Red Deer, Alberta
Time: Saturday June 15th 2024
33 Teams, Modern Horizons Team Sealed
Role: Floor Judge


Triggering Preservation
NAP controls two creatures. AP controls Linvala the Preserver and casts a second one, what happens? Linvala enters the battlefield and her ability checks whether NAP controls more creatures than AP. At this point, they don't because there are two Linvalas on the battlefield, so the ability doesn't trigger. Then state-based actions are checked, and AP will have to choose one to put into their graveyard. (CR 704.5j, CR 603.2, CR 603.4)

Corrupted Copy Process
AP has Corrupted Shapeshifter enter the battlefield as a 3/3 with flying. Later, if they cast Clone to copy it, what will its characteristics be? AP will be able to choose a P/T and ability combo, just like they did initially, except that it will also have flying as a layover from the first thing chosen. For instance, if AP chooses to make the Clone a 2/5 with vigilance, the resulting creature will have vigilance and flying, due to the fact that "flying" is part of the copiable characteristics of the first Shapeshifter. (CR 707.2, CR 208.2b) It will also copy the "3/3" part of the previous creature, but that will be overwritten when AP chooses to make the power and toughness 2/5. Notably this also doesn't work on Arena.

Bestow Confusion
AP casts Hopeful Eidolon for its bestow cost onto their 2/2 Bird token. Before it resolves NAP casts Doom Blade on the Bird token. Can NAP still cast Negate to counter the Hopeful Eidolon? Yes. For a brief time I misinterpreted CR702.103e and thought that if at any point the bestow creature lost its target, it would immediately become a "creature spell" and would be illegal for Negate. Luckily before writing this report I double checked my work and found the error! Even more luckily, this ruling wasn’t made on the floor, so the misinformation never left the judges on staff!

A Dredgeful Ruling
AP controls The Necrobloom and has a Disciple of Freyalise in their graveyard, can they dredge it? No. This kind of interaction works with Kess, Dissident Mage and Stomp because of CR601.3e which basically says we consider the spell's alternative characteristics when seeing whether its legal to cast it or not. We don’t consider alternative characteristics when applying replacement effects.

Feeling Blue?
AP controls Eldrazi Skyspawner and NAP casts Painter's Servant naming "blue". What color will the Skyspawner be? Blue. Both Skyspawner's Characteristic-defining ability and Painter's Servant's ability apply in the color layer. CDAs are always assessed before other continuous effects, so the Skyspawner’s ability will always be applied first meaning Painter's Servant will make it blue afterwards. (CR 613.3)

Seal the Deal
This event was team sealed, which is not a format that anyone really sees a lot of these days. We had 33 teams, which meant we were doing seven rounds with a cut to top 4. The MTR recommends 6 rounds with a cut to top 8, but in the interest of running more timed rounds, it’s current best practice to do seven rounds and a cut to top 4 instead. Because it was sealed, we did a draft after the cut. Team drafts are kinda odd because it’s a six person draft where each person is flanked by two members of the opposing team, and the teams aren’t allowed to communicate with each other. Then the drafted cards are then part of each players individual pool, and they’re not allowed to combine these pools, though they are allowed to consult each other on how to build optimally. Then they play the team they drafted with. Then it happens all over again for the finals (that’s right, we do another draft!) There was some chatter about deck registration and whether or not we should do it or how to implement it. Eventually we settled on "it doesn't matter" because it would only be their game one deck for one match, and pool registration seemed like a lot of work for something that, again, was only being used for one match. We did however take photos of each players pool just in case something weird came up. Even with this time-saving measure, the event ended at 1am totalling in a whopping 16 hours of tournament!

Criminal Abilities
AP controls Crime Novelist and a treasure token. They tap out and sacrifice their treasure token to cast Murder on NAP's Chaplain of Alms, can they use the mana from Crime Novelist to pay the ward cost? It depends, if AP sacrifices the treasure as part of casting the spell, both triggered abilites (ward and Crime Novelist's) will go onto the stack, since Crime Novelist’s ability isn’t a mana ability and won’t resolve immediately. (CR605.1b, CR605.4a) It also depends on whose turn it is, if it's NAP's turn then AP's trigger will resolve first and they'll have the mana available to pay for ward, however if it's the other way around they won't. However, realistically, AP can just sacrifice the treasure beforehand, so none of this should ever matter.

Wheel and Deal
if AP casts Wheel of Potential, can they choose to pay no energy but draw 10 cards? Technically, yes. Practically, no. While this card's actual syntax results in some wild gameplay consequences, I think it's clear that WotC didn't intend for this card to generate {E}{E}{E} and allow AP to draw as many cards as they want. This reminds me a lot of the kerfuffle when Serra Paragon first came out and also had some odd rules shenanigans going on.

The Cost of Life
AP controls K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth and would like to cast Beseech the Queen by paying six life, can they? Yes. While determining costs, AP determines whether they're paying {2} or {B}, then if they choose {B} they can choose to pay two life instead through K’rrik. (CR 601.2b)

Counter Mania
AP controls Branching Evolution and casts Fangs of Kalonia, if we start with a creature with no +1/+1 counters on it, how many +1/+1 counters will it have by the end? Six. First we put a counter on the creature, except we'll put two on because of Branching Evolution. Then we'll double the number of counters on that creature, which means putting two counters on it, except we'll be putting double that many on, which means we're putting an additional four counters on the creature. (CR 701.9e)

Garruk's Enchantress
AP controls Garruk's Horde and has a Hopeful Eidolon on top of their library, can they cast it for its bestow cost? No, for the same reason that Lier, Disciple of the Drowned will allow you to cast Stomp from your graveyard. If we want to bestow it, we have to assess whether we can cast it with those alternative characteristics. In this case, the characteristics that make it a noncreature Aura spell, and we’ll see that Garuuk's Horde doesn't allow us to cast Auras from the top of our library. (CR601.3e)

Everything All the Time
AP puts an everything counter on their Bazaar of Baghdad with Omo, Queen of Vesuva. Can Bazaar tap for {C}? No. There is no land subtype that grants the ability to tap for {C}. (CR 305.6)

Double Drake
AP casts Academy Drake with kicker and then casts Double Major to copy it, will the copy enter the battlefield with two +1/+1 counters? Yes, being kicked or not is a copiable value. (CR707.2)

The Drone Sees All
AP controls a 1/1 bird token and casts Propagator Drone, will the bird token evolve? Yes. Triggered abilities are checked after the event occurs. In this case, after Propagator Drone has entered the battlefield, all creature tokens will have evolve, and thus that ability will trigger on the bird token. (CR603.10)

It’s Never CPV
AP controls Springheart Nantuko, which is bestowed onto a 5/5 Flyer. They play a land and tap {1}{G} and put a blank token into play and say nothing. The next turn NAP attacks with a 3/3 and AP doesn’t block, to his teammate’s chagrin. The teammate harangues AP for this and the judge instructs them to stop bothering AP. The judge considered giving USC – minor, since the teammate was being quite disruptive, but ended up not issuing it. Then NAP casts Fanged Flames on the token and AP puts it into exile. Then AP plays a land at which point their teammate looks over and says “the token is a 5/5, why did it die to Fanged Flames?”. There was a lot of discussion about what ruling should be issued here, but the way it sounds to me is that it’s squarely in GRV – “your 5/5 doesn’t die to four damage” territory. I think we always assume the players are doing legal stuff until they clearly aren’t, and nothing was communicated about this being a 1/1 prior to it dying to a burn spell.

...In Conclusion
I actually had a lot of fun at this event. It was somewhat busy, the rules questions were really interesting, and I had a great time arguing about policy in the car ride there and back. It’s really quite wild what a difference working an event with people you get along with makes. In my early days of doing Magic events, I was very much an island unto myself, since I didn’t have any connections in the community. I’m really grateful for all the friends I’ve made while working events and hope that I can continue to meet and get to know awesome people!