Many cards in Magic ask you to “Name a card” as part of their effect, such as Pithing Needle, Nevermore, and Slaughter Games. Whatever you pick has to be an actual Magic card legal in the format; calling “Pikachu” isn’t a legal choice, and neither is calling Cranial Plating in Standard.

Double-faced cards are a bit unusual. You’re restricted to picking only one of the two sides for your Pithing Needle to apply to, because it refers to an object on the battlefield. So if you name Daybreak Ranger, it won’t stop the activated ability of Nightfall Predator. However, if you name Nightfall Predator for Nevermore or Slaughter Games, that is a way to uniquely identify the card with Daybreak Ranger on the day side, so Nevermore will prevent Daybreak Ranger from being cast (since you could never cast the night side of a DFC), and Slaughter Games will be able find all the Daybreak Rangers (since only the day side of a DFC exists outside the battlefield).

But what if you don’t know the name of the card? Suppose your opponent’s cards are in a foreign language, or you’re trying to shut down something they played last game and can’t recall the name. As it turns out, the tournament floor rules are written to accommodate these exact scenarios. At any time, you may request the Oracle text of a card from a judge, provided you can “uniquely identify” it. As a consequence of this, the same is generally acceptable in the context of naming cards – you can give a detailed description of the card in lieu of an actual name. But your description must make the card uniquely identifiable! What does this mean? If your description matches more than one card, you need to give more information. For Angel of Serenity, “5/6 Angel that exiles stuff” works, but just “5/6 Angel” does not. Some means of uniquely identifying a card include describing its abilities/effects, describing its characteristics, naming half of the card (such as in the case of flip, split, or double-faced cards).

At the end of the day, we want players to communicate their actions clearly to one another. Therefore, if you announce a name that’s “off” by a little bit, that’s OK, so long as it is obvious to both players what card you were referring to. For instance, calling “Angel of Restoration” would be acceptable, as its reasonably obvious you were referring to Restoration Angel. If for some reason you don’t understand what card your opponent named and/or don’t believe they made a legal choice, you should call a judge; the judge will be able to verify if they made a legal choice, and have them clarify if necessary.

Today’s Tournament Tip written by Colleen Nelson, Level 1 judge from Irvine, CA