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That or maybe bludrush from Gruul, other than that I can't think of anyone casting a bunch of spells at once.

Or in multiplayer games, like if Person A casts a thing and Person B casts something of their own in response, to stop both people's cards resolving. Bloodrush is an ability, not a spell, though, so won't be countered by things like that.

Ah good to know about bludrush. I don't play many multiplayer matches so that nvr occurred to me. Would love to just watch everyone do a bunch of stuff and then just sweep the rug out from under them all.

It's worth noting that in most cases if one player is casting a lot of spells at once, even combat tricks or whatever, they won't all be on the stack at the same time. This is explicit in the tournament rules as a shortcut... if I tap two forests, and cast two Giant Growths from my hand, and say "give my guy +6/+6", this is actually an accepted standard shortcut for "Cast this Giant Growth, let it resolve, then cast this second Giant Growth". You would still have the option to respond to either of them (and if you respond to the first, I can change my mind about whether to cast the second), but there's no point where you could overload Counterflux and counter both of them - that would require me to explicitly cast one Giant Growth, and then in response to it, cast the second Giant Growth, so that they're both on the stack together, and this very rarely happens.

It usually only comes up (a) when spells are copied (Storm, Nivix Guildmage, Melek...), the copies are all on the stack together, or (b) when players are responding to each other. And even then, most deep stacks in two-player come up with things like counter battles, and in those usually there's only one spell that actually matters at any point (one spell of your opponent you need to counter to stop their spell or let yours resolve) so not much gain from overloading. Some super-marginal situations, or multiplayer where you want to counter all of a stack from two other players.

Counterflux is also useful against a few select cards from the Return to Ravnica block itself: Melek, Izzet Paragon and Nivix Guildmage. Granted this would require both players to be using Izzet.

Seems to me as though it really is designed for decks such as Storm, Cascade, and maybe a few others.

working on some ideas for a modern B/R splash white vampire deck.
what would happen if i flicker malakir bloodwitch and all my other guys with legions initiative. will i get anything off of the ETB trigger at the start of combat. as they all come back in together.

so i guess the question is does it check for how many vamps i have before the trigger stacks or after

It will count the vampires when the trigger resolves, so it will count all the vampires that came back.

Correct. For a little more information, read on:

Any triggered ability (identified by use of the words "When", "Whenever", or "At the start of...") will do any counts or checks when it resolves.

Legal targets (such as "target creature" or "target artifact with converted mana cost 3 or less") are checked when they are put onto the stack AND when they resolve.

While at the prerelease, I was watching a game with a guy playing a foil Archangel of Thune unsleeved on a bear table and riffle shuffling, two questions.

1. Did you just have a heart attack when you read that?

2. As a casual observer after my match had finished, I saw him putting counters only on the angel when he gained life. Now this is a disadvantage to him, but it also means he was only applying half of the triggered ability. I asked the judge about it and he went over to check it out but the game was done two turns later before another trigger happened. In that spot, should I have told the player? Im not exactly sure on what the rules are for a person in my position there, I know its a prerelease which is more "casual" but its still a sanctioned event and and I know "outside advice" is a no no.

So what is the official "this is what is supposed to happen" leaving out the whole "well its nice to..." and "its a casual event so..." stuff.

Best practise (since that's what these events want to encourage) is to ask the players to wait for a moment while you inform a judge. (But tell the judge privately). He or she will probably do exactly what you would do, inform the player of how the card works, but this way it's fair for everyone involved.

Pre-releases operate at "Regular Rules Enforcement", which means the head (and possibly only) judge doesn't need to be certified. Therefore they don't need to know the full ruleset, hence there are no hard and fast tournament rules for casual events. There is a simplified document known as "Judging at Regular REL", and that document essentially says that giving advice (which this is considered to be) is not desirable behaviour. Nobody is going to get disqualified for it (unless they do it again and again, deliberately) but try to avoid it where possible.

Here's a question: at the M14 prerelease, I was playing against one of the friends I'd dragged there in our second game, and halfway through the game he played out his promo Megantic Sliver. He's only ever played in the Return to Ravnica block prereleases, so he didn't know he wasn't allowed to play the promo. He's a friend, so I didn't want him to get a game loss out of the deal, so we just agreed that he'd swap that card out for a basic land for that game and then decide what more to do with that card slot next time he sideboarded. Should I have handled that differently? It didn't impact the rest of the tournament since he hadn't gotten that card out in any other games, so I feel like that was kind of a win-win for us since we didn't get a judge involved and just kept playing. Should I have called the judge instead?

Yeah, you should have told one of the judges. If the guy is new then the judge will most likely follow a path similar to what you decided to do anyway.

Whereas what you did end up doing is actually the kind of thing that you really could get in to trouble for, even at events like that. By hiding it you were potentially facing disqualification if someone had overheard and told a judge, whereas just coming clean about it straight away would have just been a quick explanation of why the promo isn't allowed, and no further penalty.

I could get pretty deep into the philosophies behind this but suffice to say when in doubt always call a judge, because not calling them has the potential to be a lot worse.

It is true. Judges are not as scary as people think. A friend of mine and I were matched against each other in the second round of a big tournament once and he realized going into game two that he was missing a card from his deck. He called a judge over immediately to talk about it and I could see he was sweating buckets wondering if he was going to get a game loss or worse on top of losing the card. The judges were really good about it, though, helped him look for it and then gave us a time extension on our game and told him he could replace the card with either a basic land or another copy of that card if he could find one. Much better than if he'd tried to hide it or fix it himself, even though he was nervous about talking to the judges.

What do you do if you accidentally shuffle a token into the deck?

I have picked up my cards before, tossed a token into the deck and realized it about half way through the next game when I see it isnt next to my counters.

I never drew it, and I didnt need it but I was like "oh crap"

Not a judge here, but if I saw it while searching my library, I would just call a judge (if at a judged event), admit what happened, and set it aside. If drawn, I would let my opponent and the judge know and then draw the next card. If not drawn or seen, I wouldn't worry too much. I only think it would really matter if it affected play at all.

If the turn a creature is put onto the battlefield, it is somehow made into a land, can it be tapped for mana (as a land)?

Similarly, if the turn a land is put onto the battlefield, it is made into a creature somehow, can it no longer be tapped for mana this turn?

(in both cases relating to summoning sickness)

If it's a creature at the time, you can't tap it. If not, you can. What it was earlier doesn't matter.

Lord Hosk wrote:What do you do if you accidentally shuffle a token into the deck?

Always call a judge In FNMs, pre-releases, etc, the judge may remove it from the deck for you or simply instruct you to put it aside if you find it. In more competitive environments such as PTQs, GPs, etc, this is something of a grey area, since it doesn't meet the technical definiton of a Deck/Decklist problem. You don't stand to benefit from having the token in your deck so you'll probably walk away without a penalty if you call a judge immediately.

Of course, this is only likely to happen when you sleeve your tokens in the same colour as your deck, which is why many people play their tokens (and sometimes Double-Faced cards) in different coloured sleeves.

Utilitarian wrote:If the turn a creature is put onto the battlefield, it is somehow made into a land, can it be tapped for mana (as a land)?

Similarly, if the turn a land is put onto the battlefield, it is made into a creature somehow, can it no longer be tapped for mana this turn?

If the creature has Haste, you can tap it for mana. Otherwise treat it the same way as tapping something like Llanowar Elves, Elvish Archdruid, or Elvish Mystic for mana on the first turn. If the card is a Creature, no matter what else it may be, it's subject to standard "summoning sickness" rules.

Dryad Arbor is also a good example there, as it is currently the only card that is a Land Creature. It cannot be tapped for mana the turn you play it unless, like SilPho said, something gives it haste.

Hello. My question revolves around the Evolve mechanic.

Situation: I have a Crocanura in play with one +1/+1 counter on it, making it a 2/4 creature. I also have a Legion's Initiative in play, giving red creatures +1 power and white creatures +1 toughness. If I play a Haazda Snare Squad (1/4 white creature), will the Crocanura Evolve ability trigger, since the Haazda Snare Squad would have 5 toughness due to Legion's Initiative?

Thank you.

I'm pretty sure the answer is yes.

Evolve checks to see if it will trigger when a creature enters the battlefield. Once a creature hits the battlefield, static pump like Legion's is applied instantly. So Haazada Snare Squad will enter as a 1/5, triggering the evolve on Crocanura. Just like if you played a 0/0 creature and had a static pump llike Legion's or Collective Blessing, it wouldn't die.

Kapol is correct. There is never a time that your Snare Squad is on the battlefield with 4 toughness, it enters as a 2/5 thanks to Legion's Initiative.

Good example with the 0/0 creatures too.

Quick correction: Snare Squad would only be a 1/5 since it's mono-white. Just wanted to make sure that doesn't cause confusion.

hey judges. i have read up on the rulings here and im sure this is ok but like to double check.
i have a shadowborn demon in play and an experiment one with counters on it.
come my upkeep if the 2nd ability on the demon triggers and goes on the stack i get priority again to remove the counters from the experiment one to activate regen shield.
then priority passes to my opponent to respond and assuming they do nothing the abilities resolve and i sac my experiment one in response to the demon trigger resolving and regen kicks in and i keep my guy.

Pretty sure the answer is no.

Sacrifice is not a destruction effect, and regeneration is a 'destroy'-shield. So you can't sac and regen to save the creature since it isn't actually being destroyed, it's being sacrificed.