Magic Judge Monthly: August 2015

Dear Judges, welcome to a brand new edition of  Magic Judge Monthly!

Catch up with all the important and interesting things during the last month which took place in our Magic Judge world, including Andy’s farewell.

Happy reading and until next time!

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Suspended Players Page Update

The list of Suspended Players has been updated. Also a reminder from Eric Shukan, if you’re investigating a player and there are statements from multiple people or their statements change, include all of the information. Check out Eric’s forum post for more detail.

RC Ad Interim in USA Northwest

Scott Marshall is stepping in to help out in the Pacific Northwest Region for a little while, as Jeremy Behunin will be away for a few months. If you have any questions that the Regional Coordinator would handle, please contact Scott.

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Judge Articles and Blog Posts August 2015

  1. Articles in August: Modern Rules Problems – Anafenza, the Foremost, Handling Multiple Infractions, Backing up : Philosophy and Methodology, Player Experience Sphere
  2. Bearz Repeating: Working on the Training Grounds, The Appeal of It All, Guest Post: Planning for Failure and Weakened Recollections
  3. Mystical Tutor: Live Session August
  4. Judge Conferences: Getting the audience on your side and Introducing: Conference Dates!
  5. Battlefield Forge: PreTQ for PT Sweat, Mount Pearl NL, Everything I Need To Know About Grand Melee I Learned From GenCon, Head Judging Premier IQ SCG Richmond: Ready, Set, Go! and SCG Summer Regionals, New Jersey – Deck Check Refinement
  6. GP Travel Guides – 2015: GP Madrid 2015, GP Porto Alegre 2015 and  GP Indianapolis
  7. Translation rules: August updates
  8. Judge Games NEW blog!: Time’s Up!

In case you would like to discuss an article, visit our Judge forum.

Knowledge Pool August 2015

  1. A Fall from Grace?
  2. One who goes unpunished never learns.
  3. Serum Powder
  4. On Second Thought…

If you would like to submit a Knowledge Pool scenario, here’s how to do it.

Judgecast

#126 – We got you Covered
#127 – Conference Calls

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Happy Anniversary! August 2015

I’ve been writing for MJM Community for a bit now and this month was quite peculiar simply because there are five Filipinos celebrating their anniversaries. And while you all know that I really, really want to list them down and cheer them here, I’d opt to invite you to visit the post about it and see the rest of our celebrants for August. Be sure to check out this month’s features on Federico Donner and Adam Cetnerowski (also, here’s a link to Adam’s Blog – Judge Games).

Judge Advancements August 2015

Michael Wiese says “Hello everyone. The start of a new month equals that we welcome the new judges in your community and of course congratulate the new L2s and L3s for last month. 234 advancements in total is again great, well done everyone.

I am often asked what kind of date I use to determine this list. The date entered on the advancement review is what counts for this list, because that ensures that I wont miss anyone”.

Judge of the Week

Ballots for the Class of 2011

All information regarding the second catchup ballot can be found on judge DLS, David Lyford-Smith’s thread. To check for more information or if you are eligible to vote, see the original announcement.

Team Activities Suggestions

Join Madalyn Young’s post and read about and share your own ideas for those precious collective bonding moments with fellow judges.

Advice on Team Sealed Events

Riccardo Tessitori invites everyone to share their best practices about team sealed in this thread.

Vote for Best Judge Article of May 2015

Learn how you can support your favorite judge article for May 2015 in Christian Gawrilowicz’s voting invitation.

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Questions asked in the month of August and an [O]fficial answer, just for you!

1. With Omniscience and Petals of Insight, can I use a shortcut for these two cards, to arrange my entire deck?
A: Yes. State that you’re going to cast it 410,758 times, and then you’re guaranteed to have the three cards you want in a row. No math needed at the event; 410,758 will always get you what you want.
Long version: Fortunately, the number isn’t theoretical, it’s finite and fixed. You need to specify the entirety of the final result to avoid the “Four Horsemen rule”, but you can do that by saying that the outcome is “these three cards in a row, followed by the rest of the deck sorted by collector number.”

Unlike the Four Horsemen combo, which requires a random process (shuffling), that arrangement can always be achieved in at most 410,758 castings of Petals of Insight (assuming there are less than 60 cards in the library, and the number of cards is not divisible by 3). So if you cast Petals 410,758 times, your deck will be sorted in the desired order. It probably needs far less (duplicate cards, chance pre-ordering, less than 59 cards in the deck, etc) but if the deck ends up sorted in less than the maximum number of castings, you just go through the remaining iterations without changing the order of the deck… so 410,758 will always do.

So,

* the number of iterations is finite and fixed
* the outcome is deterministic
* executing these loop iterations takes zero play time, same as any other loop (See the linked August 2013 ruling)

That that’s good enough for the loop rule to apply. Once you’ve done so, you just need to manually cycle through the deck to put the three cards you want on top. That can require up to one more casting of Petals for each card in the deck, each time putting the top three cards directly onto the bottom in the same order if they’re not the three you want. This part can’t be covered by the loop rules, but takes less than a minute and the game state is advancing towards a fixed end, so it’s not slow play.
Explained by Gavin Duggan, Approved by Netreps and Scott Marshall, L5, Lakewood CO, USA.
Source: http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/20489/


2. Assuming that there is an empty board state when Collected Company is cast, will Hallowed Moonlight prevent Athreos from entering the battlefield?
A: 614.12 applies to Hallowed Moonlight exactly the same as it applies to Imposing Sovereign. Under the Moonlight, a Theros God that’s entering the battlefield off of a Collected Company (or Chord of Calling, or Birthing Pod, etc.) will be exiled if and only if its controller already has sufficient devotion to the appropriate color(s) on the board for it to be a creature. The God’s own mana symbols are not taken into account, nor are the symbols of any other permanents that happen to be trying to enter the battlefield at the same time.

So in the given situation, with Athreos arriving onto an empty board, Hallowed Moonlight will not apply, and Athreos will enter the battlefield unhindered.
Approved by Callum Milne, L2, Netrep, Nanaimo Canada
Source: http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/20533/


3. Annie casts Show and Tell, it resolves and she puts in Omniscience while Nate puts in Snapcaster Mage. Annie pauses for a bit (10ish seconds), then after no comment from Nate casts Dig Through Time. Nate responds by saying he's going to flashback Pyroblast targeting it. What is the status of the Snapcaster trigger?
If this is all that was said, then the trigger should be on the stack before the Dig Through Time.
The missed trigger policy talks about when a player needs to demonstrate awareness of a trigger, but it doesn’t change when that trigger actually occurs. Nate can choose the target for the Snapcaster Mage, but the Dig will still resolve before the trigger. So the Pyroblast couldn’t be cast on the Dig.
Approved by Scott Marshall, L5, Lakewood CO, USA.
Source: http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/20760/?page=2

4. A player who knew that one could not provide incentives to their opponents to influence a match result wanted to know if he could offer his 2HG partner some of the packs he would get from an Intentional Draw to convince him to draw so that they could leave early.
A: Yes, they can discuss how to divide their prizes between the two of them (or, for 3-player events, all 3). It’s like they’re talking to themselves, so those concerns about collusion just don’t apply.
Approved by Scott Marshall, L5, Lakewood CO, USA.
Source: http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/19707/

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Player Suspended in WER After Lifted Ban

If you have a player at your store whose previous suspension has been lifted, but still shows as ‘suspended’ in WER, the issue can be handled by your WPN Representative, Wizards Customer Support or updating WER software.

WER on Other Platforms

Can you run WER on different operating systems? Here we have an informative topic on getting WER to run on other platforms besides Windows, and progress being made to tackle the problems faced in this effort.

WMCQ Player Invites

This forum thread sheds some valuable light on the issue of verifying whether a player is qualified for the WMCQ’s in order to facilitate the process of pre-registrations.

“Approved Scorekeeper”

Is this an official title or just a depiction of a person who is known to have a good reputation as a scorekeeper? Currently there is no official ‘Approved Scorekeeper’ program in existence, even though registered scorekeepers do receive extra information through the WPN. Learn more about what the term ‘Approved Scorekeeper’ generally means.

2016 Premier Event List and Missed triggers cheatsheet

Feast your eyes on this very convenient 2016 Premier Event List compiled by L3 Monsuporn Lauhaphand. And following is an extremely comprehensive Missed Triggers cheatsheet designed by L3 Federico Donner

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Find out which Judge Conferences, Grand Prix and SCG Opens have available worldwide staffing positions! You still have time to apply for GP Kobe, GP Pittsburgh, GP Quebec City, as well as the October RPTQs, SCG Dallas, SCG Philadelphia. In many regions, organizers are still taking applications for the last rounds of World Magic Cup Qualifiers. There are also upcoming conferences and dinners in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Louisiana, North Carolina, Scotland, and Texas.

Check out the Grand Prix Soliciations and Selected Staffs such as GP Kobe.

Public projects (such as JudgeApps Development) are looking for judge contributions of all sorts, and even skills such as video editing and Python programming.  If you wish to get more out of your Judging experience and give back to the community, sign up to something that interests you to help out!

Sugar on Top

Andy