A question that I’ve been asked a lot is, “When is the last time I can tap a creature to prevent it from attacking?” So today, let’s use as our example card. When is the last time I can cast the Dread to prevent a creature or creatures from attacking? The last chance you’ll get […]
Category: Tournament Rules
How to combine multiple DCI numbers.
Let’s say that, over the years, you’ve received a few different DCI numbers. Maybe you forgot your number at a tournament and the tournament organizer issued you a new number. Or maybe you played in a tournament years ago and you recently came back and didn’t know you had an old DCI number. And now […]
Tournament Tuesday: One deck per tournament
Funny enough, something like this came up in the very first FNM my little shop held. A player was goldfishing with his Vampire deck between rounds, and a spectator thought that he’d switched decks from his Elf deck that was seen round 1. In a Constructed tournament, no matter what the format is, you pick […]
Best practices for handling Sylvan Library at Competitive REL.
is a card that has been a thorn in the side of judges since it was printed. It has now had 4 different printed wordings (though the latest printing from Commander’s Arsenal at least has the current Oracle text), and while it works with the Comprehensive Rules (and with MTGOnline), it’s very difficult to align […]
At FNM, you have to remind your opponent of all mandatory triggers.
Yes, even the ones you’d prefer they don’t notice. At FNM, the Missed Trigger policy doesn’t apply, because it’s found only in the Infraction Procedure Guide (“IPG”), which only applies at Competitive and Professional REL events. At FNM, we use only the Magic Tournament Rules and the Comprehensive Rules to govern how the game is […]
Tournament Tuesday: An explanation of how “name a card” works.
Many cards in Magic ask you to “Name a card” as part of their effect, such as , , and . 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 in Standard. Double-faced cards are a bit unusual. You’re restricted […]
Tournament Tuesday: Life Totals
This is an older ‘change’ than the Missed Trigger update a little while back, but it’s one we haven’t really covered. One of the toughest things for a Judge to figure out is a life total discrepancy; when Player A says he’s at one life total, and Player B insists that he’s at another. In […]
You Can’t Rush Your Opponent Past Steps
Back when my friends and I were first getting into Magic, we didn’t know how priority worked. You’d commonly hear “too late, I already ended my turn” in response to people wanting to cast spells at EOT, or “Too late, it already resolved” in response to an attempted counterspell. But as we know now, you […]
You can never purposely ignore a triggered ability you control.
As I detailed a few weeks back, we have a new Missed Triggers policy in effect. A few things changed; mainly we got rid of the whole Lapsing nonsense, and now it is entirely possible to miss a trigger without any penalty, so long as it was not a generally detrimental trigger. But some things […]