Magic the Gathering: Ask a Judge

[korvys]

No, Regeneration will not protect you creature from being sacrificed.

From the Comp Rules:

"Regenerate [permanent]" means "The next time [permanent] would be destroyed this turn, instead remove all damage marked on it and tap it."

Note that lethal damage "destroys" a creature, but sacrificing it does not.

701.6. Destroy
701.6a To destroy a permanent, move it from the battlefield to its owner’s graveyard.
701.6b The only ways a permanent can be destroyed are as a result of an effect that uses the word "destroy" or as a result of the state-based actions that check for lethal damage (see rule 704.5g) or damage from a source with deathtouch (see rule 704.5h). If a permanent is put into its owner’s graveyard for any other reason, it hasn’t been "destroyed."
701.6c A regeneration effect replaces a destruction event. See rule 701.12, "Regenerate."

[Lemegeton]

fuck, i had a voice in my head telling me i was missing something obvious here, lol.
prob just stick with a mana elf then that i wont care about losing on turn 6

[Woland]

The damage rules in MTG are horribly confusing. They work, so I wouldn't call the rules broken, but the explanation of the rules relating to damage are much harder than they need to be. For example, look at the rules for "Indestructible"

700.4. If a permanent is indestructible, rules and effects can’t destroy it. (See rule 701.6, “Destroy.”) Such permanents are not destroyed by lethal damage, and they ignore the lethal-damage state-based action (see rule 704.5g). Rules or effects may cause an indestructible permanent to be sacrificed, put into a graveyard, or exiled.

(That is the new rule as of February of this year.)

Now, ask yourself, if you have a 2/2 indestructible creature, with three -1/-1/ counters on it, where is it? Well, it's in the graveyard, because of ...

121.1a A +X/+Y counter on a creature or on a creature card in a zone other than the battlefield, where X and Y are numbers, adds X to that object’s power and Y to that object’s toughness. Similarly, -X/-Y counters subtract from power and toughness. See rule 613.3.

and

613.3d Layer 7d: Power and/or toughness changes from counters are applied. See rule 121, “Counters.”

and

613.10. Some continuous effects affect game rules rather than objects. For example, effects may modify a player’s maximum hand size, or say that a creature is indestructible. These effects are applied after all other continuous effects have been applied. Continuous effects that affect the costs of spells or abilities are applied according to the order specified in rule 601.2e. All other such effects are applied in timestamp order. See also the rules for timestamp order and dependency (rules 613.6 and 613.7).

So, what should be obvious is instead incredibly complex and counter-intuitive. How many people - show of hands, now - think a creature with "Indestructible" written on it would logically be able to be removed from the game.

I've been pouring over these rules since April (I am NOT an MTG judge) and I can't make heads or tails of what their design principle for damage is.

(I know that if Indestructible was literal, it would be broken. I don't think the rule is broken, I think the presentation is inappropriately complex for something that comes up in, like 1 in 3 games.)

[Kapol]

*snip*

Honestly, while I did make that mistake when I began myself (was confused how Avacyn could be mutilated to death), I think it makes sense for those cases. -1/-1 is less being hurt, and more being shrunk down. Even if you're indestructable, you can be shrunk into nothing, exiled, banished (returned to hand/deck), and so forth. I understand where you're coming from, but I do think it makes sense when you start thinking about it a different way.

[Woland]

*snip*

*slice*

I agree, it makes sense in terms of flavor. My problem is in the presentation. I just graduated from law school and am about to sit for the bar exam. I have spent the past three years looking at committee-made rules and would like to fancy myself something of an aficionado of rules and rule interpretation.

In my opinion the Nuclear Regulatory Committee has done a better job outlining when naturally occurring radioactive material is considered nuclear waste than Wizards has done in providing a coherent explanation of how damage in Magic actually works, "under the skin," and those NRC rules are broke-ass.

I just think there is a better way to explain it, that's all.

[EDIT= I know that having gone to law school means absolutely nothing and is not in any way a good validator of my character or judgement (actually it probably says a lot of bad things about my judgement...), I only bring it up to point out that I am such a rules nerd I wanted to make a career out of it.]

[phlip]

Woland: is your problem with the way the rules are worded, or with the fact that a creature with Indestructible that has 0 toughness still dies? Because those are two different things to be arguing about, and I'm not sure which you're doing...

[korvys]

They make sense to me.

700.4. If a permanent is indestructible, rules and effects can’t destroy it. (See rule 701.6, “Destroy.”) Such permanents are not destroyed by lethal damage, and they ignore the lethal-damage state-based action (see rule 704.5g). Rules or effects may cause an indestructible permanent to be sacrificed, put into a graveyard, or exiled.

704.5f If a creature has toughness 0 or less, it's put into its owner's graveyard. Regeneration can't replace this event.

Contrast to

704.5g If a creature has toughness greater than 0, and the total damage marked on it is greater than or equal to its toughness, that creature has been dealt lethal damage and is destroyed. Regeneration can replace this event.

The layers rules (613.x) don't actually come up a lot. While technically, they are always there, mostly they don't change the outcome of anything. If you have a 2/2, with 3 -1/-1 counters on it, and an enchantment that gives it +2/+2, you just add everything up.

They exist so you can determine the outcome of something like Turn//Burn on a creature with +1/+1 counters, where if you assume counters apply first, then Turn, you get a dead creature, and if you apply Turn first, then counters, you have a living creature. With the layer rules there is a single definite answer.

[Woland]

Woland: is your problem with the way the rules are worded, or with the fact that a creature with Indestructible that has 0 toughness still dies? Because those are two different things to be arguing about, and I'm not sure which you're doing...

tl;dr: I'm upset because I honestly believe Wizards could do better than they have done.

My problem, generally, is with the complexity of the rules involving damage.

My problem with Indestructible is this:
Imagine you are a new player, you have a passable understanding of the rules, but you don't know all of them, and you play something with indestructible. Before M14 (and I recognize that they have taken a step here, and I appreciate it), you would play a permanent with "indestructible." The following conversation would occur at some point:

A: "Um, that creature is dead."
B: "No it isn't, it's indestructible."
A: "Yeah, but it's still dead because of the counters I put on it."
B: "But it's indestructible."
A: "That's not what that means."
B: "Well what does it mean?"
A: "It means it cannot be destroyed."
B: "Then how can it be dead?"
A: "JUDGE!"

The presentation of the rules is complex, which encourages ignorance of the rules.
Ignorance of the rules leads to misplays, which punish the "misplayer."
The presentation of the rules encourage punishing new players.
I don't think that is a hallmark of good design.

Here's another problem with damage rules: types of damage to player.

This one actually happened to me on MTGO. I explained what I thought was a bug to an ORC, who agreed with me, and encouraged me to send the issue to Wizards, which I did. I was then told that the cards were working as intended. Watch this:

I play Elderscale Wurm onto the battlefield with 9 life. The card says:

When Elderscale Wurm enters the battlefield, if your life total is less than 7, your life total becomes 7.
As long as you have 7 or more life, damage that would reduce your life total to less than 7 reduces it to 7 instead.

My opponent played a 'Debt to the Deathless' for 10 mana, making X=6. Since I had 9 life (more than 7), the Eldersacle Wurm should have {I thought} taken my life total to 7, even though I would have taken 12 damage. Instead, I went to -3 and lost the game.

Debt to the Deathless reads, in relevant part:

Each opponent loses two times X life.

This is the response I got from Wizards:

I've reviewed the information that you provided, and determined that the cards involved functioned as intended. If you take a look at Elderscale Wurm's last ability, it says:

"As long as you have 7 or more life, damage that would reduce your life total to less than 7 reduces it to 7 instead."

This refers specifically to damage, which is a bit different from life loss. Damage to a player causes life loss, but the two are not identical. Debt to the Deathless specifically refers to life loss, but it does not deal damage. Since it caused you to lose 12 life rather than take 12 damage, Elderscale Wurm's ability could not protect you.

Now, I'm not trying to say that the Wizards rep was wrong; I know she was right. I know because I've looked into it. That's not my problem.

My problem is that the rules are poorly presented. If "damage" ≠ "life loss," how am I supposed to know that without calling a judge or reading the Comprehensive Rules, which Wizards say

you won’t usually need to refer to [...] except in specific cases or during competitive games.

I think it's okay to lose on a technicality if you've been out-technicality-ed. I don't think it's okay to lose, even once, because the rules are obtuse. That's just bad communication.

[Woland]

They make sense to me.

Yes, they make sense, but they are too confusing. Indestructible is contextually meaningless, which was not made clear on the cards before M14.

[korvys]

All of Magic's rules are contextually meaningless, until you learn them. If you have never played a game of Magic, what does flying mean? Or trample? Once you learn, they make sense, but before that, if all you do is guess, you're not likely to get it right.

Indestructible is the same as any other ability. It has it's own rules, and if you choose to guess what the rules mean, and not learn, you're not going to get the results you want.

Would you assume your rook can't move in chess, because it looks like a castle, and buildings can't move? The game can be confusing. Unlike chess, unless you are a judge, you're not expected to know all the rules, but you are expected to know some. If you don't know, that's what the judges are for.

You should call a judge whenever you are playing and aren't sure about something. They are there to help, and to teach, especially at lower levels of competition, where the emphasis is on education and fun.

[SilPho]

Magic is designed to be fun for people of all skill levels to play. Some might say it is easy to learn but impossible to master. When New players play the game they don't need to know everything, but as they play more and more they will discover more about it, and for a lot of those players this discovery is an interesting and exciting part of the game.

It's not all 100% intuitive when you look at the finer points, but most of it makes enough sense that it doesn't matter when you learn something new that doesn't straight away.

I guess my main point here is that the complexity could be done away with, but it would be to the detriment of the game as a whole.

[AdmiralMemo]

My problem is that the rules are poorly presented. If "damage" ≠ "life loss," how am I supposed to know that without calling a judge or reading the Comprehensive Rules, which Wizards say

you won’t usually need to refer to [...] except in specific cases or during competitive games.

Well, here's the thing to remember: damage to a player is (usually) a type of life loss, but not the only way to lose life. (Damage to a player isn't life loss with respect to Infect, but that's the only exception I know of regarding players.) It's the square/rectangle problem. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. Non-Infect damage is life loss, but life loss isn't necessarily damage.

Consider the (lack of) interaction between Fog and Duskmantle Guildmage's first ability. Opponent cast a Fog. I activated my Guildmage's first ability. I had a Trepanation Blade equipped on another creature, which I attacked with. I milled him for 15, so that ended up being 15 Guildmage triggers on the stack, making my opponent lose 15 life. This goes through despite the Fog, because it's not combat damage, or actually damage at all.
In fact, even if the Guildmage's ability said "deals 1 damage to target opponent" instead of "that player loses 1 life" it still wouldn't be combat damage.

If you want to go without rules interaction in Magic, you're going to simply need to play with vanilla creatures, simple counterspells, and sorceries/instants/enchantments/equipment that only buffs/debuffs a creature's power and toughness.

[Rootbreaker]

My problem is that the rules are poorly presented. If "damage" ≠ "life loss," how am I supposed to know that without calling a judge or reading the Comprehensive Rules, which Wizards say

you won’t usually need to refer to [...] except in specific cases or during competitive games.

Well, here's the thing to remember: damage to a player is (usually) a type of life loss, but not the only way to lose life. (Damage to a player isn't life loss with respect to Infect, but that's the only exception I know of regarding players.) It's the square/rectangle problem. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. Non-Infect damage is life loss, but life loss isn't necessarily damage.

Not quite. It's best to think of them in a cause-effect relationship, not as equivalent to each other.
Non-infect damage to a player causes life loss.
Life loss is a result of non-infect damage to a player.

Effects Platinum Emperion and Worship can prevent the life loss without preventing the damage (for lifelink or abilities that trigger off damage).

Preventing the damage in the first place means there's nothing that causes the life loss, so the life loss won't occur either.

[ElFuzzy]

So I just ran into an interaction with Geist of Saint Traft and Imposing Sovereign. What happens to the tokens generated by Traft? Do they attack or get canceled out by some weird tapped before tapped thing. They come in tapped so I say they should follow through.

[Lord Hosk]

It doesnt say "they cant attack or block" it just says they enter tapped which Geist already says "put a 4/4 white Angel creature token with flying onto the battlefield tapped and attacking."

Same as Blind Obedience.

If you want to go crazy you can turn them upside down as attackers

[phlip]

Being tapped only matters for attacking in that, when you're declaring attackers, for the normal turn-based action in the Declare Attackers step, you can only pick creatures that are untapped (and they then become tapped, unless they have Vigilance). Creatures that become attackers for other reasons (including creatures that are put onto the battlefield already attacking, like Geist of Saint Traft's Angel friend) aren't affected by that.

So you just have two effects that both say the creature enters the battlefield tapped... which is redundant, and doesn't do anything special. It will be attacking, regardless.

[Lord Hosk]

So you just have two effects that both say the creature enters the battlefield tapped... which is redundant, and doesn't do anything special. Other than turn the angels upside down.

FTFY

[ElFuzzy]

So after a game a friend pointed out that possibility storm procs things like gutter snipe and the likes twice. Once on initial cast of first spell and again on the cast/resolve of the second found spell. Yes/no?

[AdmiralMemo]

So after a game a friend pointed out that possibility storm procs things like gutter snipe and the likes twice. Once on initial cast of first spell and again on the cast/resolve of the second found spell. Yes/no?

Not a judge, but I would say yes. From Possibility Storm: "Whenever a player casts a spell... That player may cast that card..." I'm seeing two things being cast there. From Guttersnipe: "Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell..." So, with 2 things being cast, that would trigger it twice. Here's how I think it goes down:

Instant or sorcery is cast.
Both Possibility Storm and Guttersnipe trigger off of that, and you can choose to lay the triggers down in either order. (I doubt it makes much of a difference.)
If Guttersnipe ends up on top, it fires off the 2 damage, then Possibility Storm fires, if your opponent didn't cast anything in response to either.
Possibility Storm removes the original card off the stack, exiles it, and does its search, finds the next card, and you can choose whether to cast it or not, since it's a "may."
If you do, the Possibility Storm trigger leaves the stack, the new card triggers Guttersnipe again, and the 2 damage trigger goes on the stack.
So then, if the opponent does nothing, the second 2 damage fires, and then your new instant or sorcery fires, and the stack is cleared.

If you stack the Possibility Storm trigger on top instead, the final stack ends up with that trigger still on the bottom, the new card in the middle, and the second trigger on top of it. So you get 2 damage, your new card's effects, and then 2 more damage still lingering from the original.

I'm pretty sure the same type of thing happens with Nivix Cyclops, Blistercoil Weird, Charmbreaker Devils, Fluxcharger, Melek, Talrand, and Young Pyromancer. If both end up being multicolored, I'm pretty sure it works for Lobber Crew, too. In that case, you'd want to hold priority after the untap trigger to tap it for damage the first time, then let it untap, gain priority back, tap it again for damage, then let Possibility Storm search and hope you get another untap trigger from another multicolored spell.

[korvys]

Admiral Memo is correct, if something (like Possibility Storm) says you "cast" the copy, it will trigger things that trigger on cast, even if the spell doesn't resolve, due to Possibility Storm, or the spell was removed by Nivmagus Elemental, etc.

[ElFuzzy]

Lawl, I had that card in there as a joke but it turns out that it's amazing

[phlip]

Also relevant: Possibility Storm's wording means that it doesn't rely on the spell being exiled by Possibility Storm itself. That is, it doesn't say "Exile the spell. If you do, find another one and cast it", it just says "Exile the spell. Find another one and cast it." And the ability isn't targeted, so it's not going to be countered by the game rules if the spell isn't there any more.

What this means is: you can cast an instant or sorcery, have Possibility Storm trigger, and feed the spell to Nivmagus Elemental in response to the Possibility Storm trigger. Possibility Storm will still resolve, won't be able to exile the spell (since it's not there any more) but will still go searching for a new spell and cast that. So you get to have value from Nivmagus eating spells that were never going to resolve anyway.

[Lemegeton]

if i have a hypersonic dragon and an assemble the legion in play and during my upkeep can i cast a beck from beck//call during my upkeep after the counter goes on assemble and before the soldiers enter play which will allow me to draw cards

[SilPho]

You can make it such that you will draw cards.

The counter does not get placed onto Assemble the Legion until the triggered ability resolves. This means you can respond to the trigger by "flashing" your Beck spell. The Beck will resolve first, which means you'll get to draw from the new solider token(s).

It is not possible to do anything at all after the counter but before the creatures (Ok, apart from conceeding ) but in this case you don't need to.

[korvys]

You can get the result you want, though not in the way you stated it.

At the beginning of your upkeep, the assemble the legion trigger goes on the stack. You can respond with beck, and then when the trigger from legion resolves, it puts a counter on, and makes the creatures, triggering beck, and you draw cards.

You can't do anything between the counter going on, and the tokens being made, but you don't have to to get the same result.