If you have a GY based loop, that reshuffles due to an Eldrazi titan, does it still run into 4 horsemen situations if the gamestate advances during the loop in these manners:
Can the loop be shortcut (Until my Wild Mongrel is a 77/77), or is it unable to be since you don't know at what points the graveyard will be shuffled. If it cannot be shortcut, is it still slowplay, even if the gameplay advances in the manners above?
Can the loop be shortcut (Until my Wild Mongrel is a 77/77), or is it unable to be since you don't know at what points the graveyard will be shuffled.
It can't be because you can't ever know what the board state (including status of library) will be at any given point in time.
“It is also slow play if a player continues to execute a loop without being able to provide an exact number of iterations and the expected resulting game state.”
So then, despite having an advancing game state, it is still slow play because of:
“It is also slow play if a player continues to execute a loop without being able to provide an exact number of iterations and the expected resulting game state.”
Those last two sentences in what Thorgor quoted are the key as I understand it. If you execute your iterations at a reasonable pace I think you are fine up to the point that you randomly reach the same game state twice in a row and your next action would have a chance to reach that same game state a third time.
Weather the game state is advancing or not seems to be a judgement call on the part of the presiding judge. Growing your Wild Mongrel or adding [b] to you pool may be deemed relevant at some points in the combo but not relevant at others.
If you are playing at a reasonable pace and advancing the game state in between each graveyard shuffle (therefore avoiding reaching the same game state over and over), then it's not slow play.
To quote this magicjudges article on 4 horsemen:
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.
It will only be slow play if you use Putrid Imp as your discard outlet (since the Mongrel is getting bigger whenever you activate its ability, and the Skirge is adding mana to your pool, both changing the game state) and you dredge into the eldrazi titan twice in a row.
Without also dedging a land, correct? Because even if you hit the titan twice, if you also hit a land then you are still drawing cards. What if you respond to the emrakul trigger itself then, until the gamestate is changed, would that be fine? For example, respond to the trigger again in order to hit a land and draw a card? Why could the actual 4 horsemans deck not have done this in order to avoid slow play interactions?
What if you dredge twice with Dakmor Salvage but hit no lands (thus drawing no cards), would the very act of getting closer to the next land in the deck (and thus more cards) constitute enough of a gamestate change? Because I can definitely say, either Dakmor dredges 0, 1, or 2 lands. On 1 or 2, I draw a card. I have 32 lands in my library, thus, I will draw between 16 and 32 cards on each cycle of my library.
That's obviously not specific enough to shortcut, but is it enough to not hit slow play?
I would think that it would be quite odd that pitching and dredging Dakmor Salvage alone would be slow play, when it's definitely going somewhere, and can even be used by responding to the eldrazi trigger.
Those last two sentences in what Thorgor quoted are the key as I understand it. If you execute your iterations at a reasonable pace I think you are fine up to the point that you randomly reach the same game state twice in a row and your next action would have a chance to reach that same game state a third time.
Weather the game state is advancing or not seems to be a judgement call on the part of the presiding judge. Growing your Wild Mongrel or adding [b] to you pool may be deemed relevant at some points in the combo but not relevant at others.
Among proposed win conditions for the deck are Jarad, Golgari lichlord and Exsanguinate, so size of mongrel and black mana floating are both relevant.
The reason responding to the Emrakul trigger didn't work for the Four Horsemen deck was that it needed to use the sorcery speed Dread Return. It's more complicated with the Gitrog loop you're suggesting. I believe that if you're careful about it, you can actually define a process that will guarantee that your whole deck ends up in your hand within a fixed number of iterations. If so, then you should be able to shortcut the loop.
The reason responding to the Emrakul trigger didn't work for the Four Horsemen deck was that it needed to use the sorcery speed Dread Return. It's more complicated with the Gitrog loop you're suggesting. I believe that if you're careful about it, you can actually define a process that will guarantee that your whole deck ends up in your hand within a fixed number of iterations. If so, then you should be able to shortcut the loop.
I can definitely do that. What I can't guarantee is how much mana / P/T / discards happen during that loop.
Since I can say that I draw 10-30 cards per iteration, I'll have my whole deck in hand after 10 full graveyard loops, but, the number of cards in those loops could vary. I might have the whole deck in hand after 3 loops, and then simply be cycling a 3 card library for the other 7, or I might end up only getting it during the 8th or 9th loop, which means a lot more discards happen (for a larger mongrel, or more mana).
Of course, once I hit the 3 card library, I can cycle that infinitely. Even then, I can't shortcut it, since the top card may differ from being the titan (immediate reshuffle), or a land which I discard to get the titan to reshuffle. Either way, I'm returning to the same state, but in one I've gotten 2 discards, and the other is 1 discard, each at a 50% chance based on the positions of two cards in the deck.
So I can state that I make X mana, but not how many loops it takes, or I can state X loops, but not necessarily how much mana it makes. (or P/T changes for Jarad).
Likewise, I can also use Dread Return as a wincon, simply because I can stop the loop at the desired place, discard the cards for the dread return, and perform that on the spot. I don't need to wait for magical situations to align, though they may perhaps also align earlier, naturally.
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Also, I forgot to add, that I assume Dakmor Salvage alone isn't in this category, since despite milling, without the titan we aren't actually returning to a previous state. Correct?
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If I understand correctly, even with Putrid Imp, I can cycle my deck, responding to the shuffle trigger, since each time we would shuffle from the Titan, returning the GY to the library, the library and hand are not in the same state (since I am drawing cards), thus making it not a repeat state of the game (until I actually hit the 3 card loop, if I repeat that without doing anything).
So, while I can't shortcut the loop, I can either draw my deck with Dakmor Salvage + a discard outlet, OR get an arbitrarily large Wild Mongrel, or get a lot of mana with Skirge Familiar, and it shouldn't hit slow play, since at no point in time do we ever repeat a game state, assuming I proceed at a reasonable pace?
My answer to this is that we can't shortcut it, but we can still do the combo without a TE - Slow Play because the game state is changing and we're advancing our game plan by drawing cards and making our deck thinier.
Those last two sentences in what Thorgor quoted are the key as I understand it. If you execute your iterations at a reasonable pace I think you are fine up to the point that you randomly reach the same game state twice in a row and your next action would have a chance to reach that same game state a third time.
Weather the game state is advancing or not seems to be a judgement call on the part of the presiding judge. Growing your Wild Mongrel or adding [b] to you pool may be deemed relevant at some points in the combo but not relevant at others.
Among proposed win conditions for the deck are Jarad, Golgari lichlord and Exsanguinate, so size of mongrel and black mana floating are both relevant.
They are relevant if the judge says they are. Consider the situation where you have executed the combo down to your three card library. You continue iterations for a while longer and at some point have a 164/164 mongrel, 84 floating black manna, and the rest of your deck in hand. Your opponent calls a judge.
The rules of the game do not allow you to shortcut and simply declare "I'm going to keep doing this until I have a 500/500 mongrel and 333 mana." The judge, though, can also not allow you to just keep performing iterations until you run out the clock. It is within the judge's discretion to as some point decided that you have enough mana and your mongrel is big enough that it's time for you to go ahead and try to do what you need to do to do something else.
Deflecting Palm, Commandeer, or host of other plays from your opponent could justify them not conceding and wanting to force you to pull the trigger. You can't just spin your wheels and make them wait forever, even if your wheels keep spinning faster and faster.
It was recently pointed to me that stuff like making a creature grow or adding mana to your pool (in the original thread, it was gaining life) qualify in and of itself as advancing the game state. Even if you don't intend to ever do anything meaningful with it and your only goal is to run out the clock, it's technically not a Slow Play infraction.
Wow really? I imagine this can only be the case because it hasn't come up in a prominent setting, yet. Good luck with the deck guys. I'll keep my popcorn handy.
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Can the loop be shortcut (Until my Wild Mongrel is a 77/77), or is it unable to be since you don't know at what points the graveyard will be shuffled. If it cannot be shortcut, is it still slowplay, even if the gameplay advances in the manners above?
For more specifics, consider a loop with The Gitrog Monster, a discard outlet, and a Dakmor Salvage.
The loops progress as follows:
Once deck is in hand:
For the other two options, replace Putrid Imp with Wild Mongrel or Skirge familiar.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
It can't be because you can't ever know what the board state (including status of library) will be at any given point in time.
Reading here may help: http://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/ipg3-3/
Providing just the expected game state isn't enough.
?
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
http://wpn.wizards.com/sites/wpn/files/attachements/mtg_ipg_22jan16_en.pdf page 14.
Weather the game state is advancing or not seems to be a judgement call on the part of the presiding judge. Growing your Wild Mongrel or adding [b] to you pool may be deemed relevant at some points in the combo but not relevant at others.
Without also dedging a land, correct? Because even if you hit the titan twice, if you also hit a land then you are still drawing cards. What if you respond to the emrakul trigger itself then, until the gamestate is changed, would that be fine? For example, respond to the trigger again in order to hit a land and draw a card? Why could the actual 4 horsemans deck not have done this in order to avoid slow play interactions?
What if you dredge twice with Dakmor Salvage but hit no lands (thus drawing no cards), would the very act of getting closer to the next land in the deck (and thus more cards) constitute enough of a gamestate change? Because I can definitely say, either Dakmor dredges 0, 1, or 2 lands. On 1 or 2, I draw a card. I have 32 lands in my library, thus, I will draw between 16 and 32 cards on each cycle of my library.
That's obviously not specific enough to shortcut, but is it enough to not hit slow play?
I would think that it would be quite odd that pitching and dredging Dakmor Salvage alone would be slow play, when it's definitely going somewhere, and can even be used by responding to the eldrazi trigger.
Among proposed win conditions for the deck are Jarad, Golgari lichlord and Exsanguinate, so size of mongrel and black mana floating are both relevant.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
I can definitely do that. What I can't guarantee is how much mana / P/T / discards happen during that loop.
Since I can say that I draw 10-30 cards per iteration, I'll have my whole deck in hand after 10 full graveyard loops, but, the number of cards in those loops could vary. I might have the whole deck in hand after 3 loops, and then simply be cycling a 3 card library for the other 7, or I might end up only getting it during the 8th or 9th loop, which means a lot more discards happen (for a larger mongrel, or more mana).
Of course, once I hit the 3 card library, I can cycle that infinitely. Even then, I can't shortcut it, since the top card may differ from being the titan (immediate reshuffle), or a land which I discard to get the titan to reshuffle. Either way, I'm returning to the same state, but in one I've gotten 2 discards, and the other is 1 discard, each at a 50% chance based on the positions of two cards in the deck.
So I can state that I make X mana, but not how many loops it takes, or I can state X loops, but not necessarily how much mana it makes. (or P/T changes for Jarad).
Likewise, I can also use Dread Return as a wincon, simply because I can stop the loop at the desired place, discard the cards for the dread return, and perform that on the spot. I don't need to wait for magical situations to align, though they may perhaps also align earlier, naturally.
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Also, I forgot to add, that I assume Dakmor Salvage alone isn't in this category, since despite milling, without the titan we aren't actually returning to a previous state. Correct?
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If I understand correctly, even with Putrid Imp, I can cycle my deck, responding to the shuffle trigger, since each time we would shuffle from the Titan, returning the GY to the library, the library and hand are not in the same state (since I am drawing cards), thus making it not a repeat state of the game (until I actually hit the 3 card loop, if I repeat that without doing anything).
So, while I can't shortcut the loop, I can either draw my deck with Dakmor Salvage + a discard outlet, OR get an arbitrarily large Wild Mongrel, or get a lot of mana with Skirge Familiar, and it shouldn't hit slow play, since at no point in time do we ever repeat a game state, assuming I proceed at a reasonable pace?
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
They are relevant if the judge says they are. Consider the situation where you have executed the combo down to your three card library. You continue iterations for a while longer and at some point have a 164/164 mongrel, 84 floating black manna, and the rest of your deck in hand. Your opponent calls a judge.
The rules of the game do not allow you to shortcut and simply declare "I'm going to keep doing this until I have a 500/500 mongrel and 333 mana." The judge, though, can also not allow you to just keep performing iterations until you run out the clock. It is within the judge's discretion to as some point decided that you have enough mana and your mongrel is big enough that it's time for you to go ahead and try to do what you need to do to do something else.
Deflecting Palm, Commandeer, or host of other plays from your opponent could justify them not conceding and wanting to force you to pull the trigger. You can't just spin your wheels and make them wait forever, even if your wheels keep spinning faster and faster.
Wow really? I imagine this can only be the case because it hasn't come up in a prominent setting, yet. Good luck with the deck guys. I'll keep my popcorn handy.