Denver, Colorado | Standard
Time: Friday July 19th – Sunday July 21st
Players: 615 Winner: Luis Scott-Vargas

Friday – MCQ – TL “Not Checks”


Pointing out the Obvious is Still Information
NAP declares his blocks, and AP then says “go to three” AP takes down the damage, NAP gets half way through taking down the damage, thinks for a moment reads the Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord in his opponent's graveyard and then says, “Wait I think I'd like to block differently.” I ruled that we weren't going to reverse the blocks, as it seemed as if both players had moved to damage, in addition to this AP had revealed information, not only by declaring the amount of damage that NAP would be taking, but by not casting any spells after blocks. NAP kept bringing up the “new policy” about changing decisions and about how AP saying “go to three” wasn't new information, and interrupting me when I tried to explain why this didn't qualify. He wasn't terribly rude or anything, just very excitable, eventually I ended up making my case, and asking if he'd like to appeal, which he did. I got the HJ and was upheld.

I Made it Myself!
I was watching a call where player tapped 7 mana and cast a Plains, helpfully letting his opponent know that it was a Nexus of Fate proxy he'd brought from home. There was nothing written on the Plains, to indicate anything at all really, and it certainly wasn't issued by the HJ of the event! Luckily he wasn't playing any Plains in his deck, so we simply ruled deck problem, issued a warning and got him to replace the unofficial proxies with official ones.

...And it Was Decreed that All Foils Would Be Marked
A player called me over, “Judge, my opponent is playing a bunch of foil cards!”
“Okay,” I waited to see if there was another problem,
“And they're like playsets, all his Opt's are foil, and all his Growth Spirals are foil!”
I nodded, this was probably true, “Are you concerned the cards might be marked?”
“Yes! I once got a game loss for having foil cards!”
I nodded, yes this could be true, I let the player know I'd look at his opponent's deck and see if I could pick out any of the offending foils. As it turned out, I could not. I explained to the player that foils weren't inherently marked, foils were only marked if they were, you know, actually marked. The player seemed to have a bit of a hard time believing me, but eventually I think I got through to him.

A Rotten Trigger
At the top of R3 I overheard the scorekeeper mention that we already had 10 warnings for missed trigger on Rotting Regisaur. I myself had just had one such call, AP had drawn his card for the turn, played a land, thought for a moment and then NAP realized he had forgotten to discard for Rotting Regisaur. I issued the Missed Trigger penalty and asked the opponent if he would like to put it on the stack now, the opponent (who was actually the same player that tried to redeclare blocks in the first scenario) asked about backing up and mentioned that it could be very advantageous for his opponent to forget his trigger. I let him know that he wasn't wrong, and this is why it was being tracked with a warning, but the fix issued was how policy handles missed triggers. I thought about investigating, but wasn't sure quite what to ask or look for. I think looking at AP's hand would've been good, for instance if there were two really good cards in his hand, it's possible he tried to skip the discard, then drew the land he played, whereas if his hand was a land and something else he could've easily simply discarded the land in hand and it seems less like cheating at that point. I asked NAP if he wanted to appeal, but he declined this time.

Communication is Critical
I did EOR for R2 but after all tables were covered I didn't interface with the HJ or the scorekeeper, to let them know that everything was covered, I also made this same mistake at SCG Con, so I felt pretty silly repeating it here, I keep forgetting that while I know everything is good to go, it's essential to transmit this information to others. I ensured not to replicate the problem the other times I took care of EOR, however.

If This Were a Shortcut Call...
AP says “move to end step, trigger?” NAP says “In response I'd like to Lightning Strike your Nightpack Ambusher” AP then responds by countering the spell with Frilled Mystic, the players were then uncertain as to whether all this was happening at the end of the second main phase or in the end step with the trigger on the stack. I let them know it didn't matter as the Nightpack Ambusher's triggered ability had an intervening if clause, which means that it to checks the condition both when it goes on the stack and when it resolves (similar to Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle). However, I let NAP know it would be better to be more clear when he exactly he was acting in the future. Another judge mentioned that this was very akin to the combat shortcut and if the ruling had hinged on the communication here, it was basically NAP's choice as to where we were. He also mentioned a shortcut that if a player was playing something specifically to stop an end step trigger from going on the stack, they were assumed to be acting in the second main phase. I was a little uncomfortable with this because I felt it was similar to a situation where NAP casts Opt, sees Mortify, grabs and casts it, then claims to have been acting in second main phase to destroy Wilderness Reclamation.

Back Through the Brainstorm
AP cast Cavalier of Gales, completes the enter the battlefield trigger, (a Brainstorm) and then declares a lethal attack at Narset, Parter of Veils, at which point both players realize the Brainstorm trigger shouldn't have happened, the FJ ruled no backup since the backup is pretty disruptive, the procedure is to take the two cards put on top of the library and return them to the hand, then return three random cards from the hand to the top of the library, then in this case, because of Narset, Parter of Veils, the player would need to put two chosen cards on top of their library. Thus resulting in a random card from their had being buried 5 cards down in the library. To make things worse, Cavalier of Gales has a built in shuffle ability, which can cause random cards to be lost from the players hand forever. The Cavalier player mentioned that if he'd remembered Narset precombat, he'd just have attacked her first. The opponent in the scenario appealed, and the HJ overturned, the FJ and performed the backup. The next turn, NAP killed the Cavalier of Gales, triggering a shuffle. I believe the HJ in this situation perhaps didn't notice the shuffle ability before making the decision to backup.

To Play Forever..
In MF side events, we're supposed to ensure our events finish and that we call time on the the third round and all that. But another judge proposed the idea to me that sometimes, if the venue has space and the players are enjoying themselves, to not call time on them. I've had the thought before, when it's the last one or two matches in a 3 round event, there just doesn't seem to be any reason to stop them from playing. The problems with this are players will make decisions based on time, or perhaps will play more quickly if they think they are being timed. Alternatively sometimes players play for the draw if they know time is running out, and it isn't great to suddenly change the formula. I let him know that this seemed like a dangerous deviation since there were a lot of factors to consider, but it could potentially be executed without damage to the event.

Saturday – Main Event – Slips


Marauding Trigger
I shadowed another judge on a call where AP cast Regisaur Alpha, and missed his Marauding Raptor trigger, he then activated Otepec Huntmaster on the Regisaur Alpha and declared attacks, at which point the player called a judge on themselves. The judge on the call consulted with another judge, did a small backup through declaration of attacks and the activation of Otepec Huntmaster, to the point of the trigger, ruling that the trigger then went on the stack. I don't often shadow calls, so talking to judges about weird rulings is a skill that I don't have a lot of experience in. To clarify, if we consider this a GPE – GRV, this ruling is correct. If we consider this a missed trigger, then the ruling should be a warning and to have the opponent choose to put the trigger on the stack now or not, no backup. However this scenario is neither of those, this is in fact, no infraction. In policy it mentions that players don't need to call attention to triggers that have no visible effect on the game state, which this is. We assume this trigger hasn't been missed until the player takes an action that shows us he has missed it (for example, if the opponent casts a Shock on the Regisaur Alpha and the player doesn't put it in the graveyard) this is very much akin to how we handle prowess triggers as well. After he made the ruling I talked to him about it and policy, he initially disagreed with me about this being no infraction, however he did realize that the backup was incorrect. Eventually the misunderstanding was resolved when we spoke with one of the main event head judges.

A Gruesome Ruling
AP cast Gruesome Menagerie targeting Embodiment of Agonies and some other creatures. The question was how many counters there would be on the Embodiment of Agonies. Initially I ruled that anything in the GY after we pulled out the three creatures but before we put the Gruesome Menagerie in there would be counted. But as I was walking away I then realized that this was really similar to Golgari Grave-Troll, which counts itself when it's reanimated. I quickly double checked with a nearby judge, and then went back over to the players and fixed the misunderstanding. It counts itself because the effect that puts counters on it is a replacement effect, and when we're determining what that effect is going to do the Embodiment of Agonies is still in the graveyard.

0+2=2
AP draws a card for the turn, then looks at the board, and then asks if X for the Hydroid Krasis counts as part of it's CMC. NAP says “yeah,” then AP says, “So this Hydroid Krasis with 4 counters on it has CMC 6?” At which point a judge steps in and says, “Well no, actually x is 0 on the board, so this is CMC 2.” NAP said nothing. The judge found this a little suspicious and took NAP aside and asked them why they thought the value of x counted towards the mana cost on the board and the player responded, “Well, X is part of the mana cost, but X is 0 on the board, so 0 + 2 = 2.” This was... not a great answer. There was a long debate as to whether this was cheating or just a really aggressive angle shot.

My Opponent's Cards Only Work When They Remember Them
NAP casts an instant into this opponent's Teferi, Time Raveler, pauses and looks at his opponent. AP replies, “Sure,” Then NAP says, “Okay I would like to cast another instant.” At which point a judge is called over. The question is how many GRVs are to be given? Clearly there is a bunch of stuff that is not okay in this scenario. There is a GRV for both NAP and AP for the violation and lack of adherence to Teferi, Time Raveler's continuous effect, There's also a GRV for NAP for casting a second instant that violates Teferi, and finally what about a GRV for casting a spell when you don't have priority? In my opinion I think I'm giving two here, one for AP for not maintaining Teferi, and one for NAP for committing a bunch of issues all at once. Very much in the same way that we can rule out of order sequencing for a batch of actions, I would like to rule a single GRV for a batch of related mistakes.

What You Can and Can't Fry
I took a call where a player was asking me if Fry could target a land animated by Nissa, Who Shakes the World, I ruled that it could because like Fatal Push the target on the card was “target creature” and not “target white or blue creature” the ruling I gave was the already cast Fry resolved and did nothing. then as I was walking away I thought about how it was templated some more and realized it might be a good idea to check with someone else. I checked with another FJ who was uncertain, and so we both checked with one of the GPHJs, who succinctly let us know that Fry, in fact, could only target blue or white creatures or planeswalkers. Meaning the ruling should've been GRV, untap two lands and return Fry to it's owners hand. I went back over to the players, and explained the correct ruling to them. Luckily they let me know it didn't impact the game in any way.

Fried Oozes at Dairy Queen
AP cast Fry on NAP's Biogenic Ooze. NAP put it in GY, then a spectator called a judge and let them know that Fry couldn't target Biogenic Ooze. This was a bit of a suspicious situation, so each player was questioned, AP was asked why he brought Fry in from the sideboard, and he mentioned that it killed his opponents Narset, Parter of Veils. He was then asked when he drew Fry, and said that it had been in his opening hand, the judge asked why he hadn't cast it the previous turn, and the player said he was tapped out, but after talking through the game, it was determined that he was not tapped out on the previous turn. Looking at the board state, and AP's hand it was pretty clear that if the Ooze stayed in play for another turn or two it would be very hard for him to win the game. The players story seemed pretty suspect, and I believe he was removed from the event.

Deck Problems? More Like Deck Solutions!
I got to execute the new deck problem fix. In my case a player had a sideboard card in her opening hand, she revealed the sideboard card to the opponent, then pulled all the other sideboard cards out of her deck and revealed them as well, then she took all the cards in her SB that should've been main revealed them to the opponent, the opponent then chose which mainboard card would replace the SB card in the hand, and the rest were shuffled into the library. From a player perspective, this probably feels really weird. Like off the rails kind of weird. Players already get a little uncomfortable with the HCE fix and the MT policy. The GPHJs also announced that along with backups and HCEs, DP authorizations would be added to the list of infractions that need to go through an L3 or TLTP. This is a little frustrating because it feels like we are taking more and more agency away from the FJs. I think we should either trust our L2s to understand and be able to execute policy correctly without having to double check everything or perhaps policy is becoming too much of a maze, and if it's an incomprehensible maze to the judges, I can just imagine how incomprehensible it must feel to the players.

Sunday – Main Event - Papers


And You Get a Penalty, and You Get a Penalty, Everyone Gets a Penalty!
AP said, “Last turn my opponent didn't gain life from his lifelink creature,” I asked what had happened since then and AP said he'd untapped and drawn a card. I let the players know that I could execute a rewind here, and AP let me know that NAP just gaining the life now would be effectively the same thing. I had NAP gain his life and issued the GRV. NAP then said “Doesn't my opponent get an infraction as well?” I thought about it for a moment, and felt like this was right at the cusp of FTMGS, it sounded like everything had happened pretty quickly, and there was a reasonable argument not to issue the mirrored infraction. However I decided that issuing the FTMGS might avoid a lengthy appeal over what is essentially actual nothing so I just issued it anyways. I thought about it a little afterwards and realized this probably felt pretty bad for the opponent. He had not only pointed out something disadvantageous to himself in the game but also gotten a warning for it? I decided to take the FTMGS player aside afterwards and let him know that FTMGS doesn't upgrade and is essentially a vestigial infraction. I don't think I handled this great. It's not good to tell a player that an infraction does nothing, and it's also not great to give a player an infraction when the opponent asks you to. I should've been more confident in my initial ruling and simply explained to the opponent why I didn't think FTMGS was merited in this scenario.

...In Conclusion
I had an awesome time at MF Denver, it was a slower event, so I spent my extra time working on the skills I'm weaker at. I tried to initiate conversations with other judges more as well as work on my investigation skills. It was a really smooth event for me, and I feel like I learned a lot. I don't usually shadow other judges, but this event I got to do it more than usual and it was a really interesting experience! I'll be home for the next few weeks to recharge, but I'm excited to reflect upon my experiences these past few months and apply everything I've learned at MF Vegas!