Roanoke, Virginia | Pioneer & Modern
Time: Friday November 15th – Sunday November 17th 2019
Invitational Players: 489 Winner: Chris Barone

Friday – PTQ Team Lead (Not Checks)


Combustible Trigger
NAP controlled Narset, Parter of Veils. AP cast Combustible Gearhulk, NAP would like to choose to have AP draw 3 cards (which he then believed would be stopped by Narset, ultimately having the triggered ability resolve and do nothing). I ruled that NAP could not choose to have AP draw 3 cards as this was instructing AP to complete an illegal action, an analogous situation would be AP attempting to pay 2 life to have Stomping Ground enter untapped if he only had one life. The player disagreed with me and appealed. I was upheld.

Policy Works... Most of the Time
I noticed two players having a bit of a confrontation. The first player (let's call him AP) was irritated that the second player (let's call him NAP) had been pausing matches and calling for a judge, in AP's opinion, far too frequently for small things that didn't matter. I only caught the tail end of the conversation, and AP left shortly after I walked by. I spoke to NAP afterwards to both calm him down and confirm he was following protocol correctly, which he was. He seemed grateful that I took the time to listen and mostly affirm that he was indeed doing the right thing.

Saturday - Invitational Day 2 – Paper Team


Sleepless Triggers
NAP had cast Pillory of the Sleepless on AP's creature and AP had missed the trigger. I was about to rule MT – no infraction on NAP but then vaguely recalled that this was AP's responsibility. I ended up ruling MT – W for AP. However this is incorrect, as while this trigger is AP's responsibility, it doesn't carry an affiliated warning. I made the ruling but felt like something was not quite right. After having it bother me for about five minutes I recalled the correct infraction and confirmed with another judge that was on the event. She shrugged and let me know it probably wasn't a big deal. Later on the HJ of the event came and poked me about it, and I realized that I probably should've let him on the scorekeeper for the event know that I had made this mistake, rather than one of the floor judges.

Lightning Bolt Doesn't Scar Soul
AP controlled Soul-Scar Mage and wanted to know if NAP would get thopter tokens if they cast Lightning Bolt on NAP's Hangerback Walker that had 3 +1/+1 counters on it. I got half way through explaining how they were both the removal of +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters and being put into a graveyard for having 0 toughness were SBAs when I realized I didn't actually know if NAP would get the thopters. I decided to go and talk to another judge about the interaction before I made my final ruling. It turns out that NAP will in fact get thopters in this scenario. Hangarback Walker dies and the counters are removed simultaneously, while the dies trigger is resolving it will need to use last-known information to ascertain how many +1/+1 counters were on Hangarback Walker, (seeing as there are no counters currently on the card) it will see that it had three +1/+1 counters on it and will grant NAP their thopter tokens.

Tobi's Famous No-Infraction Backup
Both players agreed that NAP had stated that he had something to do in AP's upkeep, but that AP had zoomed to drawing his card before NAP had a chance to do whatever it was he wanted to do. I carefully surveyed the board to see if backing up through the draw would affect anything, or if there would be any way for either player to shuffle the card back into the library. Then I asked NAP away from the table what exactly it was that he wanted to do. He replied that he simply wanted to tap down AP's lands with Elder-Deep Fiend. As AP was on Tron, none of the cards in his hand had any way of interacting with NAP's desired action, I felt like this was a totally clean backup and executed it without issuing an infraction. I feel like there is an argument for issuing AP a GRV here for zooming through his upkeep, however it feels a little punitive, and might also encourage players to play more slowly, which is not great. While I'm never thrilled about backing up when policy doesn't allow me to, sometimes, like in situations like these or more ambiguous ones where neither player has really done anything wrong, it feels like the best way to get the game back on track.

When Out of Order Sequencing Goes Too Far
AP cast Arcum's Astrolabe and milled four cards, a spectator is, understandably, confused by this course of action and calls for a judge. I arrive and initially think it's some kind of missed trigger call, as AP explains to me that they were casting Arcum's Astrolabe and then immediately afterwards, Emry, Lurker of the Loch. I ruled missed trigger for the Arcum's Astrolabe, and that the batch of actions wasn't really a huge problem. Until NAP said they wanted to counter Emry with Metallic Rebuke. I sighed, let the players know that they were at the point in the turn where Astrolabe had resolved and the trigger had been missed, but Emry was on the stack, and had to issue a GRV to AP for prematurely milling four cards and then had to shuffle those four cards back into the library.

Invisible Exploration
AP played an extra land on their turn, it was a Whurza mirror, both sides of the field were fairly cluttered and more than eligible for city's blessing. The only thing that had happened since the erroneous land drop was a Karn, the Great Creator activation, I was more than ready to simply issue the GPE – GRV backup through the single land play and call it a day. However I decided to investigate a little bit, and see if this land was relevant in any way. I noted that this would be their sixth mana source, thus allowing them to play Mycosynth Lattice this turn. I pulled them away from the table and asked them what they were planning on grabbing with Karn this turn, they said Ensnaring Bridge, and the time I felt like it was fairly believable. However in retrospect I don't think I really looked at the board to see if that was a logical play, nor did I ask why they were electing to grab bridge instead of the lattice.

Infectious Cheering
Some people say that things like laughter and cheering are infectious. I got the experience this firsthand at SCGCon. A small cheer rose up from the Command Zone area of the room. Then it got louder and spread to the rest of the room within a few moments. I asked the people around me why everyone was clapping, but no one seemed to really know. I even saw a few of the SCG employees wandering over to the source of the cheering, bewildered at what was going on. Later on one of my colleagues did some investigation and found out that it had begun with one of the commander pods. One of the SCG Versus personalities was playing in a pod, and the pod began clapping for them as they sat down. Other pods in the Command Zone noticed this and also began clapping, even if they weren't totally sure why. Then it simply spread to the rest of the room, even though most people had no idea what they were clapping for. There is absolutely nothing magic related nor is there anything to learn from this section, I just thought it was really funny.

Small Errors Fixed By Players Without the Intervention of a Judge...
I was watching a Whurza mirror near the end of the round and witnessed a rather entertaining interaction. AP picked up a Chalice of the Void that was kind of on the edge of their playmat, half behind a deckbox.
AP: What is this?
AP: Did I cast this? Is this supposed to be in my hand?
NAP: I don't think it's in your hand,
AP: I think it's totally feasible I played this for zero a while ago and forgot about it.
NAP: Yeah, I'm okay with that.

Who's Actually Attacking?
AP attacks with four creatures including a Noble Hierarch with a +1/+1 counter on it. NAP declares blocks and casts Assassin's Trophy and announces they are at one life. AP does some math and corrects them saying they should be at zero. Both players then realize that they are not on the same page about whether Noble Hierarch was attacking or not. The battlefield is quite a mess and even to the judge on the call it's pretty ambiguous about what's going on. The ruling that was made was a backup to before declare blockers with no infraction issued. I kind of agree with this, as AP is completely tapped out and has revealed no information to NAP. However it is important to remember that in these situations backing up to the point of confusion is not always as simple as this and can often favor one player much more than the other.

Sunday – Sides - Kickstart Lead


Staggeringly Unenrolled
The way SCG staggered legacy side events throughout the day was really interesting, their events are all four rounds each and they have one of each format every 2 hrs (ie: 11 am legacy, 1pm legacy, 3 pm legacy 5pm legacy). However it seemed common knowledge among the scorekeeping staff that the second and fourth events simply wouldn't launch because all the players were still in the first and third events. However when I asked why the events weren't spaced four hours apart so that people could play in all of them, I was told that it was to help people out that missed the launch of the first one, say for instance, they came in 20 or 30 minutes after the start of the first legacy event, they'd then have to wait for 3 more hours before another one was available. However this seemed like the case anyways, since the second event doesn't launch, as there aren't enough of these “late people” to fill the event. Also in addition to this, I feel like the opportunity to let down players is really high, like for instance, perhaps they are planning specifically to come in at 1pm to attend the 1pm legacy event because they'd rather not wake up at 11, but they get in, the event doesn't fill up and they have to wait two hours anyways. I recall one of the biggest complaints at the beginning of last year when I began working with CFBE was that players wanted to sit and play their format all day, and at the time, the legacy events were staggered so that the second one launched 30 minutes before the first one was slated to end. Eventually they fixed this so that the second one launched right around when the first one was slated to end. I think perhaps SCG could consider this model of launching events, maybe even just for things like legacy where it's basically the same small batch of players all day.

Redeeming Elk
NAP attacks, AP plays Archangel Avacyn, and it gains indestructible, AP then has it block NAP's 4/4. after combat NAP then plays Oko, Thief of Crowns, and wants to know if he Elks avacyn, will it die? The answer is yes, it does, indestructible doesn't prevent or remove damage from the creature, it just stops it from doing anything, however when Oko turns it into an Elk it also doesn't remove the damage, but it does remove the indestructible ability, therefore causing the damage to once again become relevant!

Battlefield-Bound Crag
AP controlled a Botanical Sanctum and put a Rootbound Crag into play untapped, AP then reviewed his hand and pondered his decisions, at which point NAP called a judge. AP stated he intended to play Stomping Ground instead, but he didn't mark down a payment of two life, nor did he do anything else to indicate that was his play. I ruled that playing the land was legal, however it coming into play tapped was not, and therefore the ruling would be GRV – W, he doesn't switch the lands. I was appealed and upheld. However upon reflection I believe that perhaps backing up to before he played the land would've been a more correct ruling, the distinction between playing a land and the land coming into play tapped seems a little pedantic and similarly, if this was how we handled other parts of policy, if a player chose an illegal target for a spell we would say something like “casting the spell was legal, however your target selection was not, please select a legal target.” However this is unsurprisingly, not how we resolve situations like this.

This Definitely Did Not Come Up at SCG Con
AP creates a copy of Golgari Brownscale with Cackling Counterpart and then kills it with Annihilate, can they dredge? Yes, the token isn't removed from the graveyard until state-based actions are checked, and therefore AP can use the dredge ability of the token that's hanging out in the graveyard. However the token won't move to AP's hand. The next part to this question, is what if the token is killed with a Decree of Pain that is also killing five other creatures. AP would be allowed to dredge the same Golgari Brownscale five times, since it remains in the graveyard after each dredge.

...In Conclusion
Overall SCGCon was a good time, its always a bit of a nice change from MagicFests and I always encounter something new there. I enjoyed watching Pioneer, and even Elk and Urza infested modern was a lot of fun. The players were lively and the staff I got to work with was experienced. I am really grateful SCG took me on for this event and look forward to the changes they have on the horizon!