I was playing enchantress against what i can only assume was some kind of madness brew, and the guy took a maddeningly long amount of time doing EVERYTHING
3 minutes "thinking" when i played a spell, then i found out he has no counters in his deck
1 minute thinking when i play argothian enchantress, which has shroud.
at least 45 seconds of "thinking" with an empty hand and no way to attack into solitary confinement every turn
4 minutes to decide whether or not to block to stop lethal damage from 4/4 angels
may have been genuine, but took 4 minutes studying and checking my words of war mana math. (seriously, 13- 4 - 5 -4=0 does not take 4 minutes to do, especially since i wrote it out >.>, guy looked 17 at least)
i 2-0'd him, but we almost timed out >.>.
is this justifiable? or can i report it next time it happens.
I would say inform a judge before the tourney of his tendency to stall so they can watch him. But other than that unless a judge issues a slow play infraction you personally can't do much other than try to speed him up by asking for responses.
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Based off of the decks you and your opponent were playing, he was stalling. If he was playing a counter control deck then yes I would expect those long pauses in game for thought
If you suspect some is purposefully stalling, then call a judge.
My two cents on stalling however:
1) I don't think he was stalling, given that you won 2-0. I think he just plays slow.
I view stalling as "playing slow so that the player gains an advantage due to time being called." Since he lost game one, if he was still playing very slowly in game 2 it would have been to his disadvantage if the game time runs out.
Now, if he won game 1, then the game 2 looks like it will end in a draw, that's another matter.
2) Stalling is one of the hardest things to prove, even with a judge watching.
You should hurry your opponent along politely if they are tanking for any extended period of time. I usually ask "do you have something?" several times if they keep doing it (everyone gets a freebie), and then go into "I'd like to remind you we have an obligation to play at a reasonable pace" And then call a judge if they tank again after that.
I play Lands and I've had two matches go to time on me while playing it, and one of them was someone who was effectively stalling but I didn't call the judge fast enough so she only got warnings (I was being 'nice' because I'd see her around a lot, inevitably paired up against a friend of mine who plays slow - they're both slow players) and one where I let game 2 go for 30 minutes because I assumed my opponent didn't have an actual out in their deck (they were playing sneak and show, I had bridge, and they were casting 1-2 cantrips per turn, intuitioning for more cantrips, and otherwise making a ton of fast actions...but not finding either of their smash to smithereens, despite casting about 20 cantrips and reshuffling the deck with Emrakuls a few times.)
nobody should ever be tanking for minutes at a time, multiple times.
I had a similar situation the other day at FNM, where I lost game one to a control player and I'm also totally sure that she was stalling out game two so that she could win 1-0 instead of drawing. The two reasons I say this were
1. She took about 2 minutes tapping and untapping 2 lands before eventually passing the turn when I had lethal on board.
2. When time was eventually called I know she was turn 0 and then claimed she was turn 5, since If I'd had another swing it would have been a draw.
The problem in my situation is that the store I play at doesn't have a judge and the store owner / TO knows jack about magic rules and stalling / slow playing.
You should have asked about this in the Magic Rulings forum instead of here. There are non-judges answering questions here, and they are frequently really clueless about stuff like this.
Here are some facts:
It does not matter what decks people are playing or how complex the board state is when determining slow play.
Slow play and Stalling are not the same infraction.
When in doubt, call a judge.
4 minutes is a looooooooooooong time to do nothing, I can't imagine how that wouldn't be slow play.
Mre in a bad wI should note that if you're in a bad way in game 2, after winning game 1 and there's, say 2 minutes left on the clock, you can do everything in your power to stay alive till the game goes to turns and ends in a draw after turn 5 provided you are playing your cards at a reasonable pace. Throwing out blockers and trying to hang in there at 5 life is fine, so long as you don't take 2 minutes to play a spell. Taking a long time to play your defensive measures is stalling, but it is legal to try to run the game to a draw as long as you're playing at a reasonable rate.
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I was playing enchantress against what i can only assume was some kind of madness brew, and the guy took a maddeningly long amount of time doing EVERYTHING
3 minutes "thinking" when i played a spell, then i found out he has no counters in his deck
1 minute thinking when i play argothian enchantress, which has shroud.
at least 45 seconds of "thinking" with an empty hand and no way to attack into solitary confinement every turn
4 minutes to decide whether or not to block to stop lethal damage from 4/4 angels
may have been genuine, but took 4 minutes studying and checking my words of war mana math. (seriously, 13- 4 - 5 -4=0 does not take 4 minutes to do, especially since i wrote it out >.>, guy looked 17 at least)
i 2-0'd him, but we almost timed out >.>.
is this justifiable? or can i report it next time it happens.
I thing your estimates are wildly overblown. 4 minutes is the length of a fairly long rock song. I think you ought to actually time how long 4 minutes (and your other estimates) really are by sitting and doing nothing but looking at cards in your hand, because there is no way things took as long as you think they did.
I always push my opponent to hurry the hell up, tbh. I used to be more lenient but nowadays it just gets irritating as hell. Especially in legacy. I have half a mind to bring a chess timer to matches these days because honestly dude, you can't top for 1-2 minutes. It's 3 fricken cards. Make up your damn mind. If this were a real time game, and you sat around indecisively for 2 minutes spinning a goddamn top while wizards were flinging spells around and ****, your ass would be dead. You chose to play blue for the card advantage, so I expect you to you be able to read the situation and make the correct ones in a reasonable amount of time.
Nothing turns me off to competitive paper magic more than slow players. It is so frustrating to get a draw when 80-90% of the match was sitting watching my opponent think. I feel bad to call a judge, especially if there is a language barrier or it is a prerelease. I have had many times where both players lose prizes on a draw due to one player needing to think for minutes on each little decision like there life depends on it. This really makes me prefer to play online if I am not playing with my friends.
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3 minutes "thinking" when i played a spell, then i found out he has no counters in his deck
1 minute thinking when i play argothian enchantress, which has shroud.
at least 45 seconds of "thinking" with an empty hand and no way to attack into solitary confinement every turn
4 minutes to decide whether or not to block to stop lethal damage from 4/4 angels
may have been genuine, but took 4 minutes studying and checking my words of war mana math. (seriously, 13- 4 - 5 -4=0 does not take 4 minutes to do, especially since i wrote it out >.>, guy looked 17 at least)
i 2-0'd him, but we almost timed out >.>.
is this justifiable? or can i report it next time it happens.
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EDH:
GW: Selvala, Let us help YOU.
UB: Mirko Vosk, when outmatched cheat
BW: Vish Kal, The Arbiter of Reanimation
UG: Prime Speaker Zegana, the science of sorcery
RB: Malfegor, Traitor's Haven
UW: Daxos, Control-Fort-Tron
BG: Pharika, Goddess of Stax
RW: Gisela, Boros Control
RG: Ruric Thar, a Primal Surge deck
RU: Niv-Mizzet the Firemind, Spellslinger?!?!
B:(Pauper) Mikaeus the Unhallowed
R: Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient: The Power of Engineering
My two cents on stalling however:
1) I don't think he was stalling, given that you won 2-0. I think he just plays slow.
I view stalling as "playing slow so that the player gains an advantage due to time being called." Since he lost game one, if he was still playing very slowly in game 2 it would have been to his disadvantage if the game time runs out.
Now, if he won game 1, then the game 2 looks like it will end in a draw, that's another matter.
2) Stalling is one of the hardest things to prove, even with a judge watching.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Slow play is a warning.
You should hurry your opponent along politely if they are tanking for any extended period of time. I usually ask "do you have something?" several times if they keep doing it (everyone gets a freebie), and then go into "I'd like to remind you we have an obligation to play at a reasonable pace" And then call a judge if they tank again after that.
I play Lands and I've had two matches go to time on me while playing it, and one of them was someone who was effectively stalling but I didn't call the judge fast enough so she only got warnings (I was being 'nice' because I'd see her around a lot, inevitably paired up against a friend of mine who plays slow - they're both slow players) and one where I let game 2 go for 30 minutes because I assumed my opponent didn't have an actual out in their deck (they were playing sneak and show, I had bridge, and they were casting 1-2 cantrips per turn, intuitioning for more cantrips, and otherwise making a ton of fast actions...but not finding either of their smash to smithereens, despite casting about 20 cantrips and reshuffling the deck with Emrakuls a few times.)
nobody should ever be tanking for minutes at a time, multiple times.
1. She took about 2 minutes tapping and untapping 2 lands before eventually passing the turn when I had lethal on board.
2. When time was eventually called I know she was turn 0 and then claimed she was turn 5, since If I'd had another swing it would have been a draw.
The problem in my situation is that the store I play at doesn't have a judge and the store owner / TO knows jack about magic rules and stalling / slow playing.
The correct answer is always yes.
Here are some facts:
4 minutes is a looooooooooooong time to do nothing, I can't imagine how that wouldn't be slow play.
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