Las Vegas, Nevada, USA| Limited & Modern
Time: Friday November 19th, 2021 – Sunday November 21st, 2021
Modern Main Event Players: 1400(ish) Winner: Edwin Colleran
Limited Main Event Players: 1400(ish) Winner: Allen Wu

Friday - Modern Main Event – Breaks


Foxy Problems
I like breaks team, mostly because you get to do a little of everything and that really appeals to me. While finding out about the everything I'd be doing I found out that we wouldn't be using Purple Fox for end of round. This was a little... upsetting, purple fox is a great tool and is extremely useful. Also it's been around for about as long as I've been doing large events. Let me tell you, without Purple Fox, end of round drags like nobody's business. In round 1 at five minutes left in the clock we still had 300 matches outstanding! Now this may have just been a Vegas thing and not totally due to the lack of Purple Fox, but IDK. I blame the lack of sick tech (this is also what I blame most of my losses in M:tG on as well).

Invoke Equality
Before my first shift I went around to all the vendors just to get a look around before the writhing mass of player bodies decided to lodge themselves in front of everything. While I was doing my pre-event perusal one of the vendors asked me if it was okay to display cards like "Invoke Prejudice" or "Crusade". I felt like this was a CFB decision, so I asked a red shirt. This got flipped to another red shirt and after going through a few different employees the answer that was returned to me was "we'd rather they didn't".

Dress for the Occassion
AP cast Mulldrifter and in response NAP cast Dress Down. As players do, they stumbled through what they were trying to ask, and eventually I puzzled out that they were wondering if Mulldrifter would get sacrificed. I said, 'No, casting Dress Down targeting Mulldrifter won't cause the trigger that's already on the stack to go away'. The players looked at me with very confused expressions and mentioned that Dress Down was being cast before Mulldrifter entered the battlefield. I paused, and decided that maybe reading Dress Down would be a good idea. To my surprise Dress Down isn't a "Frogify" effect which only causes a single creature to lose its abilities, but instead, is a Humility- type enchantment. I apologized to the players and revised my ruling to say that AP would neither be drawing two cards, nor would they be sacrificing Mulldrifter. This is because the trigger associated with Evoke checks how the creature was cast when it enters the battlefield, however since its entering without the Evoke ability, that trigger doesn't exist and, like most things that don't exist, doesn't do anything.
Conversely, if a creature was cast using its Dash ability, as part of casting it for its alternative cost, a delayed trigger to return it to its owners hand is created, which is unaffected by Dress Down.
Undying works similarly, if a creature with Undying dies and then Dress Down is cast, it won't prevent the creature from entering with a +1/+1 counter, since that is part of an ability that's already on the stack.
Finally Things like Arcbound Ravager and Murktide Regent will not enter the battlefield with +1/+1 counters because the game will check to see which replacement effects to apply by taking a look at what the creature will look like on the battlefield. On the battlefield the creature will have no abilities, therefore the game, predictably, has no replacement effects to apply.

A Dashing Question
A question that came up a lot over the weekend was "Can I cast Ragavan for its Dash cost from the graveyard if I control Lurrus of the Dream Den?" The answer to which is, yes, you can. Lurrus allows you to cast spells from your graveyard, but doesn't specify an associated alternative cost (such as without paying their mana costs etc.) so you are free to cast spells with Lurrus for their alternative costs to your heart's content!

Silent Counting
I had a call where AP accused NAP of sacrificing Silent Clearing multiple times. I spoke to the judge shadowing me and let them know it was a card count, and to supervise me since I was getting flustered and am not confident with card counts. By the time I returned, the accusing player had already completed the card count on his side, and a few moments later, their opponent had also completed their own card count. The counts lined up and the players determined that no extra cards had been drawn. It felt a little weird since I hadn't really done anything but their counts seemed on the up and up so I gave them a time extension and moved on.

Bloody Sagas!
I took a call wherein NAP controlled an Urza's Saga with two lore counters on it and AP cast a Blood Moon. Okay, this wasn't too bad, I'd gone over this interaction before, and the Saga gets sacrificed because the number of lore counters on it exceeds the final number of Chapter abilities (a Mountain has no chapter abilities, for those who are unaware). However, NAP then asked what would happen if they played a second Urza's Saga afterwards into the new Blood Moon environment. I thought for a moment and reviewed the CR on Sagas. 0 isn't greater than 0 so I ruled that it would just hang out and be a mountain in all its mountainy goodness. I walked away, leaving the players with their mountains, but had a growing unease in the back of my mind. I decided to double check with one of the head judges in a rare moment of free time when we happened to cross paths a few minutes later. the HJ corrected me, saying that in fact, the CR mentions that if the number of counters is equal to the number of chapter abilities it also gets sacrificed. I then followed up with "On a semi-related note, can you come fix a game I broke?" I believe the fix was to sacrifice the Saga now.

Tier-2 Tutors
AP cast Boggart Harbinger and left the card they tutored for face up in the middle of the table. Then when it became their turn, they drew a card and scooped up the card the had tutored for. This is a pretty easy to fix LEC (since there are two cards in their hand, the one that we all know about and the card that we can shuffle back in), but what was more concerning is that NAP mentioned this had happened multiple times during their match. I decided to do a short investigation just to see if everything was on the up and up and if I should be getting a HJ involved or not. I asked AP to step away from the table and asked NAP who was going to win the game. Usually when I ask this question the players dither around a bit, but without hesitation they said "Oh I'm going to win" I asked whether their opponent drawing a card would impact that in any way and they said "no probably not, I've got the game locked down" sure enough they were playing UW control and even a cursory glance at their board yielded a few planeswalkers while the opponent had a solitary creature in play. I took AP aside and asked them the same questions, they also responded fairly quickly saying their opponent was going to win the game. I asked them what their outs were and they said "uhhhh, honestly I'm not sure if I have any". That coupled with the fact that they had literally just tutored for basically any card in their deck I figured this was unlikely to be cheating, since I got the impression that grabbing the best card in their deck + cheating a random card was probably not a super likely line to victory.

Grist, God of Complex Rules
AP controls The Scarab God and wants to Reanimate Grist, the Hunger Tide. Can AP do this? If so, what does Grist look like? Grist ends up being a planeswalker – grist and has a power and toughness of 4/4 that doesn't do anything unless something turns it into a creature without specifying a power and toughness. (it's also potentially an invisible 0/0, rules on this aren't completely clear)

Adventure into the CR
If AP is cascading, and reveals an Adventurer, can they cast the adventure half, if it has a lesser mana value than the card with cascade? Yes! As AP is casting the adventure they choose which part of it they are casting, and as long as that half has a lesser mana value than the card with cascade it's a legitimate choice. Notably even if the adventure portion has a lesser mana value, if the card with adventure doesn't have a lesser mana value than the cascade card it won't stop the "cascade" and allow AP to choose to cast the adventure. Another question that came up often was whether you would be able to cast the adventure half of a card off of Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, the answer there, is yes as well, since Ragavan doesn't impose any restrictions on how you cast the spell. If it's cast this way, the Ragavan player will exile it upon resolution and will be the only player with the ability to cast its other half from exile.

Armored Response
What happens if AP controls a creature enchanted with Hyena Umbra and the Hyena Umbra gains indestructible, and then the creature is subsequently Murdered? The Hyena Umbra will replace the creature being destroyed with the creature not being destroyed, and will attempt to destroy itself, which can't happen. This makes the creature effectively, unkillable.

Saturday - Limited Main Event - Paper Team 8:00am - 8:30pm


New Tech
Large event logistics are constantly evolving, and I like seeing the new stuff that comes out of the creativity of the judge collective. For this event, for each column of player seats, a different color of decklists was distributed. (for example, the decklists for the first column were yellow, the second column were pink, etc.) This would help with the eventual sorting of said decklists. I liked this. Another thing that happened was the event outgrew the convention center. This is becoming typical for events hosted in Vegas and New Jersey. The good thing about Vegas though, is that the TO always has the option of renting out additional rooms (unlike in New Jersey which has approximately one convention center that's tiny AF) which they utilized on Saturday, sending select side events into adjacent rooms.

Purveyor of Errors
Bloodvial Purveyor is an exciting card for multiple reasons. The first reason is that it has day-1 errata (its second triggered ability is until end of turn, which most people unconsciously add to the statement anyways, but as written it's not what the ability says). The second exciting thing about the card is the first triggered ability and whether it's beneficial or detrimental. I could see an argument for it being beneficial since when evaluating the entire card, it does make the creature larger, however as mentioned by some other judges I spoke with, the card is already busted so the first ability is likely an attempt to balance it (which it, like, doesn't). Also the opponent has the opportunity to crack the tokens to make it smaller and filter at the same time. It's also worth noting that we uh, have a guide for this kind of thing so in the event of the internet being readily available, any trigger can just be looked up here.

Appealing Tokens
AP controlled Child of the Pack and said "pass the turn". NAP began untapping and AP then said "during your upkeep, before it becomes night, I'd like to make a token". Understandably NAP said this couldn't happen, and that's when I was called onto the scene. I spoke with both players and gathered that AP's intention was to create a wolf before day turned to night. I chalked the issue up to AP not totally understanding when the Day/Night transition happened, and as nothing significant had happened in between their end step (NAP was tapped out save for a single swamp and had not drawn their card for the turn) I was fine with rolling back a little bit and allowing AP to make a wolf before the end of their turn. During the call I explained the reversing decisions policy to NAP, since this was where I was filing the call. NAP was unhappy with the ruling and as I had a judge shadowing me I sent them to grab a HJ before I had finished since I kind of knew this was going to be an appeal.
The HJ came over and let me know that they felt like AP didn't understand the rules and had explicitly passed the turn and was now trying to do something illegal, they ruled that we were in the upkeep and that AP couldn't make a wolf token. They didn't issue a GRV but mentioned that they had grounds for it here, and well, since they're the HJ they can do that.

Journey to Stensia and Back
AP cast Stensia Uprising for four mana while NAP controlled Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Two turns later both players noticed that AP should've paid five to cast Stensia Uprising. I ruled GRV no backup and explained it to both players. In the two turns since the enchantment each player had played a creature, and a single attacker had been declared. I was wary of backing up through two turns, however upon reflection, the Stensia Uprising was going to have a huge impact on the game, whereas backing up two turns probably wouldn't ruin very much. I think if I could do it again I'd probably back up.

Inspector of Rulings Past
I was called over to a table where AP controlled Jacob Hauken, Inspector, and two piles of face-down exiled cards, one containing three cards and the other with just one. They let me know that another judge had ruled that if Jacob Hauken died and was brought back, AP would be able to cast the cards previously exiled with it. I was fairly sure this was not the case, I read the back side of Jacob Hauken just to be sure (since often, reading cards is tech), and found that I had some bad news for this player. I wasn't really sure what to do since the player had clearly been planning this play for a few turns. I immediately grabbed a Head Judge and discussed it with them. They investigated and found that a clear winner to the game wasn't decided yet (both players agreed it was anybody's game) and that the judge mistake had made quite an impact on AP's game plan. the HJ asked me what I would do, I responded with "I'm not really sure, we can't back up, too much has happened, I know I've heard of double match wins but that's only for scorekeeping errors". The HJ let me know that the double match win (both players being reported as winning the match) wasn't just for scorekeeping errors and was, in fact what he was going to do in this situation. I felt like that was kind of weird since this is a very disruptive and extreme fix, but neither of us could see any better path at all. The players were fine with this result as this meant they both won, but were still a little disgruntled that their game had been ruined. I spoke with the judge who made the erroneous ruling as well to ensure that this error wasn't going to pop up elsewhere.

Innocent Mistake
AP missed their Innocent Traveller trigger. I felt this was pretty simple and was half way through issuing Missed Trigger - No penalty when the judge shadowing me pulled me aside and said that this was a detrimental trigger. I was kind of taken aback. They said that because it offered the opponent a choice it was detrimental. I paused for a moment, trusting the other judge and was half way through correcting myself and explaining to the player why this was detrimental when I realized even I didn't believe what I was saying. There was no way this was detrimental! I turned to the other judge halfway through the ruling and was like "wut" after a few seconds I realized this was really unprofessional, and let the players know that the fix (opponent chooses whether to put the trigger on the stack) was happening regardless, and that AP may or may not be getting a warning, but that didn't matter to them for continuing their game purposes (Since AP didn't have any other warnings). After discussing with the other judge for a little while longer, we eventually agreed that while yes, Innocent Traveller does give the opponent a choice, both choices are good for the controller of the card, and that the controller of the card likely wouldn't be playing a 1/3 for 4 if it didn't have that ability, so it's a beneficial trigger.

Karn, Great Confuser
AP controlled a Spreading Seas that NAP made into an artifact with Liquimetal Coating, and then animated with Karn, Great Creator. Then they were confused about what was going to happen. Well the Spreading Seas becomes a creature, unattaches from the land it's been tethered to, enjoys a few brief moments of life, and then dies to SBAs since it's still an aura but isn't attached to anything.

Sunday – Registration


Ops
So, to date I've done like, 3 ops shifts. (maybe more if you count scorekeeping) and like most people, sometimes I start thinking of ops as "easy work" or a "nothing job". On Sunday however, I was once again reminded that ops actually has a lot going on, and felt rather useless as I was woefully unequipped to deal with the majority of player questions. If you ever find yourself thinking that ops is easy or for tier two judges, I encourage you to try to spend an hour on ops and see how far you get. But Tobi, you say, CFB must know that you'd be completely useless, so why did they give you a single day of ops? Well, uhm, this may have been my own fault, you see, I am always worried about my "hireability" I wanted to go to Vegas very badly and was afraid I might get turned down if I was too demanding, so on my application I put that I was available for anything, including setup and strike. Setup was a great gig, since I'm not missing anything for that (well there was a close shave with a conference but it all worked out in the end). But strike replaces whatever other Sunday shift I would've had, with laborious large-item moving and also basically wrecks my ability to go to the staff party. To be clear I was totally fine with a strike shift since a strike shift is better than no shift, and while I do enjoy the staff party, I'm not going to die without it. However while I was on setup another judge mentioned to me that they were really disappointed that they hadn't gotten the strike shift. I saw an opportunity to help us both out and proposed a trade. They agreed, and after talking to all the leads involved, we were able to make it happen. Luckily, I was only complete dead weight for the first hour of my shift, after that I was shuffled over to prize tix which is fairly easy once you get a cheat sheet.

In Conclusion...
Vegas was amazing. Reconnecting with my fellow judges and slipping back into things was so rewarding. When Covid started I was quite burnt out, so the lack of events came as an unexpected, but welcome break. But now, after a year and half, I'm ready to hit the circuit again!