Most people would say that is pretty nasty but here is where the DQ came in. Given that I had a large board full of creatures (I would have gone wit the Disk lock, but they had exiled Darksteel Forge earlier. ) They decided to play Wrath of god. So i decide I will counter it using counterbalance. My process s the following
-Tape myr turbine to make a Myr
-Intruder Alarm will untap Myr turbine
-I tap Arcum and Chromatic lantern (for blue) to search library for an artifact (Maing sure i have a mana cost of 4 somewhere (which I do))
-I fail to find. I shuffle
-I tap sol ring to look at top three cards of library with top
-I see none with a man cost of 4, i repeat process (With the new myr from turbine untapping everything.
Given that I will eventually shuffle until I have the 4 mana cost in the top 3, i will eventually be able to counter wrath of god. Opponent claimed I was stalling and called judge over, I explain the situation and he still gives me a warning. This is only because my opponent did not understand that in the realm of infinite possibly, I will eventually get the card needed to counter ***. He was not satisfied with it and wanted me to play it out.
Was the judge justified in giving me warning in this? I tried to explain but the judge did agree i was stalling and for disagreeing with him i was DQed from the match.
What you were trying to do is set up a loop that depends on the order of cards in a library after shuffling it. But no matter how many times you shuffle your library, you can't guarantee that a card with converted mana cost 4 will appear among the top three cards of your library. This makes it an invalid shortcut under C.R. 719.2a, which allows only "predictable results". Therefore, your only recourse would be to do the actions manually: shuffle and shuffle and shuffle until the card you want is among the top three cards, and doing that would take considerable time.
Whether this qualifies as Stalling is a judgment call, but what you are describing is at minimum an example of Slow Play, for which the warning is appropriate. The problem is that you are executing a loop of sorts - each time you shuffle your library, you're returning to the same game state (the library being randomized is all that matters for this purpose.) Since the loop involves a random element, it is impossible to determine the exact number of times that it needs to be performed and thus can't be shortcut. Playing it out anyway is Slow Play.
well in the realm of infinite possibility it is a guarantee. While it could take up to a million years it will eventually happen. I am not going to shuffle for a million years.
Theoretical Science should have prevailed in this situation.
(What really annoys me is literally anyone else in my playgroup would have realized what was happening and would have scooped. I get the one guy who refused to just scoop and give me the win.)
While you are right that you will "eventually" get the game state you want, you cannot say how many iterations you need.
The deal with shortcuts and loops in magic is, you have to say "i do that X times" , you cannot say "i do that until something happens".
So for your problem, the shuffling prevents you from making a call how many iterations you want to do.
The result has random elements that you cannot control, so you cannot shortcut that process.
And because you cannot shortcut the process, you have to play it out (you can do so quickly, but still).
----
In a normal world you dont get DQed for such a thing, you normally get a warning if you take a unreasonable long time (and the opponent calls you out on it, as nothing really happens, and the game just stalls).
What you can do if you disagree with a judge call, ask for the headjudge as you think hes wrong. If the headjudge makes his call, you are bound to it, even if you deeply think they are wrong, thats how it is in that given tournament (so headjudge trumps anything) , you can still ask / talk with them later on, to a reasonable degree judges will do that happily to explain you why the judge call is what it is.
----
Theres even an entire deck in Legacy (4-Horseman) which resolved around a combo like this, and the rules make the deck simply not playable in a tournament setting.
Not perfect, but its a thing you will at some point encounter and have to accept.
As the game state doesnt change while doing that, you will run into the problem of stalling.
Its an issue you cannot resolve in paper-magic , as in the end you would sit there shuffling and revealing cards for an potentially infinited amount of time ; which is by any standards not reasonable in a tournament.
----
You can still perform "a bunch" of this iterations and try to hit what you want, but at any moment you get a Warning, you have to stop.
The process is quite inconvenient, but there is no fully convenient solution to this kind of loops, that simply have no defined amount of iterations, as the loop contains some form of randomness (most of the time thats shuffling).
For what it takes, even if your opponent is the nicest player ever, I don't think he should give you the win, as far as he seemed to know, there's no proof that you had a card with CMC=4 in your library, you might as well have none and be stalling until time is called, maybe someone in your playgroup 'trust' you enough to do so, but I can't see a stranger fall in trap like this.
I showed him the card I was looking for (Jester's cap) but i had Rocket launcher and Nevinyrral's disk also available to me to find. I think i may have another card or two was just not having good luck with getting them to the top. (Just because Forge is gone so i cannot disk lock, i can still use the 4 CMC to prevent my board from dying.
It actually played out like this
Him: What are you looking for?
Me: *Ruffling through my deck quickly to show him a CMC of 4*
Him: Judge!
even my buddies were appalled by the call. I mean I am trying to prevent myself form losing. Usually i have fun playing EDH, but if I am in tournament mode, I play to win. Cash and prizes are fun.
And to be honest, it is a really tricky situation, I'm not sure I'd give it to you if I was your opponent.
but i am sure you see that when i get the topdeck i need, you lose as I counter *** and then make billions of myr wit turbine to just overrun you. I mean you may have another option, but there is little chance you would win unless you had a fog or something handy like that.
but i am sure you see that when i get the topdeck i need, you lose as I counter *** and then make billions of myr wit turbine to just overrun you. I mean you may have another option, but there is little chance you would win unless you had a fog or something handy like that.
But unfortunately, the strategy you used, in which you tried to propose a loop that relies on randomness, is problematic in more competitive play. Loops that depend on the order of cards in a library after it's shuffled can't be proposed as a shortcut, because the results (here, the amount of time it takes to finish the loop) are not predictable (C.R. 719.2a). Because such shortcuts are invalid and the actions they involve must be carried out manually, players who try to propose them in tournaments at Competitive or Professional rules enforcement level risk having a judge assess a Slow Play or Stalling infraction against them (I.P.G. 3.3, 4.7), as you found out the hard way.
This should be enough explanation for this thread, lock time. To sum it up, you cannot shortcut a process with a random element. Trying to do so unknowingly isn't supposed to warrant a disqualification in itself ("Stalling" is defined as intentionally taking advantage of the time limit), but we don't know exactly what else trespassed between you, your opponent and the judge, so we can only answer in generalities.
For the future, note that among the rules of the Magic Rulings forum, there's a rule that states we can't discuss disqualifications that were actually given :
1.2 Do not discuss disqualifications. Do not discuss or ask about a disqualification from a tournament unless information has been made public by the DCI or until the investigation is confirmed to be closed. Investigations in progress should not be discussed by the participants, and discussion by other parties is generally pointless. Also, do not post about illegal activities observed from organizers, judges, or players.
You can ask about what could or should cause a DQ, but discussing an actual event of a DQ without public info about it available is crossing a line.
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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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My board state (With a few extra cards) was
-Arcum Dagsson
-March of the Machines
-Myr Turbine
-Intruder Alarm
-Sol ring
-Chromatic Lantern
-Counterbalance
-Sensei's Divining Top
Most people would say that is pretty nasty but here is where the DQ came in. Given that I had a large board full of creatures (I would have gone wit the Disk lock, but they had exiled Darksteel Forge earlier. ) They decided to play Wrath of god. So i decide I will counter it using counterbalance. My process s the following
-Tape myr turbine to make a Myr
-Intruder Alarm will untap Myr turbine
-I tap Arcum and Chromatic lantern (for blue) to search library for an artifact (Maing sure i have a mana cost of 4 somewhere (which I do))
-I fail to find. I shuffle
-I tap sol ring to look at top three cards of library with top
-I see none with a man cost of 4, i repeat process (With the new myr from turbine untapping everything.
Given that I will eventually shuffle until I have the 4 mana cost in the top 3, i will eventually be able to counter wrath of god. Opponent claimed I was stalling and called judge over, I explain the situation and he still gives me a warning. This is only because my opponent did not understand that in the realm of infinite possibly, I will eventually get the card needed to counter ***. He was not satisfied with it and wanted me to play it out.
Was the judge justified in giving me warning in this? I tried to explain but the judge did agree i was stalling and for disagreeing with him i was DQed from the match.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
Theoretical Science should have prevailed in this situation.
(What really annoys me is literally anyone else in my playgroup would have realized what was happening and would have scooped. I get the one guy who refused to just scoop and give me the win.)
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
The deal with shortcuts and loops in magic is, you have to say "i do that X times" , you cannot say "i do that until something happens".
So for your problem, the shuffling prevents you from making a call how many iterations you want to do.
The result has random elements that you cannot control, so you cannot shortcut that process.
And because you cannot shortcut the process, you have to play it out (you can do so quickly, but still).
----
In a normal world you dont get DQed for such a thing, you normally get a warning if you take a unreasonable long time (and the opponent calls you out on it, as nothing really happens, and the game just stalls).
What you can do if you disagree with a judge call, ask for the headjudge as you think hes wrong. If the headjudge makes his call, you are bound to it, even if you deeply think they are wrong, thats how it is in that given tournament (so headjudge trumps anything) , you can still ask / talk with them later on, to a reasonable degree judges will do that happily to explain you why the judge call is what it is.
----
Theres even an entire deck in Legacy (4-Horseman) which resolved around a combo like this, and the rules make the deck simply not playable in a tournament setting.
Not perfect, but its a thing you will at some point encounter and have to accept.
As the game state doesnt change while doing that, you will run into the problem of stalling.
Its an issue you cannot resolve in paper-magic , as in the end you would sit there shuffling and revealing cards for an potentially infinited amount of time ; which is by any standards not reasonable in a tournament.
----
You can still perform "a bunch" of this iterations and try to hit what you want, but at any moment you get a Warning, you have to stop.
The process is quite inconvenient, but there is no fully convenient solution to this kind of loops, that simply have no defined amount of iterations, as the loop contains some form of randomness (most of the time thats shuffling).
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
It actually played out like this
Him: What are you looking for?
Me: *Ruffling through my deck quickly to show him a CMC of 4*
Him: Judge!
even my buddies were appalled by the call. I mean I am trying to prevent myself form losing. Usually i have fun playing EDH, but if I am in tournament mode, I play to win. Cash and prizes are fun.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
UBBreya's Toybox (Competitive, Combo)WR
RGodzilla, King of the MonstersG
-Retired Decks-
UBLazav, Dimir Mastermind (Competitive, UB Voltron/Control)UB
"Knowledge is such a burden. Release it. Release all your fears to me."
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but i am sure you see that when i get the topdeck i need, you lose as I counter *** and then make billions of myr wit turbine to just overrun you. I mean you may have another option, but there is little chance you would win unless you had a fog or something handy like that.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
But unfortunately, the strategy you used, in which you tried to propose a loop that relies on randomness, is problematic in more competitive play. Loops that depend on the order of cards in a library after it's shuffled can't be proposed as a shortcut, because the results (here, the amount of time it takes to finish the loop) are not predictable (C.R. 719.2a). Because such shortcuts are invalid and the actions they involve must be carried out manually, players who try to propose them in tournaments at Competitive or Professional rules enforcement level risk having a judge assess a Slow Play or Stalling infraction against them (I.P.G. 3.3, 4.7), as you found out the hard way.
For the future, note that among the rules of the Magic Rulings forum, there's a rule that states we can't discuss disqualifications that were actually given : You can ask about what could or should cause a DQ, but discussing an actual event of a DQ without public info about it available is crossing a line.