Syracuse, New York | Legacy
Time: Saturday September 14th – Sunday September 14th 2019
Open - Players: 522 Winner: Rich Cali
Classic - Players: 243 Winner: Dominic Harvey

Saturday – Open Deck Checks


Show Too Soon
AP casts Show and Tell taking a card from their hand and putting it face down on the table, NAP does the same. AP goes and fiddles with their card a bit, NAP thinks the spell is resolving and begins to reveal his Karakas, AP sees this and says he's still deciding and might want to change his mind, at which point a judge is called. AP says he's still deciding between Blood Moon and Griselbrand. NAP has no basic lands and a Hexdrinker in play. I rule that the spell hasn't resolved yet and he can change his mind, NAP seems a little unhappy, I offer the appeal and he takes it. I bring the HJ over and he overturns. After considering the situation I agree with the overturn, NAP has a Hexdrinker that he can still level up even with only mountains, AP will be dead in a few turns unless he draws another Show and Tell. Upon reflection I feel like AP may have been slightly dishonest here.

Put 7 Back
NAP has Leovold, Emissary of Trest in play. AP has Omniscience and casts Griselbrand. He then activates Griselbrand, NAP says “Ok draw 7”. AP draws 7 cards. AP then casts Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, then casts Ponder and before he starts to resolve it he realizes he won't be drawing for Ponder, and shouldn't have drawn for Griselbran. I proposed the infraction of double GRV, and the fix being put Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Ponder back into AP's hand, then take 7 cards at random and put them on top of the library. Both myself and the HJ agreed that this felt kind of horrible, but the alternative of not backing up felt even more horrible.

Free Invigorate
AP has Sulfuric Vortex in play. NAP would like to cast Invigorate for it's alternate cost, can he? The answer is yes! The “gain 4 life” event is replaced by Sulfuric Vortex so that AP gains no life, making Invigorate actually, completely free.

Take a Card, Leave a Card
AP cracks a fetchland, grabs a land, then looks down and sees a card in his lap. AP shrugs and shuffles it back into his library. A spectator stops them and grabs a judge. The spectator mentions that the card that fell into AP's lap was a Force of Vigor from his hand. I pull AP aside and ask about his hand and after a few moments he mentions that he should have a Force of Vigor in hand and that he accidentally shuffled it in when he shouldn't have. I took a look at the board state and Force of Vigor seems kinda bad against his opponent's deck. I did a card count and determined that AP was indeed down a card. I grabbed the HJ and explained the situation, mentioning that I wanted to just search the library and put Force of Vigor back in AP's hand. However I also mentioned that felt horrible, and looked pretty terrible to NAP. The correct fix is to issue HCE, reveal the library to NAP and have them select a card.

Sunday – Modern Classic Head Judge


Filing a Police Report is a Special Action
A player came up to me and let me know that her car got ran into on the way to the event, and wanted to let me know that she was going to be calling the police, but didn't know how long it would take. I let her know that we could wait up to 10 minutes after the start of the round, and that we could not drop her, if she took longer than 10 minutes. I also let her hand in her decklist in advance. Another player was a witness to the crash and also had to leave in the middle of a match.

Maybe Rift Bolt Likes Being in Exile
One of my FJ's came up to me and asked me to “sanity check” his ruling. AP had missed his Rift Bolt suspend trigger during his upkeep, and the FJ wanted to confirm that the suspend trigger would just go on the stack again the following turn. I confirmed that if AP had completely missed the trigger (as opposed to something strange like removing the time counter and not casting it somehow) it was MT and would indeed go on the stack the following turn. The FJ was happy with the answer and left. Less than a minute later the FJ came back and said “I have an appeal,” I asked “is this about Rift Bolt” and he nodded. I went to the table and explained the ruling to the players, NAP seemed pretty unhappy that the Rift Bolt wasn't trapped in exile now and didn't seem to really get it. But didn't argue too much.

I Would Like to Block for my Karn with my Karn
AP activated Liquimetal Coating on Karn, the Great Creator, making it an artifact, then he used Karn's +1 on itself, making it an artifact creature, then he equipped it with Sword of Feast and Famine and attacked NAP. NAP couldn't block, as he only had two Tarmogoyfs play. On NAP's turn he wanted to know if he could still attack the Karn that was still a creature. I read Karn, the Great Creator and thought that turning it into an artifact creature would remove its other types. I decided to confirm the ruling with another judge and they let me know that if something was made into specifically an artifact creature, it was treated as if it said “[cardname] becomes an artifact creature, in addition to it's other types.” (205.1b). The players then wanted to know how protection from green was going to factor into the whole 'attacking Karn' situation, I was fairly certain Karn wouldn't take damage, but confirmed anyways.When I mentioned the scenerio to one of my FJs he mentioned that it would be amusing if NAP had attacked Karn, and AP had decided to block for Karn, with Karn!

Breaking Judges
I delegated one of my FJs to do breaks, however I didn't really look over the schedule that carefuelly, and because of some weird communication anomaly, all three events (the Open, the Legacy Classic and the Modern Classic) were in double break rounds simultaneously! Which meant the 'extra support from the Legacy Classic judges that we thought we would have was uh, nonexistent and ended up with a rather messy R4 start. In the future I think I'll coordinate and communicate better with the other HJs.

Mine, Mine, Tower
AP played Urza's Mine, then played Urza's Tower, then cracked an Expedition Map and fetched Urza's Power Plant. Then decided to play an Urza's Minee for turn instead, tapped all three and cast a Karn Liberated. At which point both players realized that he hadn't played the Power Plant he'd meant to. I filed it under reversing decision, and let him swap out the land with no penalty or infraction.

Collective Misunderstanding
AP cast Collective Brutality for all three modes, choosing to kill a Scavenging Ooze that was in play, and Duressing NAP's hand. NAP reveals a hand of 5 creatures and a Lead the Stampede. AP believes he chose Lead the Stampede, NAP however thought AP pointed to the Scavenging Ooze he had in hand and discarded that instead. Then when NAP took his turn, he drew his second land, played it, tapped both lands and the Llanowar Elves he had in play to cast Lead the Stampede at which point AP knew something was wrong. The backup for this call was pretty easy, so I quickly executed it, then I kind of stopped because I wasn't sure what kind of infraction to issue. I felt like it was neither players fault really that something had gone wrong, they had simply communicated poorly. So I didn't want to issue an infraction. I spoke about the call with one of my FJs and after discussing it decided that I should probably be issuing GPE-GRV to NAP.

Scooping is a Reversible Decision
AP cast Brainstorm, looked at the top 3 cards of his library and said, “I've got nothing, I concede,” He picked up his singular land in play, then stopped and said, “No, wait, I have outs, let's keep playing.” At which point a judge was called. The HJ ruled that scooping was a reversible decision.

Wrenn and One
NAP takes his first turn and plays a Polluted Delta and passes the turn. AP plays Forest, Mox Diamond, and casts Gamble. AP then casts Wrenn and Six. NAP untaps draws and then realizes that AP only paid 1 mana for Wrenn and Six. The FJ on the call wanted to backup but the HJ ruled leave it as is because backing up would allow NAP the opportunity to shuffle away a random card from his hand if he wanted to, which, with the added information of what his opponent is now playing is quite a bit of advantage. I disagree with this and would perform the backup, though I realize it's a backup that heavily favors NAP.

Tireless Appeal
AP has Tireless Tracker in play and two clue tokens. AP cracks a clue, draws a card, then cracks another clue, draws a second card and puts two counters on Tireless Tracker. NAP calls a judge. The FJ ruled out of order sequencing. I asked the players how quickly the sequence of actions happened and determined it was a single batch of actions in quick succession, and so I upheld the ruling.

That Question Does Not Mean What You Think it Means
AP calls a judge and asks if the modes on Kolaghan's Command resolve in the order they are printed on the card. The judge let the player know that, yes, they do resolve in the order printed. AP confirmed this a few times and went back to his seat. AP then went back to the table and cast Bring to Light for 3 and grabbed Kolaghan's Command choosing the modes shatter Sword of Light and Shadow and 2 damage to the Stoneforge Mystic it's equipped to. At which point the judge stopped the game and tried to tell AP that's not how it worked. The call got appealed and upheld, a rewind and warning were issued. The FJ on the call thinks that maybe AP shouldn't have gotten a warning because he did everything he could to get the correct answer. I disagreed, I think AP should still get a warning, but I think, especially when players ask weirdly specific questions, it's important to ask why they want to know the answer. Uusually in these sorts of cases you'll find out that what they are asking and what they actually want to know are two different things.

Can We Just, Not Rule Missed Trigger?
AP has Prismatic Omen and 5 other lands in play, he then puts Valakut the Molten Pinnacle into play saying nothing, then plays Field of the Dead for his turn. NAP stops him and says “Wait, I wanted to respond to the Valakut trigger that you missed!” And a judge was called, the FJ initially ruled “No, the trigger was missed, you can put the Valakut trigger on the stack now, or not and respond to the Field of the Dead trigger instead.” The player appealed this ruling. I spoke to the player and explained to him that regardless of which was the judge rules, he was getting hit with a single Valakut trigger and NAP was getting a zombie token. I asked him what he wanted to happen, and why he was appealing. He thought about it for a moment, shrugged and let me know he hadn't really thought of it that way and was okay with the ruling. He sat down at which point my FJ pulled me aside and mentioned that he thought his ruling was wrong he said that players are allowed to remind their opponents about missed triggers and put them on the stack. In this scenerio NAP had intervened at the earliest time he could to get that trigger on the stack. I let the FJ know that the players seemed happy with the ruling as is, and I'd rather not change it for no reason. At which point NAP then came up to me and mentioned that it did matter if he Ghost Quartered AP's Valakur the Molten Pinnacle now, AP was going to get a second zombie token! The ruling had already taken quite some time, and I was beginning to feel a little flustered. I, for some reason didn't want to change my ruling and kind of just stuck with it, to NAP's chagrin. I felt like no one involved was satisfied with the ruling and I was turning it over in my mind for a while afterwards. Two rounds later the player approached my FJ and asked him how to submit feedback on a judge, I was walking by them at the time, and had already decided to approach the player and apologize, as I had determined that my ruling was not correct. My FJ waved me over and I apologized to the player. They accepted the apology and thanked me for going over the call with them.

Paying 3 for Trinisphere is More of a Suggestion Than a Rule
AP uses Karn, the Great Creators -2 ability to fetche Trinisphere from his sideboard and casts it. NAP untaps and plays Liliana of the Veil and passes. AP has all three tron lands in play, and taps an Urza's Power Plant for Chromatic Star, cracks it for green, then casts Ancient Stirrings, grabs an Expedition Map, then taps Urza's Tower to cast Expedition Map, at which point my FJ steps in and stops him. My FJ then escalates the investigation to me. I asked AP a few questions, and checked out the cards in each players hand. AP has an Ulamog, Ceaseless Hunger that he's had in hand since the beginning of the game, he needs to cast it in the next two turns otherwise he's probably going to start losing the game. The FJ thought he paid fully for Expedition Map with the Tower, but I think it was much more logical that he thought he was floating two mana. He mentioned he had forgotten about Trinisphere entirely that turn. I also noted that if he had paid Trinisphere tax on all his spells he would've been able to cast the two that were in his hand when he began the turn, the Chromatic Star and Ancient Stirrings. Making this a fairly low value cheat. I was kind of flustered during the investigation. I asked AP if he'd played Trinisphere earlier in the event, and he said no. I ended up issuing the GRV and ruling no backup since there were a myriad of shuffle and draw effects. But wasn't thrilled with the ruling. I think I was about 55% certain he wasn't cheating. In the next round I got one of my judges to go undercover and watch him play, but nothing suspicious was noticed. I also spoke with one of his previous round opponents who was on boggles, a very good deck to bring Trinisphere in against, the opponent seemed newer to the format. I asked her if she recalled “An artifact that made her spells cost 3” being played against her, she mentioned recalling that. Which made me uneasy, but I wasn't totally certain in my recollection of whether AP had actually told me he hadn't played it earlier in the event.

...In Conclusion
I had a really great time at SCG Syracuse! Legacy is a super fun format to watch, and working deck checks for the first time in a while was kind of refreshing. I was both honored and excited to experience my first opportunity as a classic head judge! I got to make announcements on the microphone and approve alters and NFCs! I got to take appeals and I even had an investigation! I think the experience really showed me I still have a lot to learn as a judge and that there's a lot of room to grow. It gave me the opportunity to experience so many new things, and I hope I get an opportunity like this again!