Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

[SilPho]

@theDreaner
At the beginning of the declare blockers step the defending player will be making their blocking decisions first, but they are still considered the non-active player. Once blockers are declared the person whose turn it is will still get priority first.

@dackwards
Short Answer: The whelp still resolves normally.
Long Answer: Costs for a spell are locked in before you even start to pay said costs. Let's say you wanted to cast Fling but the only creature you have is a Nightscape Familiar (A creature that makes red spells (1) cheaper). The cost (sacrificing a creature and one red mana) will be determined in advance before you actually start paying for it. At that point it doesn't matter that you sacrifice something that changed the cost of the spell.

@phlip
A common question with a convenient exert in the comprehensive rules:

Example: Fling is an instant that reads, “As an additional cost to cast Fling, sacrifice a creature” and “Fling deals damage equal to the sacrificed creature‟s power to target creature or player.” When determining how much damage a copy of Fling deals, it checks the power of the creature sacrificed to pay for the original Fling.

[Yaxley]

The way I saw it was that instants interrupt whatever else is happening, and time kind of freezes.

Be glad you weren't playing back when "Interrupt" actually was a type of card.

[Geoff_B]

And don't forget, excessive gloating counts as passing priority!

[DuelLadyS]

Milling a Colossus
In regards to Darksteel Colossus, they never actually hit the graveyard. Darksteel Colossus has a replacement effect, which means the original event never happens, something else does. So if you are told to "mill" a card when you only have the Colossi left in the deck what you actually end up doing is shuffling your library. The graveyard remains completely unaffected and at no point is your library any less than those 4 cards.

I don't think I will ever forget what a replacement effect is, now that I've had to tell my fiance he was totally right and get the 'I told you so' speech.

[dackwards d]

OK just got back from a couple of days of Magic at a friends house and while I am pretty sure we came to the correct conclusions at the time I wanted to check for future reference.

Under normal circumstances, when a player dies all permanents under their control leave the game. If something with imprint has imprinted a card from that player it still gets to keep any bonuses from the imprint, right?

EDIT: Read several cards errata and answered two of the questions myself. Derp.

[SilPho]

Short Answer: Imprint no longer works.
Long Answer: Exile is zone that is still part of the game. If a player leaves the game all of the cards they own cease to exist, which will include any cards in exile for Imprint.

The main reason for this is that if a player leaves the game they may need all of their cards back, so the game can't assume any of them are still around, this logic extends to tokens as well just to be consistent.

[phlip]

In Commander, if you have a Zombie commander and have Rooftop Storm, can you repeatedly play your commander for free? Or do you still have to pay the 2 for each time the Commander has been previously played?

[SilPho]

Short answer: No.
Long answer: The extra (2) mana for each Commander cast is an additional cost, not a change to the mana cost. It'a a bit like kicker. So you still need to pay the additional costs but the first payment will be free.

[Geoff_B]

So Quicksilver Amulet. Am I reading this right, for 4 mana (any colour) you can put any creature with any colour combination down? For example if I'm in a red deck I can put a GGGGGGGG creature straight out that I wouldn't normally be able to use? That seems incredibly powerful. Does the creature also get summoning sickness as well?

[SilPho]

Yup, 4 mana to do just that. The creature will still get summoning sickness but if you use the ability at the end of your opponent's turn then when your turn begins it won't have it any more. There are a few other cards that do the same thing. The effect is powerful, as you said.

[theDreamer]

Elvish Piper is the classic.

[dackwards d]

And that would count as using the Amulet/Piper's ability as opposed to casting the creature, making it almost immune to counterspells wouldn't it?

[SilPho]

Yup, abilities are not spells. Besides, your opponent won't know what the creature is going to be until the ability resolves, so if they wanted to stop you they would have to do so before the choice is made. Though there are very, very few ways to actually counter the ability. Stifle is the prime example for it.

[Drunk On Mystery]

Quick question:

Can an attacking, blocked creature deal trample damage if Bubble Matrix is in play?

[SilPho]

Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: When assigning damage to a creature you only need to assign enough damage to kill it under normal conditions, otherwise known as "lethal damage". The game doesn't look ahead to see if the damage will be prevented or not. This means that a creature with trample can still damage a player as long as the blocking creature is assigned "lethal damage".

Remember, a single point of deathtouch damage is enough to be considered lethal, so even if the blocking creature won't actually get harmed (due to protection or Bubble Matrix for example), the attacker and still trample over for all but 1 damage.

[Robert Merlow]

Okay, this is a question that one of the members of my playgroup had:

I have an interesting rules question regarding Knowledge Exploitation and the effect of Buyback. Today, I cast Knowledge Exploitation on an opponent and took their Walk the Aeons to take an additional turn. It roused the question of whether or not I'd be able to sacrifice the lands to pay its Buyback cost, returning my -opponent's- card to -my- hand. Anyone have a answer?

[phlip]

A mostly trivial question: is Morbid checked when a spell is cast, or when it resolves?

I was trying to find a situation where it would matter... why you'd kill a creature in response to a potentially-morbid spell, instead of just before it, but I think I've found one... say I cast Brimstone Volley at a creature with a toughness of 5, and then cast Increasing Vengeance to copy the Volley, and point the copy at a creature with a toughness of 3 or less. The copy resolves, a creature dies, and then the original resolves... does it do 5 damage, killing its target too?

[SilPho]

@Robert Merlow
Short Answer: You need to sacrifice your own lands.
Long Answer: Knowledge Exploitation only gives you a free mana cost, Buyback is an additional cost, which means you need to pay for that separately. In the same way, any kicker costs need to be paid by the person casting the spell, not the original owner of the card.

The only way to get your opponent to sacrifice lands for costs like that would be a Mindslaver style effect.

@Phlip
Short Answer: When the spell resolves.
Medium Answer: The description of events you described for Brimstone Volley was correct.
Long Answer: Morbid abilities for creatures and spells alike all matter when the spell resolves. Creatures have the "as this enters the battlefield" phrasing, which is fairly straight forward. Spells don't really care about the effect they are going to have until they come to resolve. Spells do have to check their text boxes during their casting to check for targets, modes, extra costs, etc, but what they actually do is normally ignored until later.

And just to avoid confusion, the "mode" for a spell is when it asks you to choose 1 or more options, having a different effect based on some condition isn't a mode, it's a replacement effect.

[vazhkatsi]

this is a trivial one, but does the ability to have as many relentless rats in a deck as you want trump the EDH rule of only one of each card per deck? we were pretty sure that card rules trump normal rules, but we weren't sure. its also a purely hypothetical deck.

[Avistew]

I have a question about curses and the stackability thereof. For instance, if you have two Curses of Thirst, do you do 4 damages per turn? If on top of that you have two Curses of Bloodletting, do you do 16?
If you have two Curses of Misfortunes, can you put two different curses on the player every turn?

[phlip]

I have a question about curses and the stackability thereof. For instance, if you have two Curses of Thirst, do you do 4 damages per turn? If on top of that you have two Curses of Bloodletting, do you do 16?
If you have two Curses of Misfortunes, can you put two different curses on the player every turn?

My guesses: Yes; No - actually 32 (each curse of thirst now does 4, so 8 total, doubled twice); Yes, but you can still only use them to put on one of each curse, not two of each.

[SilPho]

Short Answer: What phlip said

Alternatively...
I got bored...

Code: Select all

            Number of Curse of Thirst
           |  1     2     3     4
Number   ----------------------------
of       0 |  1     4     9     16
Curses   1 |  4     12    24    40
of       2 |  12    32    60    96
Blood-   3 |  32    80    144   224
letting  4 |  80    192   336   512


The table only works when it is only Curse of Thirst (CoT) and Curse of Bloodletting(CoBL)) enchanting the player. If more curses are involved then more damage will be dealt:

Total Damage = Number of CoT * (Total number of curses) * 2^CoBL

[Robert Merlow]

This isn't a rules question, but something I would still like to ask:

What is it like to judge a tournament, SilPho? What kind of things are involved? Have you ever had to disqualify someone before?

This is a rules question:
How does the rules enforcement level work?

[SilPho]

Firstly, the question about Rule Enforcement Level (REL).

What is REL?
There are 3, Regular, Competitive and Professional. Competitive and Professional are more or less the same thing except Professional has a certain amount of prestige to it and usually has very big prizes on the line.

Which REL am I playing at?
Almost all public events are Regular or Comp. Pre-releases, FNMs, Game Days, these are all Regular REL events. They are fun and laid back. Judges are allowed to work and play in these events at the same time. Competitive REL covers events such as Pro Tour Qualifiers )PTQs), Grand Prix Trials (GPTs) and the first day of a GP itself.

The Pro Tour (no surprises there), Day 2 of Grand Prix events and a few other invitation only events are all run at professional. You certainly won't find yourself accidentally going to one of these.

What does that mean for me?
At Regular REL players are expected to know the majority of the game rules and maybe some tournament policy, but really this is an environment for fun and education. Penalties are basically "Please don't do that again" or a Disqualification for the stuff that is "Really Bad"® Basically as long as you're not cheating or being aggressive you don't need to worry about a DQ.

Competitive REL holds players to a higher standard of play. You are expected to know a lot more about Tournament Rules and how to play the game properly. You won't be disqualified for not knowing the rules of the game, but you may find yourself getting other penalties such as Warnings and Game Losses, possibly Disqualifications for the "Really Bad"® stuff.

You can still go to a Competitive REL event even if you aren't very familiar with things, and it is a good experience. Judges and other players will be happy to help you out but just keep in mind that judges treat all players the same way when a mistake is made, we do not consider age, tournament experience or anything else when handling a ruling. It keeps everything consistent that way.

But what about judging?
Judging a tournament is certainly more work than playing in one, but that doesn't mean it's less fun. The best thing about judging is knowing that you will have a good day no matter what happens. You don't need to worry about spending a lot of money travelling to an event only to scrub out in the first 3 rounds. Sometimes it can be very stressful if things don't go right, but you can take that as a learning experience.

Judges are responsibly for making sure the event runs quickly, smoothly, correctly and in a fun environment for players, wherever possible. It's not that glamorous, setting up chairs, cleaning up rubbish, but the camaraderie of the judging community makes it all worth it.

Admittedly the worst part about judging is giving a player a penalty that they don't want to hear about. I've never had to disqualify anyone myself but I've seen it happen before, nobody enjoys that. So a word to all players: Don't cheat, don't be a dick and don't use any random method to determine the winner of a match even instead of a draw, that's one thing you can and will be disqualified for no matter what the event is.

There is a lot more I could say here, but I need to go to work. Do feel free to ask any follow up questions. I love talking about this stuff.

[Drunk On Mystery]

Scenario:

I have a Mikaeus the Unhallowed and a Heartless Summoning in play. I then play a Triskelion.

If I remove all three counters from Triskelion to deal damage, it dies. Since it died with no +1/+1 counters on it, would it come back with an EXTRA +1/+1 counter on it?

If yes, would I then be able to remove all 4 +1/+1 counters from it to deal damage and have it keep coming back into play since it never has any +1/+1 counters on it when it dies?