By my count, the phrase "game state" is used 14 times in the Comprehensive Rules. But what exactly defines a game state? Specifically, I am wondering about the following (at least). Suppose we have two different scenarios in a game of magic, A and B. Let's say that A and B are the same in every way we can think of, except possibly for the fact that...
(1) The number of times abilities have been activated this turn is greater in B than in A.
(2) The number of spells cast this turn is greater in B than in A.
(3) The amount of mana in the active player's mana pool is greater in B than in A.
In which of the scenarios (1) through (3) would we say that A and B are the same game state, and in which of (1) through (3) would they be different game states?
To the best of my understanding the game state is the combination of all the components in the current game, all of them. The game state includes all the tangible and intangible things there can be, though the value placed on them at the time of a ruling would depend on the situation.
There are two main ways I've seen the term "game state" used. This first is maintaining proper game state, which requires that the players present the game in the correct way. This primarily involves the location of cards, any counters on any objects, life totals and the like. All things mentioned are components of the game state and both players should be aware of and correctly represent those things where appropriate. The storm count for example is always part of the game state, even if you're playing in standard. You wouldn't be expected to know what the storm count was at any given moment, but you should have the capacity to work it out in a timely manner.
The second is in repairing a game state. This is where the judge steps in and applies a fix that takes the game state that has been created and changes it to the one which it is supposed to be. Again this can involve changing any number of things within the game so that everything is as it should be.
In summary, "game state" is the most broad of terms used to discuss a game in its entirety. I will say it's strange that this term has not been specifically defined, if I am ever a high enough level judge, I will make that part of my projects.
The reason I ask this question is because of rule 718.3. It states that
"Sometimes a loop can be fragmented, meaning that each player involved in the loop performs an independent action that results in the same game state being reached multiple times. If that happens, the active player (or, if the active player is not involved in the loop, the first player in turn order who is involved) must then make a different game choice so the loop does not continue."
Consider the following example. Both my opponent and I have sources of arbitrary amounts of mana of all colors, as well as each having Deadeye Navigator paired with Mnemonic Wall. Our graveyards are both empty. My opponent has Leyline of Anticipation and Amulet of Vigor. During my turn, before I move to combat my opponent casts Door to Nothingness. I cast Counterspell on it (Counterspell being my last card in hand), but my opponent responds with a Counterspell of his own on mine (also his last card in hand). Then I make two mana, use Deadeye Navigator to blink my Wall, and return Counterspell to my hand. My opponent does the same. I would now like to cast the Counterspell again on the Door. Some would argue that Rule 718.3 prevents me from doing so, as the game state is identical to what it was before I cast Counterspell the first time, and I am the active player. But I would say that the game state has changed, since e.g. the storm count has now increased by 2.
If you're not convinced that this is a "different" game state, then let's make the following alteration to my example. Instead of making 2 mana before blinking my Wall, I now make 3 mana each time. Then on each iteration of the loop, I have 1 more mana in my mana pool than last time. Clearly one must conclude that this is a different game state, as the amount of mana one has is one of the most fundamental factors at any moment in a game of Magic and cannot be an "irrelevant" part of the game state. Therefore Rule 718.3 cannot be applied to force me to end the loop. Similarly 718.3 cannot be applied to force my opponent to do something different if he makes 3 mana each time, even ignoring the fact that he's not the active player.
To summarize, we have a repeated sequence of voluntary actions in the game such that the rules cannot force either player to do something different. And clearly neither player will want to do anything different: if my opponent's Door to Nothingness resolves then he wins the game, while if it does not resolve then I win the game (let's say I have a True-Name Nemesis in play and my opponent is at 3 life). This situation would seemingly go on forever, and neither player can be to blame for letting it go on forever. The Comprehensive Rules seem to have nothing to say about this.
Basically, I think the game needs both a formal definition of a "game state" and new rules to deal with situations like the one I described above.
It is considered the same game state because nothing relevant changed. Despite elements about the game being technically different, these elements are having no impact on the game, and the players are not doing anything different, so the active player must yield. This is the official stance.
The issue here is that a purely technical document like the CR can't easily use such concepts as "relevant" or "impact" in this context, because unfortunately, in such a context, these are subjective. In a tournament situation, if the players can't agree, a judge will decide what's relevant to the game state and what makes it the same or not.
Your rules question has been answered. If you don't like the rules and the official rulings about this, you may try to contact WotC, but this is not the right place to argue about it further.
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I'm a former judge (lapsed), who keeps up to date on rules and policy. Keep in mind that judges' answers aren't necessarily more valid than those of people who aren't judges; what matters is we can quote the rules to back up our answers. When in doubt, ask for such quotes.
"There are also persistent questions about what qualifies as “the same game state”, and both players and judges have misapplied this. It’s not something that we could realistically codify; there are just too many variables. In general, though, returning to the same state means that the physical state of the game *as it relates to the loop* has reverted back to a previous state. So, if the iteration of the loop popped a Narcomeba into play, or did a point of damage to the player, that’s a change to the game state that’s directly related to the loop in question and the game is clearly advancing. If the player tapped an island halfway through just to “change” the game state, that’s not meaningfully advancing the game, as it’s not part of the looping process. Stuff does happen during a lot of horsemen loops, and stepping in prematurely is incorrect. By far the most common (only?) way to actually achieve a same game state is to hit Emrakul, shuffle (state A), start up, then hit Emrakul again before any other piece and shuffle, returning you to state A. That is the point at which the judge should be intervening." http://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2012/11/02/horsemyths/
The storm count increasing, or floating more mana, or activating an ability multiple times in a game where nothing cares about the number (and the ability does something like just give a creature flying) are not things that change the physical state of the game as it relates to the loop.
I've noticed a tendency among judges to resist getting into discussions about fact patterns having to do with the "game state" or with loops generally. I assume this is because they are tired of / annoyed with people who want things like indeterminate loops to be legal (four horseman, some Gitrog combos) and they assume any question about loops is going to degrade swiftly into such a debate. I may be wrong, but I can't think of another good reason for the aversion to the issue.
Id suggest this is a bit self-defeating. There really is not a comprehensive resource explaining loops, slow play, game state, and so on for lay people. Judgecast won't touch the issue, and there are no good articles outlining the process, either. It took me forever to piece together the relevant rules, tournament considerations, and examples until I understood it, and I had to both email judges and dig deep into forums like this on top of reading the IPG and comp rules.
If people had a good resource that just laid it all out, with concrete examples, that might deter complaints without requiring judges to shUT people down.
I've noticed a tendency among judges to resist getting into discussions about fact patterns having to do with the "game state" or with loops generally. I assume this is because they are tired of / annoyed with people who want things like indeterminate loops to be legal (four horseman, some Gitrog combos) and they assume any question about loops is going to degrade swiftly into such a debate. I may be wrong, but I can't think of another good reason for the aversion to the issue.
Id suggest this is a bit self-defeating. There really is not a comprehensive resource explaining loops, slow play, game state, and so on for lay people. Judgecast won't touch the issue, and there are no good articles outlining the process, either. It took me forever to piece together the relevant rules, tournament considerations, and examples until I understood it, and I had to both email judges and dig deep into forums like this on top of reading the IPG and comp rules.
If people had a good resource that just laid it all out, with concrete examples, that might deter complaints without requiring judges to shUT people down.
The problem is that because there are so many possible iterations there's no way to "lay it all out" with "concrete examples". No one is shutting people down, and most judges I know are open to discussion.
The issue comes when someone is given an explanation similar to what I've quoted above and still continues to argue.
If you think you can sum it up in an article, please feel free to do so.
This is why Magic needs a strong set theoretic foundation. The game state is the operation g between sets in G which consists of every possible valid tuple of in game objects and values. It defines every possible valid transition from one set to another. Failure to maintain the game state means an invalid transition was made. In a similar way if someone says that 2+2=5 they have failed to perform addition properly, under the usual definition.
Failure to maintain game state is well defined - "A player allows another player in the game to commit a Game Play Error and does not point it out immediately."
The game state is the state of the game. What does that consist of? Well, describe the game to me - who has what lands, creatures, other permanents. What's the stack like? What are graveyards like? What's the Library like? Other zones?
If you're not altering those in a fashion relevant to the loop you're performing, you're not changing the game state.
The storm count increasing, or floating more mana, or activating an ability multiple times in a game where nothing cares about the number (and the ability does something like just give a creature flying) are not things that change the physical state of the game as it relates to the loop.
Ok, what if I had one additional card in hand and we are playing in a format where Storm is a thing? Couldn't I claim that that the game state is advancing since the storm count has increased by 2? Or to do so, would I be forced to reveal a card that cared about storm?
This is why Magic needs a strong set theoretic foundation. The game state is the operation g between sets in G which consists of every possible valid tuple of in game objects and values. It defines every possible valid transition from one set to another. Failure to maintain the game state means an invalid transition was made. In a similar way if someone says that 2+2=5 they have failed to perform addition properly, under the usual definition.
I've definitely thought about doing something like this. Sometimes information from the distant past of the game is relevant to the current state of the game, so clearly your "tuple" description would have to include a history of past game play. Since we have to include this anyway, one might try to model Magic as an Extensive-form game, so that every "game state" simply IS a complete history of all actions taken by players and the outcomes of random events up until this point. But the problem with this approach is that the "game state" is not necessarily known to either player, as e.g. it must include a description of the orders of cards in libraries. This is problematic since we want the "game state" to always be public information.
To avoid this problem, we could instead only require a history of the outcomes of all publicly observable random events, such as coin tosses (but not library shuffling). Interestingly, under this definition of game state, looking at the top card of your library, shuffling it, and then repeating both steps should intuitively be illegal, as no public information, or anything else in the game state besides the (assumed to be irrelevant) history, has changed in the last iteration. But we would need a way to make this intuitive result hold rigorously within the rules, as right now it doesn't since the history, and hence the state, has changed.
The storm count increasing, or floating more mana, or activating an ability multiple times in a game where nothing cares about the number (and the ability does something like just give a creature flying) are not things that change the physical state of the game as it relates to the loop.
Ok, what if I had one additional card in hand and we are playing in a format where Storm is a thing? Couldn't I claim that that the game state is advancing since the storm count has increased by 2? Or to do so, would I be forced to reveal a card that cared about storm?
Are you planning on using that card?
In the given example, unless it's an instant, the answer is no. So no, the Storm count isn't relevant. If the Storm count is relevant then shortcut the loop until it's high enough you're happy and then cast the spell.
Yes, relevancy is subjective. You're welcome to write an article on set theory and a method to have game state take literally every action into account but I don't predict it'll be easy enough to implement for it to be adopted.
Whether or not I have and/or am planning to use a certain card is not public information, so it shouldn't be a factor in determining whether the "game state" is the same or not.
For example, let's suppose we were in a completely different scenario to the one I described before, except I have the ability to execute a seemingly-pointless loop that only serves to increase the Storm count on each iteration. If my opponent knows I'm planning to go off with Storm, then maybe he uses a counterspell to interrupt my loop right here, right now. If he knows my storm count is irrelevant, then he will let me keep on going as long as I want. But if he isn't sure, then he has to make a risky decision as to whether to interrupt me now. If I were under the obligation to truthfully tell him whether the Storm count matters to me, then he would no longer have to make this risky decision. So it seems clear that the game shouldn't force me to truthfully reveal whether I plan to go off with Storm.
But if the game can't force to to truthfully reveal whether Storm matters to me, then I can always claim that it does matter to me, and that the game state is advancing each iteration of the loop.
So my question is simple: Does Rule 718.3 permit me to repeat my loop even once in the Deadeye-Counterspell scenario above? If the game state is the "same" after one iteration of the Counterspell-Deadeye loop, then I shouldn't even be allowed to play my Counterspell the second time. If the game state is different, then I should be allowed to play it again. But if the game state is indeed different, then the same logic shows that after any arbitrary number of iterations, I should be able to play the Counterspell again.
EDIT: My last version of this post referenced Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, whose emblem is one potential way to repeat castings of Counterspell. But my example in the end did not use this emblem, instead opting for Deadeye Navigator. I have corrected this confusing reference.
Whether or not I have and/or am planning to use a certain card is not public information, so it shouldn't be a factor in determining whether the "game state" is the same or not.
It will be for the judge that is there to issue a Slow Play warning.
For example, let's suppose we were in a completely different scenario to the one I described before, except I have the ability to execute a seemingly-pointless loop that only serves to increase the Storm count on each iteration. If my opponent knows I'm planning to go off with Storm, then maybe he uses a counterspell to interrupt my loop right here, right now. If he knows my storm count is irrelevant, then he will let me keep on going as long as I want. But if he isn't sure, then he has to make a risky decision as to whether to interrupt me now. If I were under the obligation to truthfully tell him whether the Storm count matters to me, then he would no longer have to make this risky decision. So it seems clear that the game shouldn't force me to truthfully reveal whether I plan to go off with Storm.
Then shortcut it. You perform one iteration and then say "I'm going to do this 20 more times. Do you have any responses?"
This isn't comparable to the original example.
But if the game can't force to to truthfully reveal whether Storm matters to me, then I can always claim that it does matter to me, and that the game state is advancing each iteration of the loop.
The game doesn't. The Judge that'll be called will.
So my question is simple: Does Rule 718.3 permit me to repeat my loop even once in the Deadeye-Counterspell scenario above? If the game state is the "same" after one iteration of the Counterspell-Deadeye loop, then I shouldn't even be allowed to play my Counterspell the second time. If the game state is different, then I should be allowed to play it again. But if the game state is indeed different, then the same logic shows that after any arbitrary number of iterations, I should be able to play the Counterspell again.
Casting the second counterspell doesn't create the loop. Resolving it then casting it again after your opponent loops theirs creates a loop that doesn't change the game state.
http://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2012/11/02/horsemyths/
"There are also persistent questions about what qualifies as “the same game state”, and both players and judges have misapplied this. It’s not something that we could realistically codify; there are just too many variables. In general, though, returning to the same state means that the physical state of the game *as it relates to the loop* has reverted back to a previous state. So, if the iteration of the loop popped a Narcomeba into play, or did a point of damage to the player, that’s a change to the game state that’s directly related to the loop in question and the game is clearly advancing. If the player tapped an island halfway through just to “change” the game state, that’s not meaningfully advancing the game, as it’s not part of the looping process. "
This explains a lot about what you're concerned about and should answer any questions.
The game doesn't see that what you're doing is illegal. The issue comes from the fact that forcing the loop to continue will get you Slow Play warnings for choosing to not advance the game state.
Interesting. I might give that a try. Where would I send such a thing for editing and publication?
Wherever you want to publish it. It wouldn't be anything official, but it could get a conversation started.
Good luck addressing literally every potential game state in your article.
The game doesn't see that what you're doing is illegal. The issue comes from the fact that forcing the loop to continue will get you Slow Play warnings for choosing to not advance the game state.
Thank you for the answer; this sounds about correct to me. So the practical, tournament version of Magic has an informal way to resolve scenarios like this one, which is more than enough since ridiculously complicated scenarios that would require formalism do not arise in actual Magic.
Meanwhile, the theoretical game of Magic allows loops like the one I described to carry on indefinitely, as one cannot always be sure that the game state isn't advancing each time. In this case, the theoretical game of Magic has no way to decide a winner, or indeed if the game is a draw.
It is already a rule of Magic that executing an infinite predictable loop of mandatory actions results in the game being a draw. We could perhaps add a rule that executing an infinite predictable loop containing any mix of mandatory actions and voluntary actions whose outcomes are predictable since the players specified what they will do each time also results in a draw. This would formally resolve the scenario I described in a draw.
Aside: But even this additional rule would not be enough to decide the outcome of a game wherein no one can determine whether a loop being executed is infinite or not.
So, I finished a rough draft of a comprehensive article on loops, and I'll circulate that to some judges for comment.
In the meantime, I wanted to point something out. The current iteration of the rules (Comp Rules, Tournament Rules, and IPG) do not actually define Slow Play in terms of "advancing the game state" at all. The term simply does not appear. Slow Play is instead defined entirely in terms of trying to execute a Loop without being able to explain how many iterations you want to do or precisely what the game state will be when you are done.
Perhaps "advancing the board state" is an archaic term from old versions of the rules?
The ruling which currently stands has been given and explained. 718.3 applies. For reference :
718.3. Sometimes a loop can be fragmented, meaning that each player involved in the loop performs an independent action that results in the same game state being reached multiple times. If that happens, the active player (or, if the active player is not involved in the loop, the first player in turn order who is involved) must then make a different game choice so the loop does not continue.
Example: In a two-player game, the active player controls a creature with the ability "{0}: [This creature] gains flying," the nonactive player controls a permanent with the ability "{0}: Target creature loses flying," and nothing in the game cares how many times an ability has been activated. Say the active player activates his creature's ability, it resolves, then the nonactive player activates her permanent's ability targeting that creature, and it resolves. This returns the game to a game state it was at before. The active player must make a different game choice (in other words, anything other than activating that creature's ability again). The creature doesn't have flying. Note that the nonactive player could have prevented the fragmented loop simply by not activating her permanent's ability, in which case the creature would have had flying. The nonactive player always has the final choice and is therefore able to determine whether the creature has flying.
This is not the right place to try and make the established ruling or the rules change. This has gone on long enough.
-MadMage
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I'm a former judge (lapsed), who keeps up to date on rules and policy. Keep in mind that judges' answers aren't necessarily more valid than those of people who aren't judges; what matters is we can quote the rules to back up our answers. When in doubt, ask for such quotes.
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(1) The number of times abilities have been activated this turn is greater in B than in A.
(2) The number of spells cast this turn is greater in B than in A.
(3) The amount of mana in the active player's mana pool is greater in B than in A.
In which of the scenarios (1) through (3) would we say that A and B are the same game state, and in which of (1) through (3) would they be different game states?
There are two main ways I've seen the term "game state" used. This first is maintaining proper game state, which requires that the players present the game in the correct way. This primarily involves the location of cards, any counters on any objects, life totals and the like. All things mentioned are components of the game state and both players should be aware of and correctly represent those things where appropriate. The storm count for example is always part of the game state, even if you're playing in standard. You wouldn't be expected to know what the storm count was at any given moment, but you should have the capacity to work it out in a timely manner.
The second is in repairing a game state. This is where the judge steps in and applies a fix that takes the game state that has been created and changes it to the one which it is supposed to be. Again this can involve changing any number of things within the game so that everything is as it should be.
In summary, "game state" is the most broad of terms used to discuss a game in its entirety. I will say it's strange that this term has not been specifically defined, if I am ever a high enough level judge, I will make that part of my projects.
If you're not convinced that this is a "different" game state, then let's make the following alteration to my example. Instead of making 2 mana before blinking my Wall, I now make 3 mana each time. Then on each iteration of the loop, I have 1 more mana in my mana pool than last time. Clearly one must conclude that this is a different game state, as the amount of mana one has is one of the most fundamental factors at any moment in a game of Magic and cannot be an "irrelevant" part of the game state. Therefore Rule 718.3 cannot be applied to force me to end the loop. Similarly 718.3 cannot be applied to force my opponent to do something different if he makes 3 mana each time, even ignoring the fact that he's not the active player.
To summarize, we have a repeated sequence of voluntary actions in the game such that the rules cannot force either player to do something different. And clearly neither player will want to do anything different: if my opponent's Door to Nothingness resolves then he wins the game, while if it does not resolve then I win the game (let's say I have a True-Name Nemesis in play and my opponent is at 3 life). This situation would seemingly go on forever, and neither player can be to blame for letting it go on forever. The Comprehensive Rules seem to have nothing to say about this.
Basically, I think the game needs both a formal definition of a "game state" and new rules to deal with situations like the one I described above.
EDIT: It appears that I am not the first person to ask for a definition of "game state." Some discussion of this question occurs here: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-rulings/magic-rulings-archives/563675-what-exactly-is-a-game-state
The issue here is that a purely technical document like the CR can't easily use such concepts as "relevant" or "impact" in this context, because unfortunately, in such a context, these are subjective. In a tournament situation, if the players can't agree, a judge will decide what's relevant to the game state and what makes it the same or not.
Your rules question has been answered. If you don't like the rules and the official rulings about this, you may try to contact WotC, but this is not the right place to argue about it further.
http://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2012/11/02/horsemyths/
The storm count increasing, or floating more mana, or activating an ability multiple times in a game where nothing cares about the number (and the ability does something like just give a creature flying) are not things that change the physical state of the game as it relates to the loop.
I've noticed a tendency among judges to resist getting into discussions about fact patterns having to do with the "game state" or with loops generally. I assume this is because they are tired of / annoyed with people who want things like indeterminate loops to be legal (four horseman, some Gitrog combos) and they assume any question about loops is going to degrade swiftly into such a debate. I may be wrong, but I can't think of another good reason for the aversion to the issue.
Id suggest this is a bit self-defeating. There really is not a comprehensive resource explaining loops, slow play, game state, and so on for lay people. Judgecast won't touch the issue, and there are no good articles outlining the process, either. It took me forever to piece together the relevant rules, tournament considerations, and examples until I understood it, and I had to both email judges and dig deep into forums like this on top of reading the IPG and comp rules.
If people had a good resource that just laid it all out, with concrete examples, that might deter complaints without requiring judges to shUT people down.
The problem is that because there are so many possible iterations there's no way to "lay it all out" with "concrete examples". No one is shutting people down, and most judges I know are open to discussion.
The issue comes when someone is given an explanation similar to what I've quoted above and still continues to argue.
If you think you can sum it up in an article, please feel free to do so.
Failure to maintain game state is well defined - "A player allows another player in the game to commit a Game Play Error and does not point it out immediately."
The game state is the state of the game. What does that consist of? Well, describe the game to me - who has what lands, creatures, other permanents. What's the stack like? What are graveyards like? What's the Library like? Other zones?
If you're not altering those in a fashion relevant to the loop you're performing, you're not changing the game state.
Ok, what if I had one additional card in hand and we are playing in a format where Storm is a thing? Couldn't I claim that that the game state is advancing since the storm count has increased by 2? Or to do so, would I be forced to reveal a card that cared about storm?
I've definitely thought about doing something like this. Sometimes information from the distant past of the game is relevant to the current state of the game, so clearly your "tuple" description would have to include a history of past game play. Since we have to include this anyway, one might try to model Magic as an Extensive-form game, so that every "game state" simply IS a complete history of all actions taken by players and the outcomes of random events up until this point. But the problem with this approach is that the "game state" is not necessarily known to either player, as e.g. it must include a description of the orders of cards in libraries. This is problematic since we want the "game state" to always be public information.
To avoid this problem, we could instead only require a history of the outcomes of all publicly observable random events, such as coin tosses (but not library shuffling). Interestingly, under this definition of game state, looking at the top card of your library, shuffling it, and then repeating both steps should intuitively be illegal, as no public information, or anything else in the game state besides the (assumed to be irrelevant) history, has changed in the last iteration. But we would need a way to make this intuitive result hold rigorously within the rules, as right now it doesn't since the history, and hence the state, has changed.
Are you planning on using that card?
In the given example, unless it's an instant, the answer is no. So no, the Storm count isn't relevant. If the Storm count is relevant then shortcut the loop until it's high enough you're happy and then cast the spell.
Yes, relevancy is subjective. You're welcome to write an article on set theory and a method to have game state take literally every action into account but I don't predict it'll be easy enough to implement for it to be adopted.
Whether or not I have and/or am planning to use a certain card is not public information, so it shouldn't be a factor in determining whether the "game state" is the same or not.
For example, let's suppose we were in a completely different scenario to the one I described before, except I have the ability to execute a seemingly-pointless loop that only serves to increase the Storm count on each iteration. If my opponent knows I'm planning to go off with Storm, then maybe he uses a counterspell to interrupt my loop right here, right now. If he knows my storm count is irrelevant, then he will let me keep on going as long as I want. But if he isn't sure, then he has to make a risky decision as to whether to interrupt me now. If I were under the obligation to truthfully tell him whether the Storm count matters to me, then he would no longer have to make this risky decision. So it seems clear that the game shouldn't force me to truthfully reveal whether I plan to go off with Storm.
But if the game can't force to to truthfully reveal whether Storm matters to me, then I can always claim that it does matter to me, and that the game state is advancing each iteration of the loop.
So my question is simple: Does Rule 718.3 permit me to repeat my loop even once in the Deadeye-Counterspell scenario above? If the game state is the "same" after one iteration of the Counterspell-Deadeye loop, then I shouldn't even be allowed to play my Counterspell the second time. If the game state is different, then I should be allowed to play it again. But if the game state is indeed different, then the same logic shows that after any arbitrary number of iterations, I should be able to play the Counterspell again.
EDIT: My last version of this post referenced Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, whose emblem is one potential way to repeat castings of Counterspell. But my example in the end did not use this emblem, instead opting for Deadeye Navigator. I have corrected this confusing reference.
It will be for the judge that is there to issue a Slow Play warning.
Then shortcut it. You perform one iteration and then say "I'm going to do this 20 more times. Do you have any responses?"
This isn't comparable to the original example.
The game doesn't. The Judge that'll be called will.
Casting the second counterspell doesn't create the loop. Resolving it then casting it again after your opponent loops theirs creates a loop that doesn't change the game state.
http://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2012/11/02/horsemyths/
"There are also persistent questions about what qualifies as “the same game state”, and both players and judges have misapplied this. It’s not something that we could realistically codify; there are just too many variables. In general, though, returning to the same state means that the physical state of the game *as it relates to the loop* has reverted back to a previous state. So, if the iteration of the loop popped a Narcomeba into play, or did a point of damage to the player, that’s a change to the game state that’s directly related to the loop in question and the game is clearly advancing. If the player tapped an island halfway through just to “change” the game state, that’s not meaningfully advancing the game, as it’s not part of the looping process. "
This explains a lot about what you're concerned about and should answer any questions.
The game doesn't see that what you're doing is illegal. The issue comes from the fact that forcing the loop to continue will get you Slow Play warnings for choosing to not advance the game state.
Wherever you want to publish it. It wouldn't be anything official, but it could get a conversation started.
Good luck addressing literally every potential game state in your article.
Thank you for the answer; this sounds about correct to me. So the practical, tournament version of Magic has an informal way to resolve scenarios like this one, which is more than enough since ridiculously complicated scenarios that would require formalism do not arise in actual Magic.
Meanwhile, the theoretical game of Magic allows loops like the one I described to carry on indefinitely, as one cannot always be sure that the game state isn't advancing each time. In this case, the theoretical game of Magic has no way to decide a winner, or indeed if the game is a draw.
It is already a rule of Magic that executing an infinite predictable loop of mandatory actions results in the game being a draw. We could perhaps add a rule that executing an infinite predictable loop containing any mix of mandatory actions and voluntary actions whose outcomes are predictable since the players specified what they will do each time also results in a draw. This would formally resolve the scenario I described in a draw.
Aside: But even this additional rule would not be enough to decide the outcome of a game wherein no one can determine whether a loop being executed is infinite or not.
In the meantime, I wanted to point something out. The current iteration of the rules (Comp Rules, Tournament Rules, and IPG) do not actually define Slow Play in terms of "advancing the game state" at all. The term simply does not appear. Slow Play is instead defined entirely in terms of trying to execute a Loop without being able to explain how many iterations you want to do or precisely what the game state will be when you are done.
Perhaps "advancing the board state" is an archaic term from old versions of the rules?
Example: In a two-player game, the active player controls a creature with the ability "{0}: [This creature] gains flying," the nonactive player controls a permanent with the ability "{0}: Target creature loses flying," and nothing in the game cares how many times an ability has been activated. Say the active player activates his creature's ability, it resolves, then the nonactive player activates her permanent's ability targeting that creature, and it resolves. This returns the game to a game state it was at before. The active player must make a different game choice (in other words, anything other than activating that creature's ability again). The creature doesn't have flying. Note that the nonactive player could have prevented the fragmented loop simply by not activating her permanent's ability, in which case the creature would have had flying. The nonactive player always has the final choice and is therefore able to determine whether the creature has flying.
This is not the right place to try and make the established ruling or the rules change. This has gone on long enough.
-MadMage