Every month, several more or less local and not-so-local judges meet in my area (Frankfurt Main, Germany) in a restaurant for a nice evening. We’re usually around 8 awesome people willing to share stories from life and tournament of recent. Since it occurs that we’re all Magic judges or players interested in judging, it happens we also discuss and talk about judging stuff.
To share ideas and that we give not only to us, but everybody else too, the opportunity to improve, I make notes about the topics and write about the meeting regularly. If you’re wondering why there’s two April judge meeting reports ( http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/17220/ ) I have to admit the first one, posted on April 1st wasn’t really serious. April’s Fools got some puzzled, some laughing, and some questioning why Germany “actually uses” the “Penalty Guidelines” from 2000-ish.
This is my report from the latest meeting in April. I promise. This one is the real report. Unless specified, we assumed Competitive REL.
The topics from past week in a certain order:
(Part 1)
1. Best practices. Can I still sacrifice a creature ?
2. “Delayed” Vaultbreaker trigger
3. Collateral Damage and timing of triggers
4. Humble Defector and Collateral Damage
5. Megamorph for the improper amount of +1/+1 counters
(Part 2, posting it later this week)
6. Forgotten Rebound spell
7. Illusory Gains and another Minister of Pain
8. Barrage of Boulders and a possible “future game state”
9. Outside Assistance: “And now, Ugin from the top!”
1. Best practices. Can I still sacrifice a creature?
Alejandro controls just a 2/2 Zombie Token. He casts a Minister of Pain. In response to the triggered enters-the-battlefield trigger, Neith destroys the Minister of Pain with an Ultimate Price. Now Alejandro wants to now if he can still Exploit the Zombie token.
He calls for a judge and after explaining what happened so far, he asks the judge “Can I still sacrifice my Zombie token?”
It is Competitive REL. The player asked a completely clear question. Technically, he is indeed able to still sacrifice his Zombie token. Since we do not want to provide Outside Assistance, teaching Alejandro about “how to play well”, we just answer him a clear-cut “Yes, that’s legal.”. It may not have the desired effect, but he didn’t ask if he can still “get the Exploit trigger?”, he asked if he can sacrifie the Zombie and he indeed can do that. This may be one of the situations where at Regular REL, we will help the player more by asking him what he wants to reach, but not at Competitive.
“Yes, you an still sacrifice the Zombie token.”
2. “Delayed” Vaultbreaker trigger
Alejandro attacks with several creatures, including a Vaultbreaker. After getting the onfirmation that she may do, Neith blocks some of the creatures, but not Vaultbreaker. Vaultbreaker deals combat damage to Neith. Now Alejandro announes “Trigger” and starts to resolve Vaultbreakers trigger: He discards a card and draws one. Meanwhile, Neith reads that Vaultbreaker and notices that it triggers on “When ~this attacks, ..” instead of “When ~this deals combat damage to a player..”. There is a problem, so the two call a judge. Alejandro misremembered Vaultbreaker, so started the trigger too late.
This does not fit the DEC description, since he discarded before drawing. Therefore, it can be only a Game Rule Violation. Since nothing else happened, we can Rewind the problem: Undo the recent draw, then put the discarded ard from his graveyard back to his hand. The penalty for this GRV is a Warning.
He missed the trigger of Vaultbreaker, because the game clearly moved past the point of its resolution, but he does not receive a penalty for Missed Trigger, because of the nature of Vaultbreaker‘s triggered abilities.
3. Collateral Damage and timing of triggers
Collateral Damage, Shrapnel Blast and similar cards are not always the easiest to understand in detail. For example, If you sacrifice Strongarm Monk and a Lava Runner to a Collateral Damage each (targetting the creature itself), only one of these creatures will trigger.
So, why can you cast Collateral Damage chosing the same reature as target and sacrifice?
Because All Crazy Teenagers Have Tried Magic Pills.
The order of casting a spell follows a certain pattern. In this pattern, targets are chosen before the cost is paid.
Now, what happens exactly when you Collateral Damage your own Lava Runner?
First, you “Announce Collateral Damage“. You put Collateral Damage from its zone (typially the hand) onto the stack. Then, for spells like Atarka’s Command you choose options (modes). Collateral Damage doesn’t have modes, so you skip this step. Then, you decide for a target. Lava Runner here becomes the target of a spell, so it triggers. The trigger will not go onto the stack until the next time you’d receive priority, which isn’t until you finished casting your spell. The trigger will wait patiently. After having decided on a target, (you skip the part “How to distribute”, because this isn’t Pyrotechnics and then) you determine the Total cost of the spell. The total cost of the spell is “One red mana and ”Sacrifice a creature”. When the cost is determined, you can use mana abilities (tap your Mountain, crack Black Lotus). And finally, as last step of casting the Collateral Damage, you pay the cost. (Take one red out of your mana pool, sacrifice the Lava Runner). The Collateral Damage is then finished being cast, it counts as “being cast now” and the Lava Runner‘s triggered ability that waited so patiently finally goes onto the stack.
Now, what happens exactly when you Collateral Damage your own Strongarm Monk?
Lava Runner triggers when it “becomes the target of a spell or ability”, that happens rather early in the process of casting the spell.
Strongarm Monk triggers when “you ast a noncreature spell”. As noted earlier, the spell doesn’t count as “is now cast” until all steps in casting the spell, including paying its total cost are finished. At the time Strongarm Monk would trigger off Collateral Damage it’s being sacrificed to, it’s already gone.
Lava Runner will trigger off Collateral Damage that’s used to target the Lava Runner, but Strongarm Monk won’t trigger.
If you want to read up on how to cast spells, I highly recommend – This summary of one of the Judge Classes! –
4. Humble Defector with Collateral Damage
Again Collateral Damage.. Aegon controls a Humble Defector and has a Collateral Damage in his hand. In his turn, he wants to draw two cards from Humble Defector‘s activated ability, but also sacrifice it to Collateral Damage. He taps Humble Defector, draws two cards and then puts a card, visibly to Naerys not one of the drawn cards, Collateral Damage on the stack. Aegon wants to sacrifice Humble Defector to it, but Naerys disagrees, the call for a judge.
This looks like a regular GRV, but there’s a few special things that are worth mentioning about it.
The IPG suggests to “Rewind to the Point of Error (PoE)”. But where exatly is this PoE ? After Aegon drew two cards, before he tried to cast Collateral Damage. He can’t put spells on the stack in the middle of the resolution of another. That’s where things went wrong.
Could this be considered Out of order sequencing (OoOS) ? Aegon performed all actions in a block of actions. He had planned to sacrifice Humble Defector from the start, what cards he’d draw would not affect his decision to go for the play. However, OoOS is not a way to get out of a misplay. Magic, especially at Competitive REL tests the players knowledge not only of strategy, but also about rules. Aegon simply did not know how to do it right. He could’ve asked, but we don’t let him “retroactively take an action he missed to do at the appropriate time.”
Aegon has to pass control of the Humble Defector over to Naerys.
At Regular REL, it may be different. We’re inclined to return two cards to the top of library and basically allow the player to “Try it again.”.
5. Megamorph for the improper amount of +1/+1 counters
Aegon II. turns up his Deathmist Raptor and incorrectly places none (or two) +1/+1 counters on it. Several turns later, the problem is noticed.
At Competitive, it’s clear that the game state stays as it is and the appropriate penalties are issued. At Regular however, the idea is to make the game be played more like “it should be”. Should we adjust the amount of counters as a fix? Depends. we agreed it depends on what decisions were taken. Were these decisions based on the Raptor having NONE, (or having TWO) counters ? The more important the incorrect amount contributed to the game as it was played since the error, the less likely are we going to simply adjust the counter.
As a reminder, here’s the topics we discussed:
(Part 1)
1. Best practices. Can I still sacrifice a creature ?
2. “Delayed” Vaultbreaker trigger
3. Collateral Damage and timing of triggers
4. Humble Defector and Collateral Damage
5. Megamorph for the improper amount of +1/+1 counters
To not bend this thread out of bounds, Part 2 will follow during the upcoming week,
along with possible new input from the JudgeApps discussion about the first part.
6. Forgotten Rebound spell
7. Illusory Gains and another Minister of Pain
8. Barrage of Boulders and a possible “future game state”
9. Outside Assistance: “And now, Ugin from the top!”