I don't understand why wizards does a 2/3 match system for competitive events. This often comes down to the luck of the die roll determining who goes first.
The person on the play in game 1 should be specified in the pairings, just like it is in chess tournaments. MTG already uses the Swiss system so this would hardly be a difficult change.
Consider a scenario where, in addition to the objects mentioned in the Lich's Mirror scenario, a creature with a regeneration effect has been dealt lethal combat damage and, at the same time, the player controlling Lich's Mirror has been dealt enough combat damage to bring his or her life total to 0 or less. Like in Lich's Mirror, regeneration is a multi-step redirection effect: removing combat damage from the creature, tapping it, and removing that creature from combat (C.R. 701.13a-b).
Regeneration doesn't really feel multi-step because none of those are contingent on each other. I'm thinking something more like an Angel of Sanctions also dies to lethal damage as part of the event and it has a Humility under it. Assuming Erebos' controller has enough devotion for it to be a creature, we end up with a sort of race condition on which combination of permanents is actually on the battlefield when the mirror's replacement effect tries to make its controller gain 20 life.
The intent of all these cards is to generate a continuous effect that lets a player cast or play a particular card from exile. But arguably, it may not work as expected under the current rules. Namely, since the card is moved out of exile to the stack as the first step of casting it (C.R. 601.2a), the duration "for as long as it remains exiled" ends, and therefore, so does the effect that allows the player to cast or play the card (C.R. 611.2a). Therefore, after the player finishes proposing the spell under C.R. 601.2a-d, the card won't be in exile anymore, but the stack, so that the player arguably isn't allowed to cast that card anymore (C.R. 601.2e). And C.R. 601.3 says, "If that player is no longer allowed to cast that spell after completing its proposal, the casting of the spell is illegal" (see also C.R. 601.2e), so the entire action is reversed to the point before the spell's casting was proposed (and so rendering the cast of the spell not possible) (C.R. 601.2, 720.1). As a consequence of this, the spell never counts as being on the stack if the cast was reversed this way, so the card "remains exiled".
This leads to the absurd result that players can't cast that card at all, which is obviously not what is intended. And there appears to be no basis in the comprehensive rules that allows these effects to work as intended.
Note that none of this applies to playing a land, which works as intended because playing a land is usually a single step: the player simply "puts that land onto the battlefield from the zone it was in", here, the exile zone (C.R. 115.2a).
The rule in question doesn't check about legality based on where the card is, because at that point the card is on the stack and you can't cast cards from the stack. If it does check location, it must be checking based on if the spell with those characteristics were in the the zone it was being cast from, which in this case would be a legal spell.
With respect to costs to attack (such as from Propaganda or Ghostly Prison), C.R. 508.1i says "Once the [active] player has enough mana in his or her mana pool, he or she pays all costs in any order." Arguably this can be read as requiring the player to pay costs only if he or she "has enough mana in his or her mana pool", that is, the step is skipped if he or she has only C, but the total cost to attack is 2.
I don't even understand the objection here. Indeed, you don't pay the costs if you can't. How is this unintended behavior?
The rulings for Grafdigger's Cage, newly added in [i]Amonkhet[/i], don't appear to correspond with that card's Oracle text, which still says, in part: "Creature [i]cards[/i] can't enter the battlefield from graveyards or libraries" (which would mean that the ability checks the characteristics of the card in the graveyard or library, regardless of what it would be on the battlefield [C.R. 109.2]). However, the rulings (which appear to have been added in response to newly added C.R. 614.16d) suggest that the text was changed to "[i]Creatures[/i] can't enter the battlefield" (which unfortunately isn't the case; compare with Worms of the Earth, whose second ability, "Lands can't enter the battlefield", is governed by new C.R. 614.16d). Moreover, if the rulings stay, that would now unfortunately make Grafdigger's Cage's first ability quite unintuitive, and could even make it ambiguous, especially since "creature card" can now (under a given interpretation of new C.R. 108.2) mean either a creature card in the graveyard or library, on the one hand, or a creature card on the battlefield, on the other (see also C.R. 109.2a, 110.1).
This is a fair point. They may have forgotten to update the Oracle wording.
As this thread shows, the comprehensive rules don't regulate which player makes a decision if it's not an object, but a game rule, that leads the active player to make a choice, but the active player isn't in the game anymore.
Clearly we need to switch to an object-oriented rules system.
C.R. 810.7a says that in Two Headed Giant, "Each team's creatures attack the other team as a group", so they don't attack individual players.
C.R. 810.7c, another Two-Headed Giant rule, says, in relevant part, "If an effect of an object controlled by a defending player prohibits a creature from attacking him or her, that creature can't attack the defending team."
C.R. 810.7c works quite well for nearly all cards that include effects in which creatures "can't attack" particular players, since in these cases, the effect comes from a static ability of a permanent and
are phrased "can't attack you" (since they apply only to the permanent's controller [C.R. 109.5] and end when the permanent leaves the battlefield [C.R. 112.6, 611.3b]). However, I see a few exceptions:
Arboria creates an effect in which creatures can't attack a player that's not necessarily Arboria's controller.
Because of the way this part of C.R. 810.7c is worded, it becomes unclear whether creatures can attack a defending player's team even if--
the effect came from a resolving spell, here either Chronomantic Escape or Illusionist's Gambit. Here, once the effect is created, the spell goes to the graveyard, so arguably isn't controlled by any player anymore.
the effect came from a resolving ability (from Orzhov Advokist or Web of Inertia), but its source is no longer controlled by the defending player (for example, "creatures can't attack" one player, but Orzhov Advokist leaves the battlefield or another player controls it).
the creature can't attack a player who doesn't control Arboria, but can attack Arboria's controller.
Because of C.R. 810.7a, it would be incorrect to clarify the cases mentioned above by saying that the creature can attack the other player on the defending team, since under C.R. 810.7a, creatures attack only teams, not individual players. And it would be similarly incorrect to say the creature can nevertheless attack the defending team, since the defending player in question is part of that team and it would likely come in conflict with the general rule that effects that provide that something "can't" be done prevail (C.R. 101.2).
This shows that this part of C.R. 810.7c is in conflict with C.R. 810.7a and doesn't cover all the cases it's intended to cover.
It's worth noting that spells or abilities are objects, and the effects created when they resolve should be covered by 870.1c. As for the controller, LKI should be able to see who controlled the spell or ability at the time the effect was created. Arboria does seem to throw a wrench in this, though.
Under C.R. 704.3, if any state-based actions apply, they are "perform[ed] simultaneously as a single event". One case where the interpretation of this rule matters is if a player would lose the game for having 0 life while controlling and owning Lich's Mirror and owning a Grasp of Fate that exiled an Erebos, God of the Dead owned by an opponent. In this case, Lich's Mirror and Grasp of Fate would be shuffled into their owner's library, then Erebos would return to the battlefield "immediately after" that event and before seven cards are drawn (C.R. 610.3), so that Erebos would be on the battlefield in time to keep Lich's Mirror's controller from gaining life (which normally happens when a player goes from 0 life to 20 [C.R. 118.5]) (C.R. 611.3b, 611.3, 112.6, 101.3).
However, as I originally interpreted the text "simultaneously as a single event", the entire state-based action, including all the actions Lich's Mirror's replacement effect entails, would be condensed into one moment in time -- such that there would be no "time" (as far as the game is concerned) between the start of the state-based actions and their end -- so that Erebos wouldn't return to the battlefield until "immediately after" the entire state-based action is processed (that is, "immediately after" Lich's Mirror's controller goes to 20 life in this case). However, as I confirmed with "nastaboi" on the Ask a Magic Judge chat (#mtgrules), I was mistaken.
This suggests that the wording "... then performs all applicable state-based actions simultaneously as a single event" in C.R. 704.3 can be very counterintuitive, because as it turns out, it's there merely to indicate that state-based actions [i]begin[/i] simultaneously, even if some of those actions are replaced with multi-step events, as is the case with Lich's Mirror's replacement effect. If that is the intent, then such a possible rewording to C.R. 704.3 as "... then all applicable state-based actions begin simultaneously" would resolve my concerns, for it would leave no question that state-based actions [i]begin[/i] at the same time, but the actions of each one still occur sequentially.
What if there are multiple state-based actions that have multi-step events? I'll bet someone here can come up with a scenario for that one.
Before [i]Magic Origins[/i], C.R. 608.2b read, in relevant part:
"[I]f any of [a spell or ability's] targets are illegal, the part of the spell or ability's effect for which it is an illegal target can't ... make that target perform any actions."
Since [i]Magic Origins[/i], that part of the rule now reads, in relevant part:
"Illegal targets, if any, won't be affected by parts of a resolving spell's effect for which they're illegal."
(Note that it should probably say "resolving spell's or resolving ability's effect", but that's a separate issue.)
Arguably, this appears to suggest that illegal targets are only kept from being [i]passively[/i] affected by the parts of the effect in question, and that such targets can still be [i]actively[/i] involved in that effect. An example will illustrate this.
Suppose a player casts Soul's Fire targeting a creature and a player, such that the creature will deal damage to the player. Then, before Soul's Fire resolves, the creature gains shroud. Then, when Soul's Fire resolves, the creature will be an illegal target (C.R. 608.2b, 702.18a). In this circumstance, it's a stretch to imagine that being "unaffected" by Soul's Fire's effect means that the creature won't deal damage, especially since dealing damage is [i]active[/i], whereas receiving damage is [i]passive[/i]. The rules before [i]Magic Origins[/i] made it clear that Soul's Fire wouldn't make the illegal target deal any damage; that isn't clear anymore in the rules since [i]Magic Origins[/i]. (Contrast this with the case where the player gains shroud rather than the creature. In both versions of the rules, it would be clear that damage wouldn't be dealt to the player -- here, the illegal target, the player, is not "affected" by Soul's Fire.)
Your argument is spurious. Being forced to deal damage to something is clearly being affected. There's no active/passive distinction. (But you're right about it should say spell or ability.)
Does the ante zone always exist even if no card in the format in question can put cards there? That question has no clear answer under the comprehensive rules, in particular C.R. 400.1.
More generally, does a zone exist even if it contains no objects? Even that question is not explicitly answered by the comprehensive rules, even though it's ruled that it does exist in that case.
I cannot imagine a scenario in which the answer to these questions matters.
C.R. 719.2a contains the following sentence dealing with legal shortcut proposals:
"It can't include conditional actions, where the outcome of a game event determines the next action a player takes."
It seems to me that the intent of this sentence is to disallow "four horsemen" or "Emrakul" shortcuts that involve a player shuffling the library and then involve something that cares about the order of cards in that library. In my opinion, though, these shortcuts are already prohibited by the requirement, in C.R. 719.2a, that shortcuts have "predictable results". Such purported shortcuts as those that--
depend on the outcome of a coin flip, or
depend on the order of cards in a library after it's shuffled,
as well as others that rely on randomness, do not have predictable results, for no matter how many coins are flipped or how many times the library is shuffled, a player is not guaranteed to win a coin flip or have a particular card appear on the top of the library, for example.
Moreover, that sentence appears to rule out such shortcuts as the one sanctioned by the annotated Magic Tournament Rules 2.4 ( http://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/mtr4-2/ );
"A player may interrupt a tournament shortcut by explaining how he or she is deviating from it or at which point in the middle he or she wishes to take an action. A player may interrupt his or her own shortcut in this manner."
"[[ For example, Player A controls Basalt Monolith and Mesmeric Orb and says, 'I'd like to tap and untap this Monolith 30 times or until I reveal a land.' This suggests a shortcut and a stopping point for interrupting the shortcut.]]"
Because the outcome of a game event (here, revealing a land card or not) determines the next action a player takes (namely, untapping Basalt Monolith), this shortcut arguably contains a conditional action and is arguably disallowed under the current version of C.R. 719.2a. Unfortunately, it isn't allowed under C.R. 719.2b either, since under that rule, only another player is allowed to "shorten" a shortcut, not the player who proposed the shortcut. (Though the example mentions "interrupting the shortcut", I believe this shortcut would be allowable in the absence of the sentence at issue here.)
Both these cases indicate that the sentence in question ought to be eliminated from C.R. 719.2a, in my opinion -- on the one hand, because it's redundant, and on the other hand, because it appears to disallow too much (and thus removing that sentence would bring C.R. 719.2a more in line with the Magic Tournament Rules).
(I am aware that the Magic Tournament Rules override the comprehensive rules in a sanctioned tournament [M.T.R., "Introduction"], but I feel this change is appropriate not just for sanctioned games, but in more casual games as well -- as is the case, by the way and in my opinion, for comprehensive rules changes that allow players to reveal cards from their hand at any time, that list certain tournament shortcuts, and the like.)
A related question: Is there a example of shortcuts disallowed by the sentence "It can't contain conditional actions...", but which doesn't involve randomness and is not within the scope of the Magic Tournament Rules excerpt I cited?
Yeah, that's actually pretty ambiguous. I think the idea they're going for is that it depends on the outcome of a game event not described by the deterministic loop. For example, Emrakul's reshuffle is not a game action described by the loop, but the identity of the card milled is.
In [i]Kaladesh[/i], the rules were changed to streamline how triggered abilities are handled. But under the current wording of C.R. 514.3a, triggered abilities "waiting to be put on the stack" would be put there below abilities that trigger during the cleanup step's state-based actions (which would go on the stack as the active player gets priority [C.R. 116.5]), a situation that the rule update seeks to avoid. Moreover, the current wording of C.R. 514.3a, as I see it, is defective in that it only says "those triggered abilities are put on the stack", that is, those triggered abilities that "are waiting to be put onto the stack" at the beginning of the process, and not, say, "triggered abilities that are waiting to be put onto the stack are put there", which also covers those abilities that triggered as a result of the state-based actions mentioned in that rule.
Technically correct and should probably be fixed, but wow is that pedantic. (Yes, yes, I know that when it comes to rules pedantry is important.)
The ninjutsu ability says the card with the ability enters the battlefield "tapped and attacking" (C.R. 702.48a). Under C.R. 508.4, in this case, its controller chooses a defending player or planeswalker for that creature. But under C.R. 702.48c, the creature with ninjutsu "will be attacking the same player or planeswalker as the creature" returned to hand, which contradicts C.R. 702.48a. According to the rules manager, however, C.R. 702.48c "is not a reminder of other behavior but a descriptor for behavior that would otherwise not exist". In that case, why doesn't the ninjutsu ability say, for example, "... tapped and attacking the same player or planeswalker as the creature returned this way"? (Compare with Kaalia of the Vast or the myriad ability [C.R. 702.115].) As it stands, the text given in C.R. 702.48a is inconsistent with C.R. 702.48c because of C.R. 508.4.
Strictly speaking there's no contradiction. 702.48c restricts the choices you're allowed to make under 508.4. However, I guess that brings up the question of whether 702 keyword rules are supposed to have all of the actual rules content in 702.XXa and the rest of 702.XXx is just clarifications, or if the other 702.XXx are also meaningful.
This is not so much an issue with the comprehensive rules as it is with one card's allegedly vague Oracle text. Under a ruling, using multiple Leovold's Operative for the same booster pack has the player pass that many booster packs (and not merely the "next" booster pack) without drafting from it. But this differs from such effects as "doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step" or "beginning of the next end step". According to the rules manager, however, "[c]ards that have during-draft effects, such as Leovold's Operative, don't follow most of the normal rules for priority, sequentiality, or anything else in Magic: the Gathering" (see also C.R. 905.2a). In my opinion, the intent of Leovold's Operative would be clearer with text like "... pass the next booster pack [i]you would draft[/i] without drafting a card from it".
This all seems correct. "would" is the better phrasing.
I found a repack that had some duel decks and a Khans booster in it. Figured the duel decks usually have fun cards and Khans gives me a shot at a fetchland. Turns out I was wrong and it was a Gatecrash booster. But it had a Breeding Pool in it. So, victory, I guess.
I fear we won't get the full majesty of Mesoamerican names. Though I know it will never happen, I yearn for the prerelease where my opponent tries to pronounce "Huitzilopochtli".
How amusing it is. That a foreign plane, the equivalent of traveling to another planet and the visitors are befuddled how alien it is to them. Such strange customs and people this culture has. Said plane is Kamigawa. The unfamiliarity must be toned down with future planes so that the average visitor can feel right at home with it. Yet another TCG, Legend of the Five Rings, does the same sort of culture and earlier than MTG no less and is able to tell twenty years worth of story on what amounts to a single plane. In a top down fashion no less. How curious.
Perhaps most curious is that I've never heard of Legend of the Five Rings before. Strange that Magic would be so much more popular.
Well, after Faith of the devoted and Drake Haven i just can't see why Astral Slide and Lightning Rift couldn't get a functional reprint, i mean they could give them a cost of {2} for the ability that they could still be fringe playable ( and make people happy).
I notice it doesn't say "from your graveyard". This brings up two rules questions
If a card is discarded or cycled to exile (perhaps because of a Rest in Peace), does this pull it back to the hand?
Madness cards are discarded to exile, then put into the graveyard as part of the resolution of the Madness triggered ability. Does the card become a new object in the graveyard and thus this card loses track of it? That's going to be a judge nightmare if so.
The person on the play in game 1 should be specified in the pairings, just like it is in chess tournaments. MTG already uses the Swiss system so this would hardly be a difficult change.
Regeneration doesn't really feel multi-step because none of those are contingent on each other. I'm thinking something more like an Angel of Sanctions also dies to lethal damage as part of the event and it has a Humility under it. Assuming Erebos' controller has enough devotion for it to be a creature, we end up with a sort of race condition on which combination of permanents is actually on the battlefield when the mirror's replacement effect tries to make its controller gain 20 life.
Also someone should submit this one to http://magicjudge.tumblr.com. I'm sure she'd love it.
The rule in question doesn't check about legality based on where the card is, because at that point the card is on the stack and you can't cast cards from the stack. If it does check location, it must be checking based on if the spell with those characteristics were in the the zone it was being cast from, which in this case would be a legal spell.
I don't even understand the objection here. Indeed, you don't pay the costs if you can't. How is this unintended behavior?
This is a fair point. They may have forgotten to update the Oracle wording.
Clearly we need to switch to an object-oriented rules system.
It's worth noting that spells or abilities are objects, and the effects created when they resolve should be covered by 870.1c. As for the controller, LKI should be able to see who controlled the spell or ability at the time the effect was created. Arboria does seem to throw a wrench in this, though.
What if there are multiple state-based actions that have multi-step events? I'll bet someone here can come up with a scenario for that one.
Your argument is spurious. Being forced to deal damage to something is clearly being affected. There's no active/passive distinction. (But you're right about it should say spell or ability.)
I cannot imagine a scenario in which the answer to these questions matters.
Yeah, that's actually pretty ambiguous. I think the idea they're going for is that it depends on the outcome of a game event not described by the deterministic loop. For example, Emrakul's reshuffle is not a game action described by the loop, but the identity of the card milled is.
Technically correct and should probably be fixed, but wow is that pedantic. (Yes, yes, I know that when it comes to rules pedantry is important.)
Strictly speaking there's no contradiction. 702.48c restricts the choices you're allowed to make under 508.4. However, I guess that brings up the question of whether 702 keyword rules are supposed to have all of the actual rules content in 702.XXa and the rest of 702.XXx is just clarifications, or if the other 702.XXx are also meaningful.
This all seems correct. "would" is the better phrasing.
Perhaps most curious is that I've never heard of Legend of the Five Rings before. Strange that Magic would be so much more popular.
There's still an entire set left in the block.