During a Competitive REL event, Albus is at 15 life and has a
Terra Stomper in play. Neville is at 2 life with an
Alabaster Kirin, an
Arashin Foremost and a
Serra Angel in play. Albus declares the Stomper as an attacker and passes priority to Neville. Neville, annoyed, picks up his creatures and puts the Angel, the Kirin and then the Foremost in front of the Stomper, saying “triple block.” Albus glances at the board state and says “sure” and goes back to writing some notes on his score pad. After finishing with the notes, Albus looks at his hand and proceeds to cast
Coordinated Assault, targeting his Stomper. Neville considers for some time and then casts
Anticipate. Finding an
Ajani’s Presence, Neville finishes resolving the Anticipate and then casts the Presence, targeting the Serra Angel. Neville then asks, “Trade the Kirin for your Stomper?” Albus responds with, “No, kill your Kirin and Foremost.” Neville responds with “But that’s not how they are lined up… Judge!” What do you do?
Judges, feel free to discuss this scenario on Judge Apps!
AnswerAs was noted, the initial problem here is that Albus failed to declare the order of damage assignment for the 3 blockers used by Neville. As such, Albus has committed a GPE – Game Rule Violation.
Additionally, since Neville didn’t notice this and correct it at the appropriate time (prior to the casting of the Coordinated Assault), Neville has committed a GPE – Failure to Maintain Game State.
Both players will be assigned a Warning as a result.
The recent changes to the IPG provide us with a simple partial fix to this situation – simply have Albus declare the order of the blockers.
