Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

[phlip]

Nothing untoward happens to the Shahrazad spell in the main game:

If an instant spell, sorcery spell, or ability that can legally resolve leaves the stack once it starts to resolve, it will continue to resolve fully.

In particular, this means that the loser of the subgame will still lose half their life in the main game. The Shahrazad card itself, like all cards that exist within the subgame, will end up shuffled into its owner's library when the main game resumes.

[Kapol]

(On the plus side, this means you can still Extort off of spells that get countered... I think?)

That's right. You trigger Extort even if the spell doesn't resolve.

[osieorb18]

Alice controls: 2 Furnace of Rath, 2 Repercussion, 1 Grollub, 1 Pariah enchanting Nate's Grollub

Nate controls: 2 Benevolent Unicorn, 1 Grollub, 1 Pariah enchanting your Grollub

How much damage can be dealt if Alice casts Lightning Bolt targetting a Benevolent Unicorn?

[SilPho]

None.

Lava Spike can't target creatures.

If you meant something else, please clarify how many Pariahs are actually on the battlefield, your initial question is a little ambiguous.

[Lemegeton]

have a question about a situation that came up today while playing on cockatrice.


so what happened was opponent played a snapcaster mage and flashed back a supreme verdict and moved it from graveyard to the stack . i tried to respond by tapping a deathrite shaman and a swamp to exile the verdict but he claimed that i could not exile it cos it didnt exist in the graveyard.
if he is right could you break down exactly where i would have had priority to counter with the shaman ability.

[Kapol]

He was wrong. Until Snapcaster mage resolves and the Supreme Verdict is cast, it's still in the graveyard. Snapcaster simply gives it flashback. He also couldn't play Supreme Verdict in response since it's a sorcery. Had it been an instant then he could have played it in response AFTER snapcaster resolved.

Now, if you tried to Deathrite it in response to him casting Supreme Verdict, then he would be right since Supreme verdict has already been cast.

[phlip]

The breakdown:

• Your opponent casts Snapcaster Mage, passes priority.
• You get priority, and can exile the Verdict... however if you do so at this point, then they can give something else flashback instaed, when the Snapcaster resolves.
• Snapcaster resolves, ETB triggers, targeting Supreme Verdict, opponent passes priority.
• You get priority, and can exile the Verdict... at this point it doesn't have Flashback, so even if it was an instant, it couldn't be cast in response. If you do, Snapcaster's ETB trigger will be countered for no legal targets, and nothing will get Flashback. This is what you want to do. But if you don't:
• The ability resolves, and your opponent gets priority. They then immediately flash back Supreme Verdict, and pass priority.
• At this point it's too late to exile the Verdict, as it's now on the stack, not in a graveyard.

If your opponent does something after giving the Verdict flashback other than immediately casting the Verdict, then you get another opportunity to exile it with the Shaman. If it was an instant, though, they would be able to cast it in response, as it has Flashback at this point.

[Pigmy Wurm]

Alice controls: 2 Furnace of Rath, 2 Repercussion, 1 Grollub, 1 Pariah enchanting your opponent's Grollub

Bob controls: 2 Benevolent Unicorn, 1 Grollub, 1 Pariah enchanting your Grollub

How much damage can be dealt if Alice casts Lava Spike targeting a Benevolent Unicorn?

Yeah I'm sure this came up in an actual game of magic

Lets assume you meant lightning bolt not Lava spike we are also going to assume it is Alice's turn.

The bolt would try to deal 3 damage to the unicorn. Now their are multiple replacement effects trying to change how much damage that bolt deals and since Bob controls the unicorn he gets to choose the order that they apply. he could stack apply both unicorn's first and then the Furnaces', or he could do it in the other order, or he could mix it up. If he wants to do the least amount of damage he would use the unicorns to reduce the damage to 1, and then the two furnaces would quadruple it to 4, if he wanted it to deal the most damage he would apply the furnaces to make it 12 and then the unicorns to reduce it to 10

Lets assume 4 is going to the unicorn. Each copy of repercussions triggers separately dealing 4 each to their controller. The first trigger would try to hit Bob and get redirected by his Pariah to Alice's Grollub. This 4 damage would be modified by the furnaces to deal 16 damage, puts a trigger on the stack for Bob to gain 16 life and causes the repercussions to both trigger again this time heading at Alice. Grollub would then die due to state based effects.

Lets look at the stack for a second:
Gollub gains Bob 16 life
Repercussions deals 16 damage to Alice
Repercussions deals 16 damage to Alice
Repercussions deals 4 damage to Bob

So Bob would gain 16 and then the first Repercussions trigger would try to hit Alice. It would get sent back to Bob's Gollub by Pariah and is modified by the Furnaces to deal 64 damage. This creates one Gollub trigger and then two furnace triggers. However due to "Active Player Non-active player order the stack looks like this"

Repercussions deals 64 damage to Bob
Repercussions deals 64 damage to Bob
Gollub has Alice gain 64 life
Repercussions deals 16 damage to Alice
Repercussions deals 4 damage to bob

Since the Pariah's are gone it gets much easier. Each of the last two triggers hits Bob for 256 for a total of 512 damage, then Alice gets hit for 64, and then Bob gets hit again for 16.

In the end Alice takes nothing(64 damage - gaining 64 life) and Bob has taken 512 damage (a total of 528 damage + gaining 16 life) and they each have a very dead Gollub, a pariah in the yard, and bob has a dead unicorn. Although in reality, the first time Bob actually gets hit by a repercussions and he takes 64 he will probably die having taken a total of 48 damage. And if Alice had done this all on his turn instead of hers he wouldn't have gained the life until after he took 64 to the face twice.

Now if you remember, Bob could have chosen to have the bolt deal 10 damage in which case he would have taken 40+(160x4x2) for a total of 1320 and gained 40 life for a total of 1280.

I think this is all correct, although some of my math could be off and I have a suspicion that I missed a replacement effect somewhere in there.

[Lemegeton]

ok thanks guys. it was in his 1st main phase so he could fb the verdict but he did it too quick i.e. he played the mage and straight away moved the verdict on to the stack. so he was wrong for not allowing me to respond first once the verdict was targeted by the mage.

thanks

[Lord Hosk]

Part of the complexity of Magic is there are 13 "steps" to a turn, each one has a almost infinite number of responses and reresponses. And then you have substeps and triggers

But you dont "play" each one I had one occasion like that.

I went to attack with wolfier silverheart, the guy didnt block my attack and just "took 4" I said "excuse me, I wasnt done" I had 4 open mana with a joint assault and a Wolfir Avenger, so I tapped my land and layed them each down but he said "nope you cant do it now I already took the damage"

It was at the prerelease though and I was a "new" player so I didn't call a judge, I should have it would have won me the game because he was at 10.

[Lemegeton]

Part of the complexity of Magic is there are 13 "steps" to a turn, each one has a almost infinite number of responses and reresponses. And then you have substeps and triggers

But you dont "play" each one I had one occasion like that.

I went to attack with wolfier silverheart, the guy didnt block my attack and just "took 4" I said "excuse me, I wasnt done" I had 4 open mana with a joint assault and a Wolfir Avenger, so I tapped my land and layed them each down but he said "nope you cant do it now I already took the damage"

It was at the prerelease though and I was a "new" player so I didn't call a judge, I should have it would have won me the game because he was at 10.

yeah i got very confused in my early days of playing because people did that to me. I have gotten into the habit now of asking "any blocks" and when they say no i say "before combat damage i will play this" like a giant growth or something.

[Lemegeton]

back again guys. playing a crapload of magic atm. here is my latest query

i had a blood artist and olivia voldaren in play. opponent also cast an olivia.
on my turn i used olivias ability to gain control of his olivia. this caused the legendary rule to come into play and my understanding is both legendary creatures are 'destroyed' and go to owners graveyards and I get 2 triggers from blood artist.

does this work ????

[Under_Score]

As far as I know about the Legend rule (and I could be wrong), both Olivias will die as soon as your opponent casts his.

[Kapol]

I went to attack with wolfier silverheart, the guy didnt block my attack and just "took 4" I said "excuse me, I wasnt done" I had 4 open mana with a joint assault and a Wolfir Avenger, so I tapped my land and layed them each down but he said "nope you cant do it now I already took the damage"

It was at the prerelease though and I was a "new" player so I didn't call a judge, I should have it would have won me the game because he was at 10.

I hate people like that. Calling a judge would make me feel like a jerk, but when a person is trying to cheat it's the only way to get anything resolved. Oh well. :/

back again guys. playing a crapload of magic atm. here is my latest query

i had a blood artist and olivia voldaren in play. opponent also cast an olivia.
on my turn i used olivias ability to gain control of his olivia. this caused the legendary rule to come into play and my understanding is both legendary creatures are 'destroyed' and go to owners graveyards and I get 2 triggers from blood artist.

does this work ????

Both die before they can do anything due to state-based action. There's no way to save them. Nor can you use either of their abilities to do anything once they're both on the field.

And yes, since they die, Blood Artist would trigger. At least I'm confident it would.

[phlip]

Yeah, the legend rule happens whenever there's two Legendary permanents with the same name on the battlefield, not just controlled by the same player. So as soon as their Olivia resolved, they should have both been put into graveyards, which would have triggered Blood Artist. The legend rule doesn't "destroy" them (indestructible or regen don't stop it) but it still counts as "dying" for Blood Artist (as it's still going battlefield to graveyard).

[Lemegeton]

Ah I was not aware the legendary rule counted if we both had the same legendary creature. Thanks again

[Lord Hosk]

If your opponent casts Sphere of safety can you use redirect to put it on your board?

i know you can do creature enchantments.

[Kapol]

Is the new Orzhov guildleader's secondary ability technically an activated ability? I'm wondering if it can be stopped using Arrest or something similar. I'm guessing not, but I'd rather be sure.

[SilPho]

If your opponent casts Sphere of safety can you use redirect to put it on your board?

i know you can do creature enchantments.

Nope. Enchantments (that are not Auras) do not target anything, so Redirect is pretty much useless.

Is the new Orzhov guildleader's secondary ability technically an activated ability? I'm wondering if it can be stopped using Arrest or something similar. I'm guessing not, but I'd rather be sure.

Assuming you mean Obzedet, Ghost Council, no. It's a triggered ability.

Activated abilities always have a cost that you have to pay yourself. Triggered abilities will trigger whether you want them to or not (even the "may" ones still trigger, but you can chose not to use them when they resolve)

[Lemegeton]

2 questions about consuming aberration.

1. does its ability trigger even if a spell is countered. because the wording says when you 'cast' a spell. to me that suggests the ability triggers once you have a spell on the stack.

2. and leading on from that will it combo with balustrade spy i.e. if i play the spy with the aberration already out will they have to mill until land twice?

[vazhkatsi]

question- one author of a blog i was reading thinks you can recipher off of a copy of the ciphered spell, I'm pretty sure that you can only do that off of the original card itself, but I'm a bit muddy on the exact rules for cipher, and theres no oracle text about it

[phlip]

The reminder text says "spell card", and the real rules text is much more explicit: you can only encode if the spell is an actual card, not a copy. Even if you could encode the copy, it wouldn't work - a copy of a spell that isn't on the stack disappears as a state-based action, same as a token that isn't on the battlefield.

[batosai33]

I have a question about something my friends have said that sound really weird. It might have been asked, but 47 pages is a lot to go through, so sorry if it's a repeat.

The question is about oblivion ring.

An interesting interaction I know works is that if an oblivion ring is destroyed before it's target is exiled, that card is permanently exiled (the return is on the stack above the exile, nothing to return, then it exiles).

However my friends have claimed there were some special rules made for oblivion ring that allows one oblivion ring to exile another oblivion ring before the first oblivion ring exiles the card, achieving the above effect with two oblivion rings.

Essentially I boiled it down to "an oblivion ring has flash as long as it is used to exile another oblivion ring" and they agreed.

Anyone else who told me this, would have laughed off, but one of my friends has taken and passed the lvl 2 judge test and says he is keeping up on the "wierd rules" of magic.

Thanks

[phlip]

No, unless you have something else giving the second Oblivion Ring flash (say, Alchemist's Refuge for example) you can't cast it in response to the first Oblivion Ring's trigger. You can only cast Sorcery-speed spells when the stack is empty.

[Kapol]

I have a question not about what happens when an illegal spell is played.

The situation is this. I swing in with a Legion Loyalist. He makes a 1/1 spirit with Beckon Apparition to block. I use Furious Resistance (without honestly realizing I couldn't use it). He accepts it and lets his spirit die. He then goes on to go through his entire turn.

Then, during my first main phase, he realizes that the spell was target blocking creature. He tries to get me to undo the last few moves. Not knowing the proper etiquite, I call over the judge. Judge asks if the other player could remember ever move played since it was played, he says yes (he'd played on creature during his turn and, if I remember, didn't attack). So the judge says to basically undo what happened. And since his spirit was the only target for the spell, he also returns it to the field.

Now, had I know that was what happened during the turn, I would have played the rest of my turn differently (I had something in my hand I decided not to play, but don't remember what it was off hand). And I'm not sure if he would have. So was this the right call on the judge's part? Or is the situation left up to the judge of the event?