Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

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SilPho
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby SilPho » 04 Oct 2011, 22:59

Correct. Once a creature becomes blocked it will remain blocked even if the creature blocking it is no longer around when damage is dealt. Only trample will allow the creature to get its damage through. This is why cards like Curtain of Light are actually useful.

A common mistake occurs with Double Strike. If an attacker with double strike manages to kill off the blocking creature in the first combat-damage step then it will NOT deal any damage in the second combat-damage step unless it has trample.
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Geoff_B » 04 Oct 2011, 23:34

Is there some sort of convention for indicating that situation? For example if a blocking creature dies but the attacker is still blocked then the blocker is turned face down and only sent to the graveyard at the end of combat?
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby SilPho » 05 Oct 2011, 09:42

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking there, Geoff.

Basically if a creature is blocked it will remain blocked until the end of combat, any exceptions are very rare. It takes a card such as Balduvian Warlord to make a blocked creature "unblocked".
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Geoff_B » 05 Oct 2011, 09:54

I was just wondering if there was a common way of indicating that the blocked creature was still blocked even though the blocker is now dead. Such as turning the blocker face down to indicate that it was in effect still blocking the attacker.
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Avistew » 05 Oct 2011, 10:00

I don't think you need such a way. It all goes super fast so you just remember it when you calculate the damage.
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby SilPho » 05 Oct 2011, 10:14

There certainly isn't a common way of doing so, and I wouldn't suggest turning cards face down, especially with DFCs seeing a lot of play.

Best thing to do is either remember the information or, if the situation is sufficiently complex, move the affected cards to one side of the battlefield to help visualise the differences.
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Drunk On Mystery » 05 Oct 2011, 12:18

If a 4/4 green creature with trample is blocked by a 3/3 creature that's pro-green, does the defending player take trample damage?
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Geoff_B » 05 Oct 2011, 12:44

I would say yes for that - the 4/4 would still deal the damage to the 3/3, the 3/3 just wouldn't take any of it and so there would be 1 left to the player.

Is that how it would go?
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby SilPho » 05 Oct 2011, 13:15

It is indeed.

When dealing with trample you only need to assign enough damage to each blocking creature such that under normal conditions the blocker would be killed, otherwise known as "lethal damage".

"Lethal damage" does consider damage taken earlier in the turn but ignores protection, prevention effects, regeneration, and other such effects. 1 point of deathtouch damage is also considered lethal.

Hopefully I've explained this well enough but do feel free to ask if any strange (or simple) cases come to mind.
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Matt » 05 Oct 2011, 13:40

So, additional question then:

I have a creature. It's green, 2/2, deathtouch and trample. It's blocked by a 2/2 with pro green.

If the 1 deathtouch damage is ordinarily lethal, does the additional point carry through to the player?

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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby SilPho » 05 Oct 2011, 22:55

Short Answer: Yes it does.

Long Answer:
I'm going to use quotes from the Comprehensive rules to field this one.

Rule 510.1c reads, in part:
When checking for assigned lethal damage, take into account damage already marked on the creature and damage from other creatures that‘s being assigned during the same combat damage step, but not any abilities or effects that might change the amount of damage that‘s actually dealt.

Rule 702.2b reads:
Any nonzero amount of combat damage assigned to a creature by a source with deathtouch is considered to be lethal damage, regardless of that creature‘s toughness.


Deathtouch and trample are a very deadly combination. Protection, Wither, Infect (and probably others) don't matter during damage assignment but do change how damage is eventually dealt.
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Geoff_B » 05 Oct 2011, 23:38

Why are the comprehensive rules not very comprehensible? :D
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby SilPho » 06 Oct 2011, 12:00

It may be difficult to understand in places (a few come to mind) but it's actually one of the most impressive documents I've ever read. There's an answer to pretty much any question you can conceive, which is mighty impressive when you consider how many crazy interactions you can make from 11,000 cards.
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Drunk On Mystery » 12 Oct 2011, 08:37

Ok, I wasn't playing Magic at the time Planeswalkers were introduced, so I'm still trying to figure out the rules for them.

Can a player have more than one planeswalker in play at the same time?

Also: If I play one of the umpteen variations on Clone, and the creature I'm cloning has a "come into play" ability, does the clone enter play and trigger the come into play ability?

For the sake of example, lets say I play an Evil Twin and I choose to copy a Grave Titan. Does the Evil Twin give me zombie tokens?
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Avistew » 12 Oct 2011, 10:22

I asked that question before and the answer I got was:

You can have more than one planeswalker in play provided it's not the same one. If you play the same planeswalker as someone else (or a second copy of it) they both are taken out of play (I can't remember if they're exhiled or go to the graveyards).
However you can have the same person twice if it's a different version of them. There are a bunch of different Garruks for instance. It just needs not to be the same card, even if it's actually the same person.
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Matt » 12 Oct 2011, 10:30

Uhh... I'm pretty sure that's wrong, because I understand it was a fairly common defence against Jace, the Mind Sculptor, to run Jace Belerens just so when JTMS came out, you could play baby jace to kill him.

That is to say, if you play more than one version of a single PW, they die.

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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Avistew » 12 Oct 2011, 10:38

Mmh, good to know. I remember being surprised by the idea that you could have two that are the same person. I guess I should have double-checked, but to be honest it's not an issue I've ever had, I have no planewalkers in any of my decks.
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby dackwards d » 12 Oct 2011, 10:55

Each planeswalker has a subtype. For example, Sarkhan Vol says "Planeswalker — Sarkhan" on its type line. If two or more planeswalkers that share a subtype are in play, they're all put into their owners' graveyards.
(http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Article.aspx?x=magic/rules/planeswalkers)
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Avistew » 12 Oct 2011, 11:15

So the people who make decks with two Ajanis can't play both of them if they both end up into their hands, right? That would mean there is no advantage to putting both as opposed to two of the same, am I correct? You could technically have up to 4 just like for any other card I assume, since I didn't see otherwise on the page you linked.
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby dackwards d » 12 Oct 2011, 11:35

They wouldn't be able to play them simultaneously, but as far as I know there isn't anything stopping a person from having 4 Jace Belerens and 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor and summon 8 Jaces in a row, waiting for the previous one to die. I don't know for sure though, I'm not that familiar with the planeswalker rules myself tbh.
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Matt » 12 Oct 2011, 11:44

Same as legendary creatures. You can have four of the same in your deck, but one of any given legendary in play at a time.

No reason not to have Four Ajani Vengent and four Ajani Goldmane. Just only one can be in play at a time.

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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby SilPho » 12 Oct 2011, 11:54

Just to clarify the rules regarding multiple planeswalkers - The type line is what matters here. The names of the card are irrelevant for this rule. Jace, Jace and Jace all have the same Planeswalker type (Jace). At any given point there can only ever be one planeswalker with a given type on the battlefield. There is of course nothing stopping you from controlling 15 different planeswalkers as long as they all have different types.

If at any point there are two planeswalkers with the same type they both go the graveyard as a state-based action. This means nobody can respond to it in any way.

There is nothing to stop somebody playing a Jace when another is on the battlefield, (thus removing both) of them and then casting a third Jace on the same turn. And if by some strange occurrence you are able to change the type of a planeswalker then only that new type is considered when checking for duplicates. I'm too tired to dig out an example of this but chances are it'll never happen anyway.
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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Avistew » 12 Oct 2011, 11:57

Right. I was mostly wondering because so many decks seem to have one of each, when two of the same would work too, but I guess it's for greater variety or something.

At any rate, good to know. My fiancé got a Karn for me (I play an artifact deck) so I should get to play with a planeswalker soon.

Speaking of Karn, he has a planeswalker cart, but also a legendary creature card. I wonder if they can both be in play? They should, technically, since they're not the same type.

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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby Matt » 12 Oct 2011, 11:58

Here I was gonna get all snarky and be like "well, you couldn't have 15 planeswalkers because there aren't that many", but yeah, there actually are.

15 exactly. I counted. :(

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Re: Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

Postby SilPho » 12 Oct 2011, 12:03

Sorry Matt, but I checked the list as well. I'd love to see a game where someone manages to pull that off.

As for Karn having both a legendary creature and a Planeswalker card. Yes, both of them can exist at the same time. Nicol Bolas is in the same situation.

It all comes down to types again. Creature types and planeswalker types don't interact with each other. Even if a new planeswalker had the same type as a creature it wouldn't matter. Fortunately I don't think Wizards would allow that confusion to happen.

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