Activated abilities (like Kiki-Jiki's) are by definition not missable: the fact that it's been activated in the first place means that its effect has been acknowledged and will happen. "Get a token Exarch, miss the ETB trigger for the token" is a line of play that's theoretically possible under the missed trigger rules in this case, but "get no token at all" is not.
Right. The issue isn't not getting a token; the issue is that an ignorant opponent ("ignorant" not being an insult) doesn't realize that they still get their token so they don't put one onto the battlefield, figuratively or otherwise. Do I have an obligation to say, "Don't forget you still get your token despite my bluff that's not really a bluff after all because I still have to tell you that you get your token"?
Activated abilities (like Kiki-Jiki's) are by definition not missable: the fact that it's been activated in the first place means that its effect has been acknowledged and will happen. "Get a token Exarch, miss the ETB trigger for the token" is a line of play that's theoretically possible under the missed trigger rules in this case, but "get no token at all" is not.
Right. The issue isn't not getting a token; the issue is that an ignorant opponent ("ignorant" not being an insult) doesn't realize that they still get their token so they don't put one onto the battlefield, figuratively or otherwise. Do I have an obligation to say, "Don't forget you still get your token despite my bluff that's not really a bluff after all because I still have to tell you that you get your token"?
If you don't, you've let a mistake last and since it's intentionnal, it's Cheating.
Yeah... Until next game, where it'll be right back.
Seriously, there's no way to deal with Rancor in any format. It should be banned, except Gleemax is a lobbyist for the Rancor party, so that'll never happen.
You can't ban rancor, it just returns to your deck.
You might want to actually talk to the Flavor & Storyline Board people... since, you know, our whole reason for playing Magic is the flavor. I'm willing to bet you'll get a lot more interest there than in General.
Indeed, both posters down there would be thrilled.
When talks about banning Jace first started, I was thinking that I would see him banned come June 20th. But as I think more about it, I don't really think that Jace is the problem anymore. Sure his power level leaves very little to the imagination (opening Jace is like opening a refrigerator box with a naked girl on the inside), and sure his price does have a strong impact on what players choose to play (playing Jace is like being intimate with a woman and she doesn't charge you in the morning), but it is not the source of all the problems in Standard.
How do people think saving room to print more abilities on cards is dumbing down the game?
Do you really think, say, Akroma would ever be printed if she said, "Akroma can block by creatures with this ability and cannot be blocked by creatures without this ability. If a creature without this ability would deal combat damage by Akroma would be destroyed, prevent all combat damage that creature would deal to Akroma this combat. Attacking does not cause Akroma to tap. If Akroma is blocked and deals lethal damage, it deals the remainder of its damage to the defending player. Akroma may attack and use abilities that require tapping in the casting cost the turn it enters the battlefield. Akroma cannot be damaged, enchanted, equipped, blocked or targeted by black or red sources" rather than her "dumbed down" wording she has? No freaking way. Keywording and shorthand allows them to make complicated cards easy to play with, allowing them to be printed in the first place.
1. cast frankie peanuts 2. ask opponent "will you concede the game this turn"? if they say yes, you win; if they say no, play a staying power 3. subsequently ask "will you attack this turn"? and "will you cast a spell this turn"? (using a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir for the second question if necessary) to ensure they can't disrupt the combo 4. donate them a platinum angel 5. play a mox lotus and braingeyser them for every card in their library. play an opalescence and donate them a glorious anthem and a blacker lotus , then play enchanted evening . play and activate a mindslaver and then donate them a fastbond and the mox lotus (returning one of the donates to your hand with eternal witness or whatever) 6. during their turn, play every permanent in their hand (playing lands with fastbond) then (as yourself) cast mirrorweave on the blacker lotus, so every permanent becomes a copy of it. proceed to tear up every card they control, and hopefully do it before they notice that they aren't bound by staying power's ability anymore and can concede
Dark Ritual being overpowered is determined more by what is done with it than the card itself.
True, but the fact that it enables so many ridiculous things is pretty telling. It's like, sure I can use a shotgun as a bludgeoning instrument, but that doesn't make it not a shotgun.
Shortly before Serra died, she transferred her spark into an angel whose full name was Asha Avacyn Bolas. Her dragon father groomed her for her positions in Alara and Innistrad, and she's also been getting help from her uncle Ugin in the form of Urza, who was resurrected as Marit Lage to be the avatar as which she projects herself into material realms. Grieslbrand is a split personality who sometimes wanders the planes disguised as a human woman named Liliana Vess.
Everyone's life would be easier if players would, instead of coming to the 'net for help with a deck, just netdeck and be done with it. And I'm not talking about some Top 8 lists, for the Casualists, too, can benefit from netdecking. I've netdecked plenty of decks from the Casual Play forums from users such as Mown, Raedien, Floopfoot, and a few others. I snatched straight the heck out of my web browser. Yes, people, your original idea fell victim to a savage netdecker. You have been assimiliated.
Suppose I wanted a Zombie deck. Why on earth would I spend time searching Gatherer for a decent list of Zombie cards when Raedien already did it for me? Taking time to be creative or waiting on people on the forums to tell you why your deck sucks or 'go to Casual forums' is a disasterous waste of time (to me).
That being said, Magic was ruined back in Alpha when they added all that rules and cards [Debutantes avert your eyes]. My friends and I still like playing it the "pure" way (Basically we go into the woods and hit eachother with wiffle bats while shouting made up obscenities. You know, the way Garfield wanted it to be played).
Don't worry about it. I've come up with a list of changes to fix EDH.
-First off, there's no commander. -The minimum deck size is 60 cards, and each deck can have up to four of each card, save basic lands and relentless rats. Also decks have no color identity. -Starting life total is 20.
Here's a clever play you can try yourself: -Convince friend to run relentless rats.dec in legacy tournament -Get a deck with lots of mill, yixlid jailer, and humility -Drop humility and jailer, wait for him to dump his hand, mill him out -All his rats now have no abilities. Call a judge because he's playing an illegal deck with more than 4 of a single card. -Get him/her banned from competitive magic play
L, is for the leather gloves you weaaaar. O, is for the organs that guy could spaaaare. V, is very very, extraordinay. E, is for every vagrant i butchered in a wine cellar befooooore.
The outer layer of the Magic: the Gathering box, the carton, or crust, is fairly thin and light, and contains largely aluminosilcates.
Within that lies the middle layer, consisting of the familiar booster pack. Although solid, the booster packs' high temperatures allow them to acutally move around within the booster box. This flow, sometimes called convection, is cited by frustrated box mappers as one of WOTC's most genious uses of thermodynamics since the Ravnica block.
No one knows what lies at the core of the booster box, but scientists theorize that it must be especially dense in order to make up for the large amount of fluff distributed amongst the booster packs.
I imagine [Ajani 3's] second ability involves him hurling the creature at your opponent Brion Stoutarm style, then the guy is just like "Okay, that may have worked, but don't- GOD DAMN IT!" as he does it again because cats don't give a **** :33.
Its like that one time Elves broke out in a field of Jund. Elves became a resurgent hit, then died off again once Jund adapted to the rest of the field of G/W that it required mass removal that inherently pooped on Elves too.
Submit to the menace. Delver can, and will blot out the sun.
"I remember my days as a youth at Tolarian Academy ." "Wow, small multiverse, I actually went there too." "WAIT, DON'T- Well ****, there's $200,000 in student loans well spent."
And flavor goes out the window when you cast a second copy of a planeswalker right after the first one dies, so...
"Hey Nissa, I need a favor." "You just asked me for a 'favor' like thirty seconds ago, and it turned out to be having Sarkhan Transmogrify my only follower into a dragon like 5 times -which dickery aside also violates some laws of causality - and then you let me get beaten over the head by that hedron crab." "...I'll give you " "...Well all right then."
GM, I don't think Dill is better than you. I KNOW it. Even if he wakes up every morning, clubs a baby seal, steals all the TV remotes from within a block's radius of his house and then robs hungry orphans of their food he'd be better than you, for the simple reason that he learns from his mistakes.
What would they have to fight about? Like, all I can think of now is Gideon going "Hey, long-ears! I'm gathering a group of 'Walkers together to fight some tentacle monsters.....you want in?" and Tamiyo going "Ew! Hentai no bakka Gideon-desu desu!" and flying away.
I open 4 packs just to be on the safe side. Not only do I get more cards than everyone else, but I also get to spend the rest of the night off. Win Win.
MaRo has a thing for people opening boosters with bad cards. But since he can only get so many bad cards printed in each set, he has found a devious way of getting more bad cards into circulation: He makes entire print sheets with just bad rares, then puts them onto the assembly line. He proceeds to wring his hands and twirl his evil mustache that he grew for twirling purposes as a lightning bolt strikes in the background. Afterwards, he goes to make sure that the good cards are only opened by everyone's friends, and that we all only get to open bad cards. He does this by memorising each booster, than switching them around accordingly. Whenever someone complains about a card, he immediately jumps out from behind a chair to yell "WELL, IT'S NOT FOR YOU!" before merging back into the shadows in order to devise new ways in which he can screw over players, then claim that he has valid reasons for doing so.
Mark Rosewater is sitting in a seemingly innocuous cable TV van, outside of Bankaimastery's house. Sitting nearby are two hardened criminal hackers, fresh out of prison, and filled with resentment at their lack of physical fitness. "Have you managed to hack his brainwaves yet? The set deadline's coming up fast." "We're almost through. It should be coming up on the screen any second." The hacker presses a button, and Kevin's thoughts flash onto the screen. Mark and the hackers stare in amazement at the sheer beauty, the elegance, and the raw truth of what they see. It's like the ending to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Brilliant light shines across the screen, the truth of existence is made clear to them, and they despair at their own foolishness, their own ignorance, their own inadequacy. And then they steal his ideas. As they return back to R&D, Mark sneers at a haggard old man chained to a cast-iron sphere. The man looks up from his laborious task of breaking rocks in the dungeon of Wizards of the Coast headquarters, and asks a question: "Kevin, my greatest student. He - he's all right, isn't he? You didn't hurt him?" Mark deals him a weighty blow with his boot. "Know your place, Richard. Get back to work."
I'm only opposed to it because it bears so little relation to how people actually play the game. The example of Miracles is actually a much better one then the Clone example I was trying to use.
From the game's perspective, the card can move instantly from face down in the library to revealed in the hand and that's fine for the rules. But in real life, we can't actually do that, so the card spends a good bit of time in locations that are neither where that player's library is nor where that player's hand is. And that's fine for real life. What I don't want is the disconnect to be explicitly codified. Along the lines of
183664.697 A game of Magic as laid out by these rules exists only as a pure Platonic ideal, utterly unrealizable by fallible mortals limited by the confines of physicality and the ravages of evil and sin.
183664.698 The cake is a lie, too.
I know it's true, but I don't want the rules to actually straight-up tell me that.
Pfft this cant be serious can it? If it is please delete your account OP. Its not even close to ban worthy, considering what JTMS and stoneforge had to accomplish to get banned i see the WotC selling magic to aquire Pokemon before that ever happens.
I'm trying to imagine sorin markov as a gym leader in one of those pokemon games which you have to beat him to get his badge... somehow I imagine that he would stab you in the chest with his sword before giving you the badge, even if you beat his pokemon....
Personally, I'd be fine with tea time but then I'm not gonna waste the mana summoning Emrakul, the Aeons Torn . He always takes all the sugar, drinks the whole pot of Earl Grey and doesn't even say thank you. SO. RUDE.
Break the Card is a regular thread in the Cards and Combo Forum. Quite simply, the participants are given a Johnnystatic card (e.g. Xenograft ) and are asked to build a deck around it. The winner and honorable mentions are sigged below. Get brewing!
This week's Break the Card was based around Xenograft . Thread : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/27681049/Break_the_card_:_Xenograft?pg=1
Winner : Axterix with his Vampdrazi deck. Finalist : Vektor480 with his Ally/Golem/Plant deck. Honorable mentions : Zammm for the Turntimber Ranger combo and TinGorilla for suggesting Sarkhan the Mad .
Here's the link to the Mindlock Orb contest : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/27697565/Break_the_Card_:_Mindlock_Orb?sdb=1&pg=last#497536269
Here's the link to Break the Card : Bludgeon Brawl : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/27715169/Break_the_Card_:_Bludgeon_Brawl?sdb=1&pg=last#498208797
Winner : Vektor and his Grab the World deck. Finalist : Crandor with his Awesome Aliteration deck. Honorable mentions : RP Jesus with his Wat deck and Zix200 with his Signet Renewal deck.
This week was Followed Footsteps : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/27748677/Break_the_Card_:_Followed_Footsteps?pg=1
Winner : Tevish_Szat with his Exponential Growth deck. Honorable mentions : Zix with his Carbon Copies deck and Escef with his Fungus of Speed and Time deck.
This week's card was Jace's Archivist : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/28063377/Break_the_Card_:_Jaces_Archivist.
Finalists : Jentaru with his "Consecration of the Draw" deck and HereticSmitty with his "ADHD: The deck" deck. Winner : JaxsonBateman with his "The Archives Are Endless!" deck.
zammm: Watched the youtube video and see what you mean about the Estratti example. It still seems like it would have been fine (though a terrible bluff) if he had left the mana tapped and said it was floating.
It wouldn't have worked at all, since mana empties from players' mana pools between steps.
In the fury play, you imply its clearly different because the opponent thinks the fury is on the stack. Its much less clear to me my opponent thinks fury is on the stack, because at no point does the fury player announce a target.
That's a ridiculous and irrelevant rationalization. By that kind of technical standard, it's quite likely that nobody in the history of the game has ever actually cast a spell. Nobody goes through all the technically correct procedures when playing. Ever.
Think about it. Imagine that in your next M13 draft you go red and pick up a Fury. In your first match you play against a white deck with loads of X/1s. On your fifth turn you tap five lands, reveal a Chandra's Fury from your hand and smile, saying nothing. Do you really think your opponent is going to wait for you to formally announce the spell, put it onto the stack, choose targets, pay mana, wait for responses, and only then resolve it? No. He's going to sigh, pick up all his X/1s to drop them in the graveyard, and reduce his life total by 4. (Maybe after reading the card or having you read it, if he's not actually familiar with it.)
And if you then tell him that you haven't actually cast the spell yet because you haven't declared it or selected a target or paid mana, he's going to look at you like you're insane.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
Someone posted a situation in another thread that helped clarify 'assumed targeting' situations. I also agree that reveal + tapping = casting. The other person convinced me that 'assumed targeting' applies in a wide variety of situations. What confused me about 'assumed targeting' was cavern of souls . I remember initially their was a big discussion leading to a rules change regarding whether you had to announce cavern or whether it was assumed. If someone has 22 mana (tron deck), kozilek, butcher of truth , and remand , its not obvious they want to make their spell uncounterable because they might want to kozilek-remand-kozilek, but now if they use cavern they are out of luck unless they specifically state how they tap, despite the fact that if they try to cast remand on their own kozilek its obvious what they were trying to do.
Another situation that confused me was if you fail to state targets when casting sign in blood with both players at 2 life. If you announce sign and smile, pausing briefly, is your opponent allowed to saw 'resolves' after the brief pause and argue that you just died? I mean, nobody puts sign in their deck to deal 2 unless they are up against elderscale wurm . The 'smile' could reasonably be you knowing you have lethal. My opponents dont typically smile because they resolved an inspiration. However, assumed targeting seems to indicate that the 'rules-lawyering' player wins out here, but I could be wrong.
I appreciate your clarification about technical play. Like I said, I havent actually played a more competitive event, I only here about people casting craterhoof, gesturing to their board, and swinging only to have their opponent claim their was no trigger. Now, its true that what is probably happening here is that I only hear about the unusual rulings which aren't the norm, which is severely skewing my perspective. As you have mentioned, the new trigger rules are currently often being very strictly and technically enforced precisely because they are new, despite the rules as a whole having a more 'common sense' approach.
Basically, everyone on these boards is going 'use common sense' and a lot of the actual rulings I've heard of did not match that. It could be that the only reason these rulings were discussed in articles was precisely because they were controversial. In which case, I stand corrected.
After hearing about some actual rulings, its becoming more clear that 'reveal + tap = cast' regardless of whatever else you say. I agree that not declaring targets is a technicality, and not enough to make your opponent think you had not cast the spell. I was wondering if: 'explicitly saying revealing + explicitly mention mana floating + not declaring target + keeping the card in your hand = cast' and the short answer is yes. Yes it does mean cast. Now, Ive never played magic any differently than this, but I wasn't sure if at competitive REL a more technical as opposed to 'common sense' approach to the rules applies, but it seems like the rules at FNM and a pro tour arent all that different except you might expect people to let you take back plays occasionally at an FNM and the trigger rules become very different. Since everyone has been in a bit of a tizzy involving the trigger rules (understandable as its a major change I suppose) it appears I developed an incorrect opinion of how magic was played at a higher level. My mistake.
I think the biggest thing you're missing here is that in most cases if a player is doing something outside the norm - like using Cavern of Souls for instead of colored mana, or casting Sign in Blood on an opponent - they'll almost always say what they're doing. They won't just gesture or assume the opponent knows.
I could never imagine casting Sign in Blood , regardless of the gamestate, and not saying I was targetting my opponent if that's what I was doing. I actually recall a game a year or two ago where one player had the opponent on two life. He cast two Sign in Bloods on himself, and then realised his opponent would die from it - so when he cast the third (all in the same turn mind you), he explicitly said, "Sign in Blood on you". Because it's not normally who you'd target.
I'm all about super-control in MTG. If you're able to stop my shenanigans, then there aren't enough shenanigans.
I think the biggest thing you're missing here is that in most cases if a player is doing something outside the norm - like using Cavern of Souls for instead of colored mana, or casting Sign in Blood on an opponent - they'll almost always say what they're doing. They won't just gesture or assume the opponent knows.
I could never imagine casting Sign in Blood , regardless of the gamestate, and not saying I was targetting my opponent if that's what I was doing. I actually recall a game a year or two ago where one player had the opponent on two life. He cast two Sign in Bloods on himself, and then realised his opponent would die from it - so when he cast the third (all in the same turn mind you), he explicitly said, "Sign in Blood on you". Because it's not normally who you'd target.
I agree its clear here. Thats a lot of signs. I could imagine a player casting sign with his opponent at 2 and asking 'good game' and his opponent responding 'resolves, good game, your at 0?'
I agree that if I were to ever cast sign, Id always target. Casting targeted card draw on my opponent was one of the first 'advanced' plays I learned in magic. I tried MTGO back when there was a free trial and 5 starter decks. I eventually gravitated towards the blue one as it seemed to involve the most playskill, and eventually I realized that due to the extremely low power level of the decks, one of the best ways to win was to simply play extremely defensively and then use the one targeted card draw spell in your deck on your opponent.
Of course, one of the best parts of MTGO is an elimination of rules confusion, so none of these situations come up. Its interesting to me that on MTGO you aren't allowed to intentionally reveal as far as I know, despite it being allowed in paper.
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Think about it. Imagine that in your next M13 draft you go red and pick up a Fury. In your first match you play against a white deck with loads of X/1s. On your fifth turn you tap five lands, reveal a Chandra's Fury from your hand and smile, saying nothing. Do you really think your opponent is going to wait for you to formally announce the spell, put it onto the stack, choose targets, pay mana, wait for responses, and only then resolve it? No. He's going to sigh, pick up all his X/1s to drop them in the graveyard, and reduce his life total by 4. (Maybe after reading the card or having you read it, if he's not actually familiar with it.)
I do this all the time, especially against older, more experienced players. Magic should be a social game, and the players who sit across from me silently who tap their mana and point a card at one of mine really get on my nerves. I sit and stare at them until they say something to me. Turning creatures sideways and staring at me only causes me to lean back in my chair with my hands behind my head smiling at them slightly. Yes, I know that they're attacking, but come on, I don't play Magic just to sit across from someone with no interaction whatsoever. I will wait to hear what the targets are.
I do this all the time, especially against older, more experienced players. Magic should be a social game, and the players who sit across from me silently who tap their mana and point a card at one of mine really get on my nerves. I sit and stare at them until they say something to me. Turning creatures sideways and staring at me only causes me to lean back in my chair with my hands behind my head smiling at them slightly. Yes, I know that they're attacking, but come on, I don't play Magic just to sit across from someone with no interaction whatsoever. I will wait to hear what the targets are.
This makes me want to play you and refuse to speak to see how long it takes for you to break. That or to see what the judge says when he comes to our table at the end of the round and sees that game one hasn't progressed for forty-five minutes.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real. --Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
The issue here, mr.physics, is that you are making your actions unclear on purpose. You are expecting your opponent to assume you have the means to cast it when you do this action (be it that you have more lands than you actually have, or that the cost is lower than it really is), thus you have acted in order to misrepresent the game state to your opponent (whether he falls for it or not).
: Regenerate.
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