Wow, I actually didn't know that Suspend can be done at instant speed if the card is an instant. This makes the cards a little more powerful than I first thought, which is probably a good thing since I erred on the side of lower power when designing them. I wanted cards that were roughly the power level of uncommons.
Regarding Staggering Interference, I made the suspend cost high since the card can be used to protect combo turns without having to spend mana during the turn you're comboing off. If it just cost W to suspend it, you could invest a measly 1 mana the turn before your combo and be protected (or force your opponent to have yet another counterspell they can cast that turn). I suspect that the main way this card would be played is by suspending it. For this reason, I'm also adding the clause "Suspend only as a sorcery" to this card, as I don't think you should be able to instant-speed set up your protection for a turn 4 combo kill.
Regarding Staggering Intuition, at first I thought of making it exile itself with two time counters on it, but I was worried it would be quite strong like this. It would be essentially an instant-speed Divination with only a single blue mana color requirement, with the low downside of having to wait 1 extra turn for the 2nd card if you cast it on end step. Plus it has a cheap cantrip option for U. It seems like it would be significantly better than Hieroglyphic Illumination this way, especially since (unlike what I first thought) you can use its Suspend mode at instant speed. You're basically getting a 1 mana discount on your Hieroglyphic Illumination, with the downside that the cantrip and the extra draw don't happen until your next turn. I think I'll leave it at "exile it with 3 time counters", but I could see it with "2 time counters" if it were printed as a rare.
Staggering Fury was meant to be somewhere in between a Rift Bolt and a Staggershock. In fact, I named the cycle after Staggershock!
Staggering Intuition2U
Instant
Suspend 1 - U
Draw a card. Then if Staggering Intuition wasn't cast from exile, exile it with three time counters on it.
EDIT: Here's a few more along the same lines.
Staggering Interference2W
Instant
Suspend 1 - 2W. Suspend only as a sorcery.
Your opponents can't cast noncreature spells this turn. Then if Staggering Interference wasn't cast from exile, exile it with three time counters on it.
Staggering Animation2B
Instant
Suspend 1 - B
Create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token. Then if Staggering Animation wasn't cast from exile, exile it with three time counters on it.
Staggering Fury2R
Instant
Suspend 1 - R
Staggering Fury deals 2 damage to any target. Then if Staggering Fury wasn't cast from exile, exile it with two time counters on it.
Staggering Growth2G
Instant
Suspend 1 - G
Distribute two +1/+1 counters among up to two target creatures you control. Then if Staggering Growth wasn't cast from exile, exile it with three time counters on it.
I agree that the card is a bit pushed when it comes to mana cost, but at 2B I think it would be far too weak to be even a viable sideboard card. Also, in a format like Modern, if you want to win then paying 2 mana to just get information and draw a card is not something you should be planning on doing most games. The card would likely still be powerful because of its versatility, but I don't think it would be a mainboard card unless the meta was very combo-heavy.
Also, I edited the text to include your opponent shuffling after the reveal. I meant this originally but forgot to add it.
Yes, the idea behind this card is that if everyone is running 4 of everything, it becomes a powerful metagame option. So the mere fact that someone could run this in their deck means that players will have to think about how many copies of each card they want rather than just defaulting to 4 copies. This will be especially true for combo decks since they're most susceptible to this card. Furthermore, I wanted the baseline effect of the card (you get to see your opponent's deck and hand and draw a card) to be good enough that the card might see play even if there's no particular deck you're hoping to stop with it.
The card functions a little differently in singleton formats like Cube and Commander where it becomes easier to guess the number but removes a smaller fraction of the opponent's deck. Its get-information-and-cantrip mode may be more powerful in these environments as well, as information on your opponent's deck is typically more valuable in a singleton format.
Choose a nonland card name and a number. Target opponent reveals their hand, graveyard and library. If the number of cards in these zones with the chosen name is exactly the chosen number, exile all of them. That opponent shuffles their library then draws a card for each card exiled from their hand in this way.
Your Abyssal Persecutor doesn't die! You can't win the game even though your opponent is at 0 or less life. Meanwhile, your opponent can always choose not to block anything at all, take lethal damage, and possibly attack back at you for lethal. For example, in your first proposed solution, they can block with nothing, and swing back for 14. In your second proposed solution, they can activate Shalai twice and swing for even more damage. Even if you were planning on sacrificing your Abyssal Persecutor to Eldrazi Monument on your next upkeep, you still have to survive a lethal attack back first.
Hello! After a gap of a few years, I've come back with a new MTG puzzle. This one might be my hardest one yet, and it's pretty close to being my favorite one. I'd love to share it with fellow puzzle enthusiasts and get some feedback! It's also possible that despite my best efforts, an unintended solution remains. If so, I'd love to know about it!
If you wish to post or comment on a solution, please hide it in a "Spoiler" box so that people who are attempting the puzzle do not have to look at solutions when scrolling through the forum if they do not want to. Also, feel free to post attempted solutions (in spoiler boxes) even if you didn't quite manage to solve the puzzle.
The Story So Far:
You’re up 1-0 against your opponent, but time has run out for this game. The judge declared that only 5 more turns will be allowed in this game before it is declared a draw. Your opponent ends his turn, leaving just 3 more turns before the game is a draw. To move on to the next round of the tournament, you need to either win or draw this game. However, you have a problem – after drawing a card for the turn, you notice that there are now no more cards left in your library!
Goal:
Find a way to make sure the game does not result in you losing before the end of your next turn (i.e. before you’ve completed this turn plus your turn after that).
Instructions:
-Your solution must be valid regardless of the choices your opponent makes, such as how he declares blockers, how he attacks, and which abilities he activates when he can.
-You can assume that all remaining cards in your opponent’s library are basic Plains.
-The contents of graveyards and exile zones are irrelevant for this puzzle.
-The puzzle begins at the start of your precombat main phase with nothing having happened this turn except your usual untap step, upkeep, and draw step.
-Unless otherwise stated, all permanents are untapped at the beginning of the puzzle.
I'm trying to build a new cube with a very particular idea in mind. To implement this idea, I want to (over the course of time) go through all the cards in Magic's history and search for ones with the features I want.
Ideally, I'd like to use some sort of online resource that lets me search through cards, click on a card (or a button next to the card) if I like it, and then when I'm done with my session be able to export a text file containing the names of all the cards I liked.
This would make it easy to assemble a text file with the names of cards I'm considering for the cube. From there, I could just import that list to CubeTutor or CubeCobra and work from there to slim down the list.
Is there any Magic search engine that will let me do this? Or do I simply have to manually write down the names of all the cards I like, perhaps misspelling some and thus being unable to import them to my cube? Or, do any experienced programmers think it would be easy for me (a very inexperienced programmer) to write a program to record the card names I click on Gatherer?
I mistakenly gave your opponent 31 1/1 Spirits when I meant to give 33. This has been fixed now. If anyone is working on the old version, feel free to post solutions assuming there are only 31 1/1 Spirits.
Hello! After a long interlude, I have made another MTG puzzle. I would like to share this puzzle with people and get some feedback on it. Also, since I only recently finished making this puzzle it is possible that there are solutions to the puzzle outside of my intended one. Thus, if you find any kind of solution then I would love to see it! If you wish to post or comment on a solution, please hide it in a "Spoiler" box so that people who are attempting the puzzle do not have to look at solutions when scrolling through the forum if they do not want to. Also, feel free to post attempted solutions (in spoiler boxes) even if you didn't quite manage to solve the puzzle.
I hope everyone enjoys the puzzle!
(Note: No Dack Faydens were harmed in the making of this puzzle. Insulted, perhaps, but not harmed.)
The story so far:
Your opponent challenged you to a game against his Token Discard deck. You prevented your opponent’s army of Spirit tokens from being effective through a combination of Haunter of Nightveil and Voidstone Gargoyle (to prevent your opponent from sacrificing them to Ashnod’s Altar for mana). You managed to resolve a Mind Unbound, and you gave it two copies of Indestructibility to make sure your opponent couldn’t end your card advantage. However, your opponent’s discard spells prevented you from gaining the advantage and the game stalled out.
Last turn, you finally managed to play Daring Thief, which combined with Samite Blessing and Intruder Alarm will allow you to trade permanents with your opponent whenever a creature enters the battlefield. You had been planning to use this to donate harmful cards such as Geist-Fueled Scarecrow and Bronze Bombshell to your opponent. However, your opponent then topdecked Rakdos’s Return and tapped out for it to force you to discard the rest of your hand, which combined with your opponent’s The Rack put you to 5 life at the start of your turn. Your Mind Unbound now has 7 lore counters on it, so you draw 7 cards plus your usual card from the draw step.
However, you have a problem: your library has only 8 cards left in it, so your opponent realizes that you will lose the game at the start of your next turn by being forced to draw 9 cards in total. Furthermore, your opponent doesn’t control any enchantments, so you have no way of trading away your Mind Unbound to prevent the loss next turn! Therefore you must find a way to win the game before your next turn.
Instructions:
The contents of Exile zones and your opponent’s graveyard and library at the start of this puzzle are irrelevant. Your opponent currently has no mana to use and no cards in hand, but he will make choices in response to the options you present to him, such as which blockers to declare.
You must find a way to guarantee that you win the game. Your solution must be valid regardless of the choices your opponent makes.
The puzzle starts at the beginning of your precombat main phase with nothing having happened this turn besides your regular untap step, upkeep (in which you took 3 damage from The Rack and drew 7 extra cards from Mind Unbound), and draw step.
Advice:
Read all of the cards carefully. In fact, read all of the cards' Gatherer pages carefully since some cards in the puzzle have received updated Oracle text.
(Unless otherwise specified, each permanent is untapped and owned by the player who controlled it at the start of the puzzle. A visual version of the puzzle appears below.)
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.
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.
peteroupc - What I take issue with in the first paragraph of your previous comment is that we are treating an action that is not mandatory as though it were mandatory, while the rules do not explicitly tell us when it is OK to do this. I think you've proposed a reasonable resolution to THIS situation, since here the outside observer can clearly tell that not taking the action of increasing the bid means you lose the game, and hence the action is as though it were mandatory. Nonetheless, the rules themselves do not enforce this decision, and my worry is that there might be some other situation wherein it is not so clear what can be treated "as if" it were mandatory, and hence the rules would have nothing to say.
For example, if we were just in a normal game of Magic where both of our life totals are positive and you control a Platinum Angel and I play Illicit Auction on it, then yet again there might arise a situation where both players WANT to win the auction at all costs, even if not winning does not result in an immediate loss. Can we say that it's "as though it's mandatory" for each player to keep upping the bid here? I don't think so. But nonetheless neither player wants to stop the bidding, as they each believe they must win the bidding at all costs. So yet again we enter into an infinite regress.
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.
Regarding Staggering Interference, I made the suspend cost high since the card can be used to protect combo turns without having to spend mana during the turn you're comboing off. If it just cost W to suspend it, you could invest a measly 1 mana the turn before your combo and be protected (or force your opponent to have yet another counterspell they can cast that turn). I suspect that the main way this card would be played is by suspending it. For this reason, I'm also adding the clause "Suspend only as a sorcery" to this card, as I don't think you should be able to instant-speed set up your protection for a turn 4 combo kill.
Regarding Staggering Intuition, at first I thought of making it exile itself with two time counters on it, but I was worried it would be quite strong like this. It would be essentially an instant-speed Divination with only a single blue mana color requirement, with the low downside of having to wait 1 extra turn for the 2nd card if you cast it on end step. Plus it has a cheap cantrip option for U. It seems like it would be significantly better than Hieroglyphic Illumination this way, especially since (unlike what I first thought) you can use its Suspend mode at instant speed. You're basically getting a 1 mana discount on your Hieroglyphic Illumination, with the downside that the cantrip and the extra draw don't happen until your next turn. I think I'll leave it at "exile it with 3 time counters", but I could see it with "2 time counters" if it were printed as a rare.
Staggering Fury was meant to be somewhere in between a Rift Bolt and a Staggershock. In fact, I named the cycle after Staggershock!
Instant
Suspend 1 - U
Draw a card. Then if Staggering Intuition wasn't cast from exile, exile it with three time counters on it.
EDIT: Here's a few more along the same lines.
Staggering Interference 2W
Instant
Suspend 1 - 2W. Suspend only as a sorcery.
Your opponents can't cast noncreature spells this turn. Then if Staggering Interference wasn't cast from exile, exile it with three time counters on it.
Staggering Animation 2B
Instant
Suspend 1 - B
Create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token. Then if Staggering Animation wasn't cast from exile, exile it with three time counters on it.
Staggering Fury 2R
Instant
Suspend 1 - R
Staggering Fury deals 2 damage to any target. Then if Staggering Fury wasn't cast from exile, exile it with two time counters on it.
Staggering Growth 2G
Instant
Suspend 1 - G
Distribute two +1/+1 counters among up to two target creatures you control. Then if Staggering Growth wasn't cast from exile, exile it with three time counters on it.
Also, I edited the text to include your opponent shuffling after the reveal. I meant this originally but forgot to add it.
The card functions a little differently in singleton formats like Cube and Commander where it becomes easier to guess the number but removes a smaller fraction of the opponent's deck. Its get-information-and-cantrip mode may be more powerful in these environments as well, as information on your opponent's deck is typically more valuable in a singleton format.
Sorcery
Choose a nonland card name and a number. Target opponent reveals their hand, graveyard and library. If the number of cards in these zones with the chosen name is exactly the chosen number, exile all of them. That opponent shuffles their library then draws a card for each card exiled from their hand in this way.
If no cards were exiled in this way, draw a card.
If you wish to post or comment on a solution, please hide it in a "Spoiler" box so that people who are attempting the puzzle do not have to look at solutions when scrolling through the forum if they do not want to. Also, feel free to post attempted solutions (in spoiler boxes) even if you didn't quite manage to solve the puzzle.
The Story So Far:
You’re up 1-0 against your opponent, but time has run out for this game. The judge declared that only 5 more turns will be allowed in this game before it is declared a draw. Your opponent ends his turn, leaving just 3 more turns before the game is a draw. To move on to the next round of the tournament, you need to either win or draw this game. However, you have a problem – after drawing a card for the turn, you notice that there are now no more cards left in your library!
Goal:
Find a way to make sure the game does not result in you losing before the end of your next turn (i.e. before you’ve completed this turn plus your turn after that).
Instructions:
-Your solution must be valid regardless of the choices your opponent makes, such as how he declares blockers, how he attacks, and which abilities he activates when he can.
-You can assume that all remaining cards in your opponent’s library are basic Plains.
-The contents of graveyards and exile zones are irrelevant for this puzzle.
-The puzzle begins at the start of your precombat main phase with nothing having happened this turn except your usual untap step, upkeep, and draw step.
-Unless otherwise stated, all permanents are untapped at the beginning of the puzzle.
The Puzzle:
Opponent’s Life: 17
Opponent’s Library: 12 Plains
Opponent’s Hand: 0
Opponent’s Field: Shalai, Voice of Plenty; 4x 1/1 white Spirit token with flying; Inspiring Captain; Reclamation Sage; 5x 1/1 white Soldier token; Evangel of Heliod (enchanted with Stab Wound, owned and controlled by you); Eldrazi Monument; Runed Halo (naming Abyssal Persecutor); Carnage Altar; 4x Forest (tapped); 8x Plains (tapped)
Your Life: 5
Your Library: 0
Your Hand: 2x Fractured Identity; Infuse with Vitality
Your Field: Hornet Queen; 4x 1/1 green Insect token with flying and deathtouch; 2x 2/2 green Wolf token; Rafiq of the Many; Iron Golem; Abyssal Persecutor; Prodigious Growth (enchanting Abyssal Persecutor); Stab Wound (enchanting opponent’s Evangel of Heliod, which was already mentioned above); Garruk Relentless (currently face-up with 3 loyalty); Bonds of Mortality; Concordant Crossroads; Prismatic Omen; 13x Forest
Visual Version (right-click and use "view image" to see it enlarged):
Ideally, I'd like to use some sort of online resource that lets me search through cards, click on a card (or a button next to the card) if I like it, and then when I'm done with my session be able to export a text file containing the names of all the cards I liked.
This would make it easy to assemble a text file with the names of cards I'm considering for the cube. From there, I could just import that list to CubeTutor or CubeCobra and work from there to slim down the list.
Is there any Magic search engine that will let me do this? Or do I simply have to manually write down the names of all the cards I like, perhaps misspelling some and thus being unable to import them to my cube? Or, do any experienced programmers think it would be easy for me (a very inexperienced programmer) to write a program to record the card names I click on Gatherer?
I hope everyone enjoys the puzzle!
(Note: No Dack Faydens were harmed in the making of this puzzle. Insulted, perhaps, but not harmed.)
The story so far:
Your opponent challenged you to a game against his Token Discard deck. You prevented your opponent’s army of Spirit tokens from being effective through a combination of Haunter of Nightveil and Voidstone Gargoyle (to prevent your opponent from sacrificing them to Ashnod’s Altar for mana). You managed to resolve a Mind Unbound, and you gave it two copies of Indestructibility to make sure your opponent couldn’t end your card advantage. However, your opponent’s discard spells prevented you from gaining the advantage and the game stalled out.
Last turn, you finally managed to play Daring Thief, which combined with Samite Blessing and Intruder Alarm will allow you to trade permanents with your opponent whenever a creature enters the battlefield. You had been planning to use this to donate harmful cards such as Geist-Fueled Scarecrow and Bronze Bombshell to your opponent. However, your opponent then topdecked Rakdos’s Return and tapped out for it to force you to discard the rest of your hand, which combined with your opponent’s The Rack put you to 5 life at the start of your turn. Your Mind Unbound now has 7 lore counters on it, so you draw 7 cards plus your usual card from the draw step.
However, you have a problem: your library has only 8 cards left in it, so your opponent realizes that you will lose the game at the start of your next turn by being forced to draw 9 cards in total. Furthermore, your opponent doesn’t control any enchantments, so you have no way of trading away your Mind Unbound to prevent the loss next turn! Therefore you must find a way to win the game before your next turn.
Instructions:
The contents of Exile zones and your opponent’s graveyard and library at the start of this puzzle are irrelevant. Your opponent currently has no mana to use and no cards in hand, but he will make choices in response to the options you present to him, such as which blockers to declare.
You must find a way to guarantee that you win the game. Your solution must be valid regardless of the choices your opponent makes.
The puzzle starts at the beginning of your precombat main phase with nothing having happened this turn besides your regular untap step, upkeep (in which you took 3 damage from The Rack and drew 7 extra cards from Mind Unbound), and draw step.
Advice:
Read all of the cards carefully. In fact, read all of the cards' Gatherer pages carefully since some cards in the puzzle have received updated Oracle text.
The puzzle:
Your Life - 5
Your Hand - 8 cards: Plains, Skyhunter Skirmisher (x2), Call to Mind, White Shield Crusader, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, Painful Truths, Compulsory Rest
Your Graveyard - 8 cards: Altar Golem, Swamp, Congregate, Bronze Bombshell, Make Obsolete, Skyhunter Skirmisher, Ray of Command, Myr Battlesphere
Your Library - 8 cards. In order from top to bottom: Argentum Armor, Death-Mask Duplicant, Plains, Scarecrone, Phyrexian Metamorph, Refurbish, Argentum Armor, Iron League Steed
Your Field - Daring Thief, Samite Blessing (enchanting Daring Thief), Voidstone Gargoyle (naming Ashnod’s Altar), Geist-Fueled Scarecrow, Haunter of Nightveil, Quicksilver Gargantuan (a 7/7 copy of Haunter of Nightveil), Maze Abomination, Typhoid Rats, Anointed Procession, Intruder Alarm, Mind Unbound (with 7 lore counters), Indestructibility (x2, both enchanting Mind Unbound), 8 Plains, 4 Island, 1 Swamp, 4 Crumbling Vestige, 1 Strip Mine
Opponent's Life - 24
Opponent's Hand - 0 cards
Opponent's Library - 15 cards
Opponent's Field - Abyssal Nocturnus, Gifted Aetherborn, Myojin of Night’s Reach (with no divinity counters), Geist-Honored Monk (x2), 33 1/1 white Spirit creature tokens with flying, Ashnod’s Altar, The Rack (naming you as the chosen player), Barbed Sextant, 6 Plains (tapped), 8 Swamp (tapped), 2 Unknown Shores (tapped)
(Unless otherwise specified, each permanent is untapped and owned by the player who controlled it at the start of the puzzle. A visual version of the puzzle appears below.)
Visual Version:
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.
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.
For example, if we were just in a normal game of Magic where both of our life totals are positive and you control a Platinum Angel and I play Illicit Auction on it, then yet again there might arise a situation where both players WANT to win the auction at all costs, even if not winning does not result in an immediate loss. Can we say that it's "as though it's mandatory" for each player to keep upping the bid here? I don't think so. But nonetheless neither player wants to stop the bidding, as they each believe they must win the bidding at all costs. So yet again we enter into an infinite regress.
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.