MTG Magic The Gathering Ask A Judge - 「 R U B Y T U E S D A Y 」

Good morning and welcome back!

Does Island sanctuary and Siren's call work or is it ruined by oracle text?

Is plague Beetle the single best card ever printed?

No, it works. Island Sanctuary makes it so you can't be attacked (except by fliers and Islandwalkers). Siren's Call says "Hey, everything has to attack this turn if able, and anything that DOESN'T attack (except things that would normally have summoning sickness and Walls) will be destroyed". It doesn't also exclude things that weren't ABLE to attack- whether because of Island Sanctuary, or because you tapped them, or what have you.

Do note that in a 3 person game, they'll just have to attack Player C, and Siren's Call probably won't destroy much.

Top 3, at least.

How did your last event go? Did you have to explain any interesting interactions or have any story you want to share?

It's been a hot minute since I worked an event! Unfortunately, a lot of stores around me have been closing down, so there's not many opportunities for PPTQs.

I did get tapped at a prerelease I was playing at for some questions, though.

JUDGE! JUDGE! I NEED YOU TO INSPECT MY OPPONENTS FINGERNAILS FOR ANY SIGNS OF AN IMPROPER SHUFFLING TECHNIQUE

This is probably a pretty stupid question but alas with extraplanar lense you can exile for instance a snow covered island and only snow covered island would produce double mana, however with something like gauntlet of power I am only limited to the 5 basic colors and not snow colors correct?

Right. Lens only works for basics with the same name, so you can use a Snow-Covered Island to deny your opponents value from their normal Islands (or vice versa). Gauntlet is just "whenever a basic land is tapped for mana of the chosen color". You go off of COLOR, not name, and Islands and Snow-Covered Islands both make blue. No next-leveling with snowy basics there.

Also, this can work if you name "red" and then your Forest gains the ability to tap for red mana (for example, because you're playing Planechase and end up on Truga Jungle).

I play a metallic mimic naming dinosaur, then play anothet naming dinosaur, the second one gets one or two counter s?

Yes am stupid plz forgive

Just one. The second one does enter as a Dinosaur, because that's the type you chose for it, but it only gets one counter. First, the +1/+1 counter ability says 'each other creature' to clarify that. Second, even if it just said "each creature", it still wouldn't work, because it has to be on the field for that effect to be 'generated', and it can't exist in a weird quantum superposition where it's simultaneously already on the field to generate the replacement effect, but also still ENTERING the field to benefit from the replacement effect. Savvy?

Wait does Second Sunbird actually work as Veeky Forums says...
Like casting Approach of the second sun with Sunbird's invocation out and casting the second one from the top 7 cards of your deck.

With one in hand and one in the top 7? Absolutely. Approach doesn't "check" to see whether it's going to gain you 7 or win the game until it actually begins to resolve. So if you cast an Approach from your hand, then wheel into another one, the one you wheel into will gain 7 and put itself 7 deep. Then the original will resolve and ask "Hey, did you cast me from your hand? Cool, you did. Did you cast another spell named Approach of the Second Sun this game? You did? Cool, then you win." It's not 'locked in' ahead of time.

What's your least favorite card, as a judge?

I'm personally not a fan of either Leonin Arbiter or Spellskite. Both of them are good at generating repeated judge calls and feel-bads.

Life and FUCKING Limb.

Do you get a lot of judge calls from EDH players then?

It's less 'calls' and more 'any question involving Life and Limb is either someone trying to 'judgebreak', or an irritating EDH/KTF question that's not that hard to figure out, but is like pulling teeth to explain".

Life and Limb while Blood Moon is on the field. What happens?

I shit you not, it depends on whether or not there's any Saprolings (other than the Forests that Life and Limb animates). It's babytown frolics with that card.

To expand, for the curious:

If you have Blood Moon and L&L with nothing else of note and some nonbasic Forests: Applying Moon before Limb would change the set of objects Limb applies to, but not vice versa, so we have a dependency. Blood Moon must always apply first. It'll turn your Temple Garden (for this example) into a Land - Mountain in layer 4, and replace all of its text with "T: Add {R} to your mana pool". Life and Limb no longer applies, since it's not a forest.

If there's no nonbasics out, and a Saproling, then we have the opposite: Applying L&L first changes the set of objects Blood Moon would work on, so we have to apply L&L first. It makes the Saproling (or Saprolings, plural) into a nonbasic Forest, which lets Blood Moon hit them. They end up as 1/1 green Land Creature - Mountain Saprolings that tap for red.

If there's Saprolings *and* nonbasic forests on board, we get a dependency loop, which is a thing that hardly ever happens. Applying L&L first changes the set of objects Moon hits (because it makes Saprolings into Forests, as in scenario 2). Applying Moon first changes the set of objects L&L hits (because it would take away 'forest' from nonbasics like Temple Garden, as in scenario 1). So, since we have that dependency loop, we revert back to timestamps; if Moon came first, you apply it to all nonbasics, then apply L&L to anything that's still a Forest at that point. Temple Garden is a mountain, and not a creature; Saprolings are Land Creature - Saproling Forest. If Moon came second, you have L&L animate all the forests, then Moon comes in and scrubs them of their abilities, replace that with "T: Add R", and replace their land types with "Mountain". Your Temple Garden and all your Saprolings would be Land Creature - Saproling Mountains that can only tap for R.

Fuck Life and Limb.

Sounds fun! I want to try it!

If I have an effect that allows me to search my opponents library, am I allowed to show cards from that library to other players?

does scrying count as drawing?

Yes. But depending on setting, that might make you an asshole.

No.

That doesn't sound that complex, man.

Is it just that people cannot into listening?

Technically no, but there's nothing stopping you from SAYING what you see there. Course, you could be lying and they'd have no way of knowing.

No. The only thing that counts as drawing is... well, drawing. It has to use that actual word. "Look at", "reveal", "Scry", "put into hand", none of that is 'drawing'.

It's not that complex once you know the layers, but trying to puzzle that out yourself is maddening for most players. Low-knowledge players will just accept "If X, then this. If Y, then this. If Z, then this" and move on. High-knowledge players will be interested in the existence of an honest-to-god dependency loop. But the majority of players have just enough knowledge of the layers system to be confused as to how this toggles between timestamps and dependency depending on the field. It's odd.