Best rules argument you've had

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Aydin225
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Best rules argument you've had

Postby Aydin225 » 14 May 2013, 04:46

So my brother and I are in the midst of an hour long debate on the rules of hexproof (he's 15, i'm 24). He will not accept that Gideon Jura's +2 ability affects creatures with hexproof, regardless of how many different ways I explain how the target keyword works. His main deck is an illusion tribal deck, so hexproof is kind of a big deal for him, so this keeps coming up.

It made me wonder what other crazy frustrating arguments you have had over the rules of magic with friends and family?
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ZePancakes
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby ZePancakes » 14 May 2013, 05:05

Since my family doesn't play I can't really give one like that, but I have had to get people to back me up and get a judge to tell my opponent that I can pump my Frostburn Weird more than once. When you play for a good while and someone says you can't do something that is a tendency to get defensive. Therefore judges are good for mitigation, but with a lack of judge? Usually the more seasoned player is correct. Unless they're trying to screw you over through your lack of knowledge.
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AdmiralMemo
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby AdmiralMemo » 14 May 2013, 15:16

Regarding the Gideon thing, if you need backup, here's the Oracle ruling:
Oracle wrote:Gideon Jura's first ability doesn't lock in what it applies to. That's because the effect states a true thing about a set of creatures, but doesn't actually change the characteristics of those creatures. As a result, whatever creatures the targeted opponent controls during the declare attackers step of his or her next turn must attack Gideon Jura if able. This includes creatures that come under that player's control after the ability has resolved and creatures that have lost all abilities.
That's pretty definitive, in that it is the player that is targeted, not the creatures. Hexproof only protects against spells that target the creature, so they're not immune to a Wrath or other such things either.
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby Duckay » 14 May 2013, 16:33

I got into the habit pretty early on of asking for a judge's ruling or checking on Gatherer if there was a rules dispute, because when I was a newer player I had several rules disputes with more seasoned players where I was left more confused afterwards, either because they turned out to be wrong or because they explained it in a way that made sense to them as someone who was more familiar with the game but none to me.

I remember a lot of rules disputes I've had, but none that were particularly "interesting". The most recent was when my opponent called a judge to determine who won our game at the pre-release because he didn't believe me. The situation was that we were both on 2 life, and I had attacked with two creatures, each with 2 power (though I don't remember what they were). He blocked one of them with his Boros Reckoner (his only blocker) and said that meant that the game was a draw because lethal damage was dealt to him by my second creature at the same time as lethal damage was dealt to me by Boros Reckoner's ability. Judge's ruling was that combat damage was dealt to the Boros Reckoner and to him at the same time, killing him before Boros Reckoner's ability went off.
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby korvys » 14 May 2013, 17:16

Before I quit (6 years ago, back for 3 weeks now) I was a judge, and enjoyed chatting with other judges online.

Anyway, not an argument as such, but we once figured out a way to, in theory, get a token onto the stack. It disappears as a state based action immediately, but that's not really the point.

I don't think you can do it anymore (we might not have been able to even then), they've cleaned up some rules.
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Dominic Appleguard
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby Dominic Appleguard » 14 May 2013, 20:30

In my first Dragon's Maze draft, I had a very minor (but hilarious) rules argument that I already described in less detail in the general thread; namely, I copied my opponent's Trostani's Summoner with Stolen Identity.

At the time, I had a couple Evolve creatures out, namely Simic Manipulator and Fathom Mage. So I was looking forward to some pretty hilarious interactions. But I was a less seasoned player, so he wasn't prepared to believe me when I said I could stack the triggers in such a way as to make my guys evolve multiple times.

Fortunately, there was someone else there who was more convincing. This conversation had the added bonus of attracting the attention of several other players, who stood nearby to watch our frankly ridiculous boardstate reach its inevitable conclusion.

[Yeah, I won. I wasn't lucky enough to have an evasive guy, like my Elusive Krasis, as a Cipher target, but maybe that would have been greedy.]
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby AdmiralMemo » 14 May 2013, 21:05

korvys wrote:Anyway, not an argument as such, but we once figured out a way to, in theory, get a token onto the stack. It disappears as a state based action immediately, but that's not really the point.
Some of the funniest things that can happen in MtG are either not relevant to the game or are bad ideas, but still hilarious. :D
Dominic Appleguard wrote:In my first Dragon's Maze draft, I had a very minor (but hilarious) rules argument that I already described in less detail in the general thread; namely, I copied my opponent's Trostani's Summoner with Stolen Identity.

At the time, I had a couple Evolve creatures out, namely Simic Manipulator and Fathom Mage. So I was looking forward to some pretty hilarious interactions. But I was a less seasoned player, so he wasn't prepared to believe me when I said I could stack the triggers in such a way as to make my guys evolve multiple times.

Fortunately, there was someone else there who was more convincing. This conversation had the added bonus of attracting the attention of several other players, who stood nearby to watch our frankly ridiculous boardstate reach its inevitable conclusion.
Yeah, I totally had some way of stacking multiple evolve triggers on MtGO that allowed me to double-evolve guys like that. :)
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LRRcast wrote:Paul: That does not answer that question at all.
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby Bluenoser » 15 May 2013, 13:24

I do believe the Evolve one works like this:

Evolve checks the condition twice, first when the creature enters the battlefield, then when the ability resolves.

When Tristani's Summoner hits the board, the menagerie also hits the board, giving the evolve creature 4 triggers. In order to have them all resolve and result in growth, they need to be stacked such that they resolve in increasing power/toughness level.
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Rootbreaker
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby Rootbreaker » 15 May 2013, 13:41

Bluenoser wrote:I do believe the Evolve one works like this:

Evolve checks the condition twice, first when the creature enters the battlefield, then when the ability resolves.

When Tristani's Summoner hits the board, the menagerie also hits the board, giving the evolve creature 4 triggers. In order to have them all resolve and result in growth, they need to be stacked such that they resolve in increasing power/toughness level.
Remember that creating the menagerie (as you call it) is its own triggered ability, so if the summoner's 1/1 body evolves anything on its own, you'll want to put the evolve trigger on the stack after the token creating trigger, so it resolves before you get the larger tokens.
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby Jenelmo » 16 May 2013, 11:32

I don't know it is a fun story but it is a weird one.
This was not my match, i was sitting next to it as i already was done with my match. The format was legacy.
One player (A)was new to the format i believe he normally plays standard the other was a player (B) who often played weird often not good decks.
This time he was playing a Humility + Opalescence deck with man lands and enchantments.
For people who does not know this, this is a very weird situation, Humility in itself is sometime hard to understand as you are working with layers but if you combine it with one or more Opalescence it is a nightmare of layers and timestamps. This is so comblicated that there in Gatherer is an 10 line explanation on what happens if they are on the battlefield at the same time.

What ended up happening was a 10-15 minute explanation of layers and player (A) who became more and more confused and annoyed as his thing didn't work and his opponent who had build his deck around this had all his things still working.

If Anyone will try to read how this combination works this is the current ruling
This is the current interaction between Humility and Opalescence:
The type-changing effect applies at layer 4, but the rest happens in the applicable layers. The rest of it will apply even if the permanent loses its ability before it's finished applying. So if Opalescence, Humility, and Worship are on the battlefield and Opalescence entered the battlefield before Humility, the following is true: Layer 4: Humility and Worship each become creatures that are still enchantments. (Opalescence). Layer 6: Humility and Worship each lose their abilities. (Humility) Layer 7b: Humility becomes 4/4 and Worship becomes 4/4. (Opalescence). Humility becomes 1/1 and Worship becomes 1/1 (Humility). But if Humility entered the battlefield before Opalescence, the following is true: Layer 4: Humility and Worship each become creatures that are still enchantments (Opalescence). Layer 6: Humility and Worship each lose their abilities (Humility). Layer 7b: Humility becomes 1/1 and Worship becomes 1/1 (Humility). Humility becomes 4/4 and Worship becomes 4/4 (Opalescence).
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby phlip » 22 May 2013, 18:35

Wait, Humility+Opalescence is a deck? I thought it was just a pair of cards that happened to have a complex interaction and gave aspiring rules-gurus nightmares. I didn't think they were actually a combo in any actual gameplay sense...
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby Utilitarian » 22 May 2013, 22:45

That's... I... I don't even.... *sound of head exploding*
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby EikoandMog » 23 May 2013, 02:50

Recently I had an argument about the status of blocking creatures. I generally only play 1v1 so the idea of tapping blocking creatures was normal to me. Apparently, the do not tap. This is good news to me.
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby Lurkon » 23 May 2013, 05:43

EikoandMog wrote:Recently I had an argument about the status of blocking creatures. I generally only play 1v1 so the idea of tapping blocking creatures was normal to me. Apparently, the do not tap. This is good news to me.


Tapping blocking creatures is a habit that I have to break every single person I teach Magic: The Gathering to. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but practically everyone I teach ends up with the idea that they have to tap to block, and I immediately tell them they don't, but they keep doing it for a LONG time afterwards...

I'm not looking forward to legend rule arguments after July 13th. That change is going to cause my local metagame to shift drastically... We mostly play Commander.
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby Lemegeton » 23 May 2013, 06:25

lol i was tapping to block for my first 6 months before someone actually told me i didn't need to
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby Jenelmo » 23 May 2013, 07:34

phlip wrote:Wait, Humility+Opalescence is a deck? I thought it was just a pair of cards that happened to have a complex interaction and gave aspiring rules-gurus nightmares. I didn't think they were actually a combo in any actual gameplay sense...


It is't a deck in the sense that it is a real known deck
It is just a guy who like to make weird decks who thought that it would be fun
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby Utilitarian » 23 May 2013, 08:25

I... why would you need to tap to block? I understand that you don't and have never thought of it that way but I'm just curious why anyone would think that in the first place?
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby Lurkon » 23 May 2013, 09:36

Utilitarian wrote:I... why would you need to tap to block? I understand that you don't and have never thought of it that way but I'm just curious why anyone would think that in the first place?


I've never really understood it. I think, perhaps, when the rules are explained to them, they internalize the "Tap cards to do things with cards" idea and just apply it across the board. I've seen people tap cards with abilities that don't require tapping in order to use those abilities, too.
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby tamaness » 23 May 2013, 16:30

It's one of those things that's both incredibly intuitive and absolutely wrong. I seem to remember doing it myself while playing with the Portal intro pack. Fortunately for me, I actually read the little rules inserts they put in the deck boxes back in the day, and that set me straight pretty quick.
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby Trymantha » 05 Jun 2013, 03:17

Jenelmo wrote:I don't know it is a fun story but it is a weird one.
This was not my match, i was sitting next to it as i already was done with my match. The format was legacy.
One player (A)was new to the format i believe he normally plays standard the other was a player (B) who often played weird often not good decks.
This time he was playing a Humility + Opalescence deck with man lands and enchantments.
For people who does not know this, this is a very weird situation, Humility in itself is sometime hard to understand as you are working with layers but if you combine it with one or more Opalescence it is a nightmare of layers and timestamps. This is so comblicated that there in Gatherer is an 10 line explanation on what happens if they are on the battlefield at the same time.

What ended up happening was a 10-15 minute explanation of layers and player (A) who became more and more confused and annoyed as his thing didn't work and his opponent who had build his deck around this had all his things still working.



yeah we had someone want to play this deck, our TO wouldn't let him enter the tourney until he could explain that interaction(yes the TO knew how it worked beforehand).

another habit I have is when people do the oblivionring/feind hunter instant sac trick i make them tell me how they are putting the triggers on the stack the first time they do it.


on topic this thread comes to mind http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/ ... rowth?pg=1.
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Re: Best rules argument you've had

Postby Carl_Miller » 10 Jun 2013, 19:09

I remember the FNM at which I blundered my way into top.

Round 1: Opponent match-lossed for tardiness whilst in line for a sub.
Round 2: Opponent brings 57 card deck.
Round 3: Opponent drops.
Round 4: O-Ring lock three times over, 0-0-3 draw into top.
Top: Prizes split. Got $6.

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