I have a question about how much you can organize your graveyard in Standard.
I am currently running a deck with Splinterfright, Skaab Ruinator, and a lot of flashback spells. Typically this means I have to keep track of the number of creatures in my graveyard and the number of flashback spells I have in the graveyard. For convience sake, I have been seperating my graveyard/exile zone into four different piles: creatures, flashback spells, normal graveyard, and exile zone.
Most of the people that I have been playing with so far have allowed this organization, some even prefer it since it greatly reduces the amount of time spent counting flashback spells and creatures. But I was wondering if this would be allowed at a competitive tournament or even an FMN, even if my opponent was okay with me organizing it in this way?
Also, if I am not allowed to organize it like this, how do people suggest rearranging graveyards so that you can easily keep track of creatures and flashback spells?
Okay, I figured that it wasn't allowed how I was doing it, but I couldn't really think of a convenient way of keeping track of my graveyard.
I'll probably switch to a method similar to how pandafarmer described, so that I can make it easy to count while still being legal.
Part of the reason I asked the question here rather than the rules forum was that it is a standard relavent question, since a lot of new decks will probably have flashback spells; people who haven't played with flashback before might be curious about what the legal ways of keeping track of the graveyard were and this would probably be one of the earlier places they check. I was also looking for ideas on how to organize my graveyard in addition to the legality of how I was doing it.
404.2. Each graveyard is kept in a single face-up pile. A player can examine the cards in any graveyard at any time but normally can't change their order. Additional rules applying to sanctioned tournaments may allow a player to change the order of cards in his or her graveyard.
Not sure what it means by Additional rules, but pretty clear cut.
404.2. Each graveyard is kept in a single face-up pile. A player can examine the cards in any graveyard at any time but normally can't change their order. Additional rules applying to sanctioned tournaments may allow a player to change the order of cards in his or her graveyard.
Not sure what it means by Additional rules, but pretty clear cut.
In formats that contain cards that care about graveyard order (such as Death Spark), you are not allowed to change the order of your graveyard. In formats where no such cards exist, you're free to order your graveyard however you like.
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Ghoulraiser doesn't care about graveyard order. It just returns a random zombie, nothing about what order the cards in the graveyard are in.
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You cannot rearrange the order of your graveyard. I have a lot of experience playing Dredge in Legacy and the way I've always arranged my graveyard is to fan it out on the top of the mat, from left to right. However, I never change the order the cards enter the graveyard, because that is, in fact, illegal.
I don't think standard graveyard shenanigans will get to the point of needing Dredge-esque graveyard arrangement, but what I have done with my yard in Legacy is perfectly legal. Most Dredge players arrange their yard like this. It allows both players to clearly see each card in the graveyard to avoid any discrepancies with order, manipulation, etc.
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404.2. Each graveyard is kept in a single face-up pile. A player can examine the cards in any graveyard at any time but normally can't change their order. Additional rules applying to sanctioned tournaments may allow a player to change the order of cards in his or her graveyard.
Not sure what it means by Additional rules, but pretty clear cut.
I'm relatively sure that these days, any standard tournament will exercise the "additional rules" clause and allow rearranging. In fact, I think it's going to be pretty much necessary to avoid slowdowns in Innistrad. Say I have a Charmbreaker Devils out and 30 cards in my graveyard, 20 of them instants and sorceries. I'd have to write down the order of the cards in the graveyard, then every turn randomize them, have my opponent pick one, and then put them back in the order I wrote them down in. Every. Single. Turn. Given the near certainty that no card will ever be printed again that cares about graveyard order (since I believe development was clear about abandoning that mechanic), I don't think anyone would not put a rule in place nullifying 404.2.
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Yes, this was one of the overshadowed rules changes that were performed with M10. If the format you are playing in has no potential cards that care about graveyard order, then you can rearrange your graveyard at any time. Basically, only Vintage and Legacy have Graveyard Order Matters cards, so it's fine to do so in Standard.
Just fan it out in a long line as LostCondottiere suggests. It's the best way to do it. You can even pull some cards halfway out of the fan if you want to make them more obvious, as long as you do not pull them out of the fan entirely.
If you choose to do heavy reordering you're going to get bitten some day by a rules lawyer who costs you a game. Not in Standard necessarily but the first time you sit down to a Modern or Legacy match and just do the thing you are used to doing, which is illegal in those formats.
If you choose to do heavy reordering you're going to get bitten some day by a rules lawyer who costs you a game. Not in Standard necessarily but the first time you sit down to a Modern or Legacy match and just do the thing you are used to doing, which is illegal in those formats.
I don't believe there are any "graveyard order matters" cards in Modern.
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Depends on how you play them. Splinterfright always serves as an engine, and then it's a question on which one you focus. If it's Splinterfright, Ruinator is therefore a backup flyer. If it's Ruinator, Splinterfright becomes the backup trampler.
Yeah, this pretty much describes how I use them. My main creature is Splinterfright and Ruinator is my backup flyer (since I should have him in my graveyard 90% of the time). I use Ruinator only if my other creatures die or I just need a flyer. If you want to see my deck its in the Standard Dredge forum.
On the main discussion, I believe I read somewhere that rearranging your graveyard is allowed in Standard and modern formats. Part of the reason that I had posed the original question was that I was curious what was the degree that you were allowed to reorder your graveyard: whether that meant you could put them in any order in one pile or if you can organize it how ever you want. Obviously it meant the former, but it seemed like a pertinent question considering all the flashback that we will be dealing with in the upcoming standard.
Part of me wishes it were legal to seperate the graveyard into different piles though. It seems like it could become a hassle with certain decks to have to look through the entire graveyard every so many turns to figure out what is in it.
This habit of reorderring my graveyard will probably only exist in standard for convenience sake. That was part of the reason that I wanted to pose the question here rather than on the rules forum, so that it was used as a discussion mainly toward standard. I don't play legacy, but if I started to play, I would probably play a deck that didn't care about the graveyard so I wouldn't be tempted to change it up. Speaking of which, does anyone know the ruling toward Commander/EDH? I happen to be playing Karador, Ghost Chieftain as my general right now (I know, I love graveyards ) and so I go through my graveyard a lot.
Thanks everyone for the feedback. I'm sure that I and a lot of other people have found the information useful.
Here is the actual rule from the MTR that governs this:
3.14 Graveyard Order
In formats involving only cards from Urza’s Saga™ and later, players may change the order of their graveyard at any time. A player may not change the order of an opponent’s graveyard.
In formats involving only cards from Urza’s Saga™ and later, players may change the order of their graveyard at any time. A player may not change the order of an opponent’s graveyard.
lolz, I appreciate that they stipulated not to just reach across the table and start going to town with your opponents yard. I know I fall victim of having to reach across to spin permanents constantly to read the wording on cards. The buck has to stop on that at some point.
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Easy Dude. You're being very un-Dude.
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I am currently running a deck with Splinterfright, Skaab Ruinator, and a lot of flashback spells. Typically this means I have to keep track of the number of creatures in my graveyard and the number of flashback spells I have in the graveyard. For convience sake, I have been seperating my graveyard/exile zone into four different piles: creatures, flashback spells, normal graveyard, and exile zone.
Most of the people that I have been playing with so far have allowed this organization, some even prefer it since it greatly reduces the amount of time spent counting flashback spells and creatures. But I was wondering if this would be allowed at a competitive tournament or even an FMN, even if my opponent was okay with me organizing it in this way?
Also, if I am not allowed to organize it like this, how do people suggest rearranging graveyards so that you can easily keep track of creatures and flashback spells?
Thanks.
you could always just rearrange your graveyard into a desired order, or you could spread them out in a fan shape
C C C
MMMMM L
GGGGGGGG
C = Creature M = Mana L = Library G = Graveyard
I'll probably switch to a method similar to how pandafarmer described, so that I can make it easy to count while still being legal.
Part of the reason I asked the question here rather than the rules forum was that it is a standard relavent question, since a lot of new decks will probably have flashback spells; people who haven't played with flashback before might be curious about what the legal ways of keeping track of the graveyard were and this would probably be one of the earlier places they check. I was also looking for ideas on how to organize my graveyard in addition to the legality of how I was doing it.
Thanks for the info.
404.2. Each graveyard is kept in a single face-up pile. A player can examine the cards in any graveyard at any time but normally can't change their order. Additional rules applying to sanctioned tournaments may allow a player to change the order of cards in his or her graveyard.
Not sure what it means by Additional rules, but pretty clear cut.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=519290
In formats that contain cards that care about graveyard order (such as Death Spark), you are not allowed to change the order of your graveyard. In formats where no such cards exist, you're free to order your graveyard however you like.
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Ghoulraiser
this kinds has that but i dont know
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=307188
Ghoulraiser doesn't care about graveyard order. It just returns a random zombie, nothing about what order the cards in the graveyard are in.
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I don't think standard graveyard shenanigans will get to the point of needing Dredge-esque graveyard arrangement, but what I have done with my yard in Legacy is perfectly legal. Most Dredge players arrange their yard like this. It allows both players to clearly see each card in the graveyard to avoid any discrepancies with order, manipulation, etc.
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Slightly off-topic, but curious, don't these cards work against each other a bit?
I'm relatively sure that these days, any standard tournament will exercise the "additional rules" clause and allow rearranging. In fact, I think it's going to be pretty much necessary to avoid slowdowns in Innistrad. Say I have a Charmbreaker Devils out and 30 cards in my graveyard, 20 of them instants and sorceries. I'd have to write down the order of the cards in the graveyard, then every turn randomize them, have my opponent pick one, and then put them back in the order I wrote them down in. Every. Single. Turn. Given the near certainty that no card will ever be printed again that cares about graveyard order (since I believe development was clear about abandoning that mechanic), I don't think anyone would not put a rule in place nullifying 404.2.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
If you choose to do heavy reordering you're going to get bitten some day by a rules lawyer who costs you a game. Not in Standard necessarily but the first time you sit down to a Modern or Legacy match and just do the thing you are used to doing, which is illegal in those formats.
I don't believe there are any "graveyard order matters" cards in Modern.
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Yeah, this pretty much describes how I use them. My main creature is Splinterfright and Ruinator is my backup flyer (since I should have him in my graveyard 90% of the time). I use Ruinator only if my other creatures die or I just need a flyer. If you want to see my deck its in the Standard Dredge forum.
On the main discussion, I believe I read somewhere that rearranging your graveyard is allowed in Standard and modern formats. Part of the reason that I had posed the original question was that I was curious what was the degree that you were allowed to reorder your graveyard: whether that meant you could put them in any order in one pile or if you can organize it how ever you want. Obviously it meant the former, but it seemed like a pertinent question considering all the flashback that we will be dealing with in the upcoming standard.
Part of me wishes it were legal to seperate the graveyard into different piles though. It seems like it could become a hassle with certain decks to have to look through the entire graveyard every so many turns to figure out what is in it.
This habit of reorderring my graveyard will probably only exist in standard for convenience sake. That was part of the reason that I wanted to pose the question here rather than on the rules forum, so that it was used as a discussion mainly toward standard. I don't play legacy, but if I started to play, I would probably play a deck that didn't care about the graveyard so I wouldn't be tempted to change it up. Speaking of which, does anyone know the ruling toward Commander/EDH? I happen to be playing Karador, Ghost Chieftain as my general right now (I know, I love graveyards ) and so I go through my graveyard a lot.
Thanks everyone for the feedback. I'm sure that I and a lot of other people have found the information useful.
Here is the actual rule from the MTR that governs this:
lolz, I appreciate that they stipulated not to just reach across the table and start going to town with your opponents yard. I know I fall victim of having to reach across to spin permanents constantly to read the wording on cards. The buck has to stop on that at some point.
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