colorless would be the only way to legally cast the spell- example, three Forests and a Cavern set to Eldrazi would result in a very counterable Thought-Knot Seer)

How does misdirection work with wild defiance if I misdirected the spell to another creature?

If I have a Lightning Axe exiled by a Spell Queller, if I kill the Queller, may I discard a card to cast the Axe on another creature?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: When you recast a spell from Spell Queller you have to pay the alternate costs again and you pick targets as though you were casting the spell for the first time. So you can choose the same target or a new one.

Cool, just verifying.

So I just judged my first event. Modern FNM. I don't have a good modern deck so I asked the shop owner if I could (unofficially) judge the event. He basically handed it over to me, letting me call pairings, make rulings and decide prizes, which was great. There were a couple of straightforward rulings (can I trample over planeswalkers, can I spell snare a kicked vines of vastwood, etc), and a couple of ones I had to look up, such as one player having four mental missteps in his sideboard.

One I wasn't totally sure about, I was watching a game where a player had a blood moon out and that player cracked a fetchland on his opponent's end step. Neither player noticed, and I didn't spot it till the next turn. I stepped in and undid it, fetch back onto the field, plains shuffled in, one life up. Was this the right way to handle it? He had untapped and drawn, but had not used the mana from the fetched land.

Another one that thankfully didn't have time to happen, the last two players of a round went to turns and one of them cast a karn. A spectator asked me what would happen if karn managed to ult during turns. I wasn't sure, but after looking at tournament procedures, I saw the line "New games should not be started once time has been called" and told him I assumed it counted for this as well. Is that right?

Also, thanks for all these threads, they certainly helped me to push in the direction of becoming a judge.

now I just have to find a mentor in buttfuck nowhere, Australia.

I'm not gA, but I would not have made that rewind, given a whole turn had passed.
I would check to make sure that fetch guy wasn't trying to sneak that past his opponent. (i.e. Knew he couldn't legally activate it but did so hoping his opponent wouldn't notice) because that's a one way trip to Dairy Queen.

If it was an honest "wait shit I forgot blood moon stops that", then since the board state is legal I tell them to play on and be more careful. (Our shop's judge literally has players hold out their wrist to be slapped lightly)

Why is this? It says "all damage dealt by any one source" does that mean 1 card with 3 modes is seen as 3 sources of damage?

I have Gitrok Moster on the battlefield a fetch land and a Drownyard Temple.

Lets assume I crack my fetch after trigger from sacraficing the Temple to gitrok resolves, do I draw totall of 3 cards or just 2?

See the oracle text.

You will draw one from the Temple and one from the fetch.

Wild Defiance would have already triggered for the FIRST target, and would then trigger again for the new one. The trigger condition is 'becomes the target', so even if an existing spell just changes targets, that'll trigger it.

You either pay 5, discard a card, or the Axe stays stuck in exile.

It says -the next time- that source would deal damage. Fiery Confluence choosing "50% of a Pyroclasm" for all modes is only one source of damage, but it's there different instances of damage.

Just two. Saccing Temple to Gitrog's trigger will feed you a draw, and popping your fetchland would feed you a draw. I'm not sure where you think a third trigger would come from- could you clarify?

>Fetch Moon
More or less. At FNM, the proper course of action for something like that is "Rewind through everything that happened between now and the error, if feasible". That said, the rewind should not be more disruptive than leaving things as-is, so if you're having to undo too much stuff, leave it. Rewinding through draws is rough. Rewinding through draws where a fetch was involved is basically "never"- because you'd have to shuffle a random card from his hand back into his library and then he gets to draw a new card.

>Second thing
Correct. Karn's "Restart the game" is actually just "End this game, then begin a new one". So if you Karn during extra turns, that game is over and you don't start a new one.

Can I use deflecting palm against bonfire of the damned? Do my creature still take damage?

You can, but it'll only stop the damage to you. Your creatures will still get blasted.

So it's better to use wild ricochet or redirect against bonfire?

A Reflect Damage would work too- Deflecting Palm only half-works because it explicitly specifies that it only stops damage TO YOU.

But yeah, a Ricochet would be a real slap in the mouth, since Bonfire is 'target player' rather than 'target opponent'

Does pithing needle stop pentad prism or lotus bloom from adding mana?

It does not, because it explicitly won't stop mana abilities, which both of those are.

Is mystical tutor a good website to utilize while gaining more knowledge about judging?

It is!

I have 2 questions regarding energy and token production:
1 - Let's say I have 5 energy, 2 Decoction Modules (+1 energy when a creature enters the battlefield) and a servo creating attacker (like Aether Chaser). When I attack I'm able to create 1 servo? 2 servos? or any amount of servos?
2 - Same situation, but with an additional Fabrication Module. So, when I cast another Aether Chaser I should get a total of 4 energy, but does the Fabrication Module trigger once or 3 times (Aether Chaser + Decoction Module + Decoction Module)?

>First bit
You can make 1 total. That trigger says "Hey, you can pay EE to get a guy", and that's your option. You pay EE for one guy, or you pay nothing for nothing. It's a binary choice- pay or don't. You can't "overpay" or pay it multiple times.

>Second bit
Three times. You play Chaser, and it triggers itself and both Fabrication Modules. As each trigger resolves, you get some amount of Energy, which immediately triggers Fabrication Module.

My friend and I are going to GP today. We're planning on joining a 4-man commander side event, and purposefully try to eliminate the other two schmoes before taking each other out. Is this allowed? Can they call a judge over and stop us somehow?

There's really no way to stop it, no. Not really against any rules, either.

Thanks just making sure. We plan not to be dicks about it but at $10 each we're not walking away empty handed.

Honestly, I'd suggest you skip the paid pods and just play pick up games. Set up somewhere that's not in use and jam some games- passerby WILL stop and ask "Hey, can I get in on the next one?", and ideally they will not be tryhard assholes because there's not money on the line.

If you're in Pastimes' sphere of influence they will DQ you as that kind of collusion falls under Cheating - Fraud in their HJ's eyes.

Also don't attempt an infinite damage combo to win - you can get hit with Improperly Determining a Winner which is also a DQ.

...

>Just two. Saccing Temple to Gitrog's trigger will feed you a draw, and popping your fetchland would feed you a draw. I'm not sure where you think a third trigger would come from- could you clarify?

Beggining of my turn since Gitroks ability goes on the stack.

Not sure what that's supposed to mean. I got bopped by collusion at an SCG Indy side event last month and IDaW at Gencon 2016.

I can storyline if you want.

>Upkeep
Sac Drownyard Temple to Gitgud, draw
Sac fetch to fetch a land, draw
>Draw step
Draw

If that's what you mean by 3 draws, then yeah, there's 3 draws, but there's not anything else telling you to draw in the situation you described.

Then I'm very sorry for that, because neither of those penalties should have happened to you.

Are you excited for the new duel decks/mm17?

If you're including your Draw Step draw, you get three, yes. But I'm only seeing two lands dying here, so two total Gitrog triggers.

For IDaW, it was super infuriating because I got booted out of the other events I had signed up for.
>4 man commander pod, 2tix entry. Winner gets 6 tix, 2nd place gets their 2 back.
>Cast Tooth and Nail entwined (based bojeisu the GOAT of lands) fetch Mikaeus and Triskelion
>demonstrate the loop twice to allow for interaction and prove it's infinite.
>announce I will do the loop 3 googol times, each player gets hit with 1googol trike pokes
>pick up a die to see who gets hit by the first googol, then the second googol.
>guy who would have gotten second calls judge
>since I used a method outside the game to determine placement, I was sent to dairy queen while they play on
>45 minutes of paperwork later I'm told I will not be allowed in any further MTG events for the duration of the convention.
>am refunded entry fee to other events I pre-registered for and escorted out of the hall.

The salt was unfathomably unreal.

Sorry if you've been asked this before but, if you give Deathtouch to Walking Ballista and remove a counter to deal one damage to a creature, does the deathtouch effect trigger?

Yes. Deathtouch doesn't care whether the creature deals combat damage or not. If it deals damage to a creature, that creature's dead.

See also: cunning sparkmage+basilisk collar.

No, that was totally improperly determining a winner. You used a out-of-game method (a dice) to determine loss order. You should have just nuked them in some arbitrary but not random order.

Worth noting that deathtouch doesn't technically "trigger." Once a creature's been dealt damage by something with deathtouch it dies the next time someone would receive priority with no chance to respond.

The whole priority thing still confuses me.

Okay, so basically any time anybody does something that doesn't directly generate mana it doesn't actually happen right away. Instead, the ability gets thrown on the stack (think of it as papers being added to an in-box on a desk). If there's anything in the in-box then the following steps occur:
>The active player has a chance to activate more abilities or cast instants to put on the stack
>The other player has a chance to activate more abilities or cast instants to put on the stack
>If either player added anything go back to step 1, otherwise the thing on the top of the stack resolves (this is the most recent thing added)
>Go back to step 1
This continues until the stack is empty.

There's more details, interactions, exceptions, etc. but that should be plenty to cover most situations.

I am. Hopefully Punch vs Think has some neat reprints, and I'm super glad for MM17 putting a bunch of Commander staples in my groups' hands.

So, I can see where that's coming from. Instead of just making a decision, you basically used a random not-magic method to determine who would get prizes, so I can 100% see you getting penalized for that.

Technically you shouldn't have gotten IDAW, because the IPG doesn't apply to Regular REL events, which all side events are by default; I can see booting you from that pod without prizes, but booting you from the venue entirely is waaaaaay too far.

Deathtouch isn't a trigger, but yes.

>You should have just nuked them in some arbitrary but not random order
Is there even a way to do that besides just choosing the order yourself?

Sure- for example, killing the lowest life total first. Or the highest.

Just don't use a random and not-part-of-the-game method.

I just found a trail of full art basics leading from my kitchen to my bathroom. Should i call a judge?

>EVERYBODY GRENADE YOURSELF
fuckin A

Sure.

Not so much a ruling questioning but more of a terminology question, when people say early, mid game, what turn/CMC limits our they typically talking about? Me and my group of friends always broke it down to early- up to 3rd turn/3 CMC, mid would be 4-5 and late is 6 in above. Is that fair breakdown and if not how do comp players typically tier early, mid and late?

Depends on the format.

could you break it down to legacy (the best you can lol) modern and current standard? Obviously depending on deck and format there is no universal answer but I would like a general breakdown if possible. Much obliged.

So deathtouch works through any damage dealt as long as the card rules say '(this thing) deals damage to target creature?"

Yes. I have a couple buddies who played this same basic combo with bow of nylea. The wording is "ANY damage" and because tapped damage is dealt through that creature deathtouch applies.

Quick question about stack:

Suppose my opponent plays Scrapheap Scrounger and in response I play Aether Meltdown. Can they in response tap Scrapheap Scrounger to crew a vehicle?

On a similar note if they tap to crew something, can I play Aether Meltdown in response to make the crew frizzle?

google magic deathtouch
"If a creature deals damage to another creature, and the damage-dealing creature has deathtouch, then the receiving creature has lethal damage (causing it to be destroyed). "
fucking noob

>Goes into an ask-a-judge thread to complain about someone asking a rules question

relatively new player here. can someone clearly explain the walker redirection rule to me?

You are able to redirect any damage that you deal to a player to an enemy planeswalker correct? does this mean that you can double dip on effects which deal damage simultaneously to both the player and the walker?

How do divided damage spell interactions work, for example, can both damage instances of electrolyze be redirected separately? similarly, lets say I have a teferi emblem and can cast walker abilities as instants. The opponent electrolyzes me for 1 and a 1 loyalty walker for 1. I cast an ability in response and go to 3 loyalty, can my opponent instead just send both at my face instead or is he locked into (basically) wasting a damage on the walker?

Im sure the rule exists for reasons that I dont fully appreciate yet but it seems that its needlessly clunky and too punishing for reactive playstyles

Correct. ANY damage (combat or non) dealt by a source with Deathtouch will "count".

They could. Meltdown doesn't give the Scrounger -4 power until it resolves and enters the battlefield, so they can respond to that spell by activating Crew.

If they Crew something, you can absolutely drop Meltdown in response, but it won't "fizzle" anything. By the time you're ABLE to respond, the Crew ability is fully paid for and on the stack.

Be nice or be quiet, your choice.

Any time a source YOU control would deal NOMCOMBAT damage to an opponent, you may redirect all of that damage to ONE planeswalker they control, as it happens. There's no way to "double dip" because there's no cards that do damage to a player AND their planeswalker.

>Electrolyze
If you're only targeting your opponent, you can deal 2 to them OR to one of their planeswalkers. If you're hitting them and also another player or a creature, you can only redirect that 1 damage to their planeswalker.

>Teferi
You do not 'cast' abilities, you activate them. Your opponent cannot Electrolyze you AND your planeswalker, because your Planeswalker is neither a creature nor a player. They can hit you, or the planeswalker, but not both. So let's say they're hitting you (and you have a 'walker on 1 and a Teferi Emblem), and an X/1 of yours. You can respond by activating a +2 ability... but they can then just ping you for 1, because they don't decide whether to redirect or not until the damage is HAPPENING. So they can change their mind.

Basically, the rule exists because their options were

1) Have Planeswalkers count as players for the purposes of targeting

2) Errata HUNDREDS of cards to say "Target player or planeswalker" or "Target creature, player, or planeswalker", or "Target opponent or planeswalker an opponent controls", etc

3) Bake in a rule to redirect noncombat damage on resolution

The other two options would have been way bigger headaches.

BED.

So basically as long as the scrounger resolves and enters untapped I can't prevent it from crewing at least once. Damn.

I made a red white standard kaladesh 75 card deck (in a short amount of time) revolving around a planeswalker (chandra) and heavy artifact crew/buffing.
>25 land, 9 white, 13 red, 4 mix
>22 "spells"
sorcery
enchantment
instant
>17 creature
creature
planeswalker (pic)
>11 artifact (pretty sure 5 creature artifact, 1 equiptment)

Some of these have changed, and I understand you cant help too much without seeing most of the cards, the lot of the artifact creatures have tap put 1/1 thopter (flying) on battlefield or tap/fabricate put 1-3 1/1 servos on the battlefield. No energy. Also, a lot of the sorceries, instants, and artifacts let me draw a card. Looking for improvements, will explain more if I have too.

Didnt mean to >>

1. Really not the right thread for this. gA doesn't give deck building advice usually and any side discussions are just gonna muddle things. Go ask in standard general or something.
2. There's no way for anyone to help you improve if you only vaguely provide what's in your deck. If you're asking for help you should be posting a complete or mostly complete list, preferably in the form of a link to a deck building website.
3. Only running one copy of a card you're "revolving around" doesn't work at all
>but it's expensive
Then don't build your deck around it.

>>Beginning of Combat Step
>>Declare Attackers Step
>>Declare Blockers Step
>>Combat Damage Step
>>End of Combat Step

Up to which point in the combat phase can I activate abilities, and how do tapped creatures that have already been declared as attackers or blockers behave?

I'm trying a new deck with a bunch of pic related TAP>deal damage/tap target creature

Ways back, I played against one guy with a similar thing, and I was never sure if he was cheating or not with how he handled blockers with tap-activated abilities.

Just want to make sure, if my opponent uses like tons of pyretic rituals, mana morphoses, and what not, and then right as he runs out of fuel, cast past in flames,can I use in response Ravenous trap for 0, exiling his grave, assuming the only ways his cards hit the grave were from the stack, thus screwing him over?

priority needs to pass back and forth before any of the combat steps end so you have a chance to activate abilities before all of them begin.

tapping does not remove a creature from combat so you are completely free to assign a creature as a blocker, then tap to activate its ability. It sounds like you are a little hung up on how to tap a creature to stop it from attacking. Just know that once the active player begins his declare attackers step, it is too late to tap a creature to prevent it from attacking. If you want to tap his creatures down you need to do it before the declare attackers step begins.

that is exactly how you do it assuming 3 or more cards entered your opponent's graveyard that turn

When, in a tournament setting, is something considered to be cast? If player A has a Chalice on 3 and player B taps three mana, puts an oblivion ring on the table, then immediately says "no wait" and plays a 4 drop instead, is that acceptable?

I understand that, I have recently started magic, I was just wondering what a susceptible amount of land-creature-spell ratio.

The basic rule is 24 lands 36 spells. The ratio can change depends on what kind of deck you are playing.