MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge - 「 W E D N E S D A Y W E E K 」

Good morning and welcome back!

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When gaining infinite life with a combo, am I allowed to use scientific notation to note my life total?

There is no such thing as "infinite" in Magic. You have to pick an actual end point. General agreement is that your opponent should not require an advanced knowledge of mathematics to understand what you're doing. Scientific Notation for space-saving sake should be fine, as long as everyone knows what's going on; 10^10 on your pad is fine as long as everyone knows that means "ten billion".

Just out of curiosity, do judges typically, or are you personally, prepared to rule on Un-cards and their interactions?

Most Judges won't bother with it, because Un-cards don't really conform to the actual rules, and it's rarely worth the effort to try to figure out what the fuck happens with them. I know Mark Rosewater is the officially-unofficial Rules Manager for Un-stuff, is basically considered THE authority on that stuff, and sometimes answers questions about Un-cards posted to his blog.

As for me, I answer all Silver-Bordered Questions with a one-size-fits-all Silver-Bordered Answer: "Sure, why not?"

But 10^10 isn't enough to be safe from a Liliana Emblem. You need at least a Googol to be safe.

I'm curious, do old and effectively dead mechanics like Ante and Banding still show up in like your tests and so on? Do you need to be up to date on how their rules work?

Googol is starting to hit the line where you'd get a stern glare and instruction to quit being an ass.

L1 tests pretty much exclusively cover Standard, because that's what most L1s are likely to actually ENCOUNTER. L2 tests have more Modern and Legacy level stuff, and I'd assume L3s go even crazier, since their rules knowledge baseline is both wider and deeper than that of L2. Ante won't show up because by definition it doesn't exist in an actual sanctioned event, so we wouldn't need to fret over it. Banding I think might have shown up now and then?

In the past, L3+ (and only L3+) had to take a little 'refresher' on the new rules for each set. Since last year, all judges (L1, L2, and L3) have to take a sort of maintenance exam at the end of each year to make sure we're up-to-date.

>Googol is starting to hit the line where you'd get a stern glare and instruction to quit being an ass.
Why is that being an ass?

Because your opponent might not know what a googol is, and that level of math knowledge is not expected (and therefore, not 'required') for Magic play.

That, and for the vast majority of situations, having 10 billion life is really no different than a googol, so there's no real reason for you to pick that number over a hilariously high number your opponent is basically guaranteed to understand.

I don't think "A one with 100 zeroes" is that hard to understand.

If you have to explain what the concept is to your opponent (IE, they don't know what 'a googol' is until you tell them), and it's functionally not any different than a concept they DO understand (like "a hundred million"), there's no reason to do it.

But there is a functional difference:
youtube.com/watch?v=40NQFA1v39k

Another question. If my life total is let's say 10 billion and I take 5 damage, can I write that as "ten billion - 5" or do I have to write "9 999 999 995"

As long as everyone knows what's going on, you're fine. If your opponent understands that you're at 9,999,999,995 even if you have written "(10^10) - 5) or "Ten billion minus 5" or whatever, you'll be okay. The point of a life pad is to make sure that all players have an accurate point of reference to the life totals.

>play FNM
>Im really shit at other MTG but pretty good at FNM
>doing pretty well, might actually win tonight
>match against some guy
>totally land screwed and lost the first round
>he's going to lose hard second round, he's on 2hp, i have 3 monsters on the field he has none
>he stares at his cards
>keeps staring
>3 minutes in
>call a judge
>judge is chatting and takes minutes to get there
>tell judge the guy is stalling and won't make a turn because he's one round up
>judge tells me that it's bad form to ask for judgement calls in FNM
>tells them they really need to make their turns faster
>he says he's just thinking and it has only been 30 seconds
>judge questions how we've taken so long and not finished game 2?
>the other guy accuses me of stalling and says i take even longer
>apparently im "known" for taking slow moves after one person accused me of "taking too long" when he was land flooded and lost against me and got super angry screaming at me to "hurry up and just win already!" as soon as he finished his turn
>this all takes minutes
>judge says he has to make a turn "soon, ok?"
>starts giving us both a lecture on timely moves
>shusses me for inturrupting when i say he needs to take his turn
>in the end the timer goes off and he wins 1-0 in a best of three

You might want to report that Judge to their RC. Taking a long time to respond to a call because they were chatting and then telling you "it's bad form to call a judge at FNM" tells me they don't want to be there, and therefore SHOULDN'T be. It's not remotely 'bad form' to call for a Judge. That's why he's THERE.

so my question is, what the fuck is the actual rule about timing? if some cunt gets one game ahead they just play slow as fuck

SHE
It's always this same unfuckable tranny looking woman, who everybody fucking worships dispite them being a total cunt to everyone.

There are a few regulars who are total cunts.

All players need to make their plays in a timely manner. If a player is taking longer than is reasonable to make their plays, that's Slow Play (at least at Comp REL; at Regular it doesn't have a formal penalty, just a finger-wag from the judge and a reminder to pick up the pace of play).

If a player is intentionally weaponizing the clock by playing slow (for example, taking 3 minutes for a turn that should have taken 20 seconds BECAUSE they're up 1-0), that's Stalling, which leads to an Unpleasant Talk.

If your judge is providing a disservice to the events, I recommend you contact their RC.

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

Both me and my opponent have a Wheel of Sun and Moon in play, enchanting ourselves. We each have three creatures in play (if it's important, we each have an Avacyn's Pilgrim, a Grisly Bears, and a Watchwolf). I cast Day of Judgement. In what order do creatures return to the deck? Does active player (me) choose, or does each player choose, or is it randomized?

All the creatures are destroyed simultaneously, and move to the graveyard simultaneously. The replacement effect kicks in for each of them. As far as the game cares, the creatures get put onto the bottom of the library at the same time; you will not know the order your opponent chose to put their creatures on the bottom (unless they choose to tell you, and they CAN lie about it), and ditto for your creatures and their knowledge.

Is there a rule against smelling like the embodiment of death?

One of the regulars, a fat fuck with massive red rosy cheeks and a huge jewfro smells like the worst possible bad breath, but from his whole body

Another greasy guy with like liegions of massive pimples on his face smells literally worse than one time when i found out my neighbour died and was undiscovered in his apartment for over month, if i get too close i gag really hard, it's fucking gross

So i can control in what order they return? Or do I shuffle them first?

I know that graveyard placement order matters in some of the older formats. How would it work there?

Not this guy but don't go ignoring the video that came out that does show a functional difference between 10 million and googol in a magic game

Jein. There's not a rule specifically against smelling bad, but if a person's hygiene is so awful that it's impacting other players/the tournament as a whole, that could be grounds for Unsporting Conduct - Minor. I have seen people be given a refund, and asked to leave, because of how bad their BO was. That's more of a TO problem than a Judge problem, though.

Technically they all go at once, but you pick the order they end up in, on the bottom of your library.

Just making sure I have Alhammarret's Archive + Thought Reflection right.
First card draw in a draw step is two cards.
Subsequent draws become four cards.
Right?

Your first card draw gets turned into 2 by Thought Reflection. As you go to draw your second card (thanks to Thought Reflection), Alhamsandwich's Archive can now apply, because this is you drawing a card outside of "the first one you draw in each of your draw steps". So that one draw gets replaced with 2, giving you a total of 3 cards drawn in that Draw Step.

After that, any draws get turned into 2, and each of those gets turned into 2, for a total of 4 cards drawn per instance of "draw a card" instructions.

Oh. Nifty.