Toronto, Canada
Time: Friday September 27th - Sunday September 29th, 2024

Friday - ReCQ HJ


Loopy Rulings
While this didn't happen at the event, it was discussed in the car ride on the way to the event, and I thought it was quite interesting. AP has Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre and controls The Gitrog Monster, they have 8 cards in their hand at the end of their turn and discard Dakmor Salvage to hand size. They elect to use its Dredge 3 ability instead of drawing, which potentially causes more lands to go into their graveyard, and would draw them a card. Then cleanup starts again, and if they choose to discard Dakmor Salvage again, they can keep looping basically infinitely, however because its not deterministic, cards are added to their hand at a variable rate, it can't be shortcut. The rules under loops also say that "A player attempting to execute a nondeterministic loop must stop if at any point during the process a previous game state (or one identical in all relevant ways) is reached again." (MTR 4.4) In this case, since AP's hand is constantly changing, the game state isn't identical unless they end up in a situation where they have all the exact same cards in their hand as a previous point in the loop. If AP, for instance, wants to continue this loop until the timer runs out, are they allowed to do that within the game rules? Personally, I don't really think so, I'm not a fan of using the clock to manipulate match results in this way. I think I'd ask what state the player was trying to get to, and if they couldn't give me one, the loop is over. If the answer was "until I draw x card that is in my library" I think I'd allow them to "fast-forward" the loop until they had that card in their hand. I believe at whatever event this happened in, the HJ of that event ruled that AP couldn't shortcut anything, and could instead just keep looping until the timer ran out.

Glorious Choices
AP taps Arena of Glory to escape Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury and doesn't say anything, then they go to attack with it, is it assumed that they exerted? Nope! NAP is entitled to know what costs were paid when AP activated Arena of Glory's ability. We have a shiny new policy that talks about activated mana abilities and how we're assumed to be using the most narrowly applicable one, and this incidentally could apply to Arena of Glory, but luckily we got some clarification from the other Toby that this is not the case.

I Didn't Want Those Cards Anyways
AP keeps their opening hand and puts three cards on the bottom of their library, then after NAP has reveals Leyline of the Guildpact as a pre-game action, AP realizes that they should've put two cards on the bottom of their library instead of three. This call caught myself and the other judge a little off-guard. We knew it couldn't be Mulligan Procedure Error since the IPG says that after mulligans are complete and the game has begun, issues associated with mulligans no longer fall under MPE. (IPG 2.4) While it's ambiguous as to whether the game has actually begun at this point, what isn't ambiguous is the fact that applying the MPE fix doesn't actually make the situation here better (take another mulligan now, blech!). Me and the other judge recalled that often mulligan issues fall under HCE, and revealed the three cards on the bottom of the library to the opponent and had them choose one to return to AP's hand. Afterwards we discussed the call in more depth and determined that it should've been ruled GRV instead, but the fix is still ambiguous. By the book you either rewind or don't, but if you rewind you put the three cards back in AP's hand and then they have the option to mulligan or not (since putting the cards on the bottom is done before the decision to keep or not). (CR 103.5) This is obviously not a good idea for many reasons. An alternative solution proposed by many of the judges I spoke to was to simply return a card at random from the bottom three to AP's hand.

Saturday - Sealed Super Qualifier HJ


A Pool of Value
I accidentally gave a player an extra sealed pack when I was handing out packs. Luckily they noticed right after opening all their packs during the opening procedure, and alerted me right away. They'd kept all their cards in order, so it was fairly easy to separate each pack out. After doing that we simply selected one at random and had the player put it in their bag and not use it in the pool. I think asking them to return the pack feels quite bad, and as long as the TO is okay with it, it's better to just let them keep it. If the player had mixed everything together I think the best solution is to count up all the commons, uncommons and rares and then divide by 7 to see what the average number of these cards in each pack is, then construct a pack at random and remove that from the pool. Obviously this is super awkward, but there isn't a universe where I allow this player to play sealed with seven packs.

Landing on a Solution
There was a time, long ago when pool counts were something that we could do, however then WotC released sets where the basic land slot could be something else, and while we weren't required to register basic lands, we were required to register other things. I think that while pool counts for rarity are difficult, we can head this off a little bit by having players register the nonfoil basic lands they open. That way we can do a total pool count if necessary, and it also prevents players from adding and registering more rares that don't bring them over the pack count (from the most recent set the pack composition looks like this: 1-4 rares, 3-5 Uncommon, 6-9 Commons, 1 Land and 1 Foil).

Face to Table Games
With Manifest Dread being a big thing in this set, one of the common rules questions was whether players would need to reveal face-down cards if they went to a hidden zone or at the end of the game. I initially thought you had to reveal all face-down cards regardless of whether they were morphs, manifests, disguise creatures or whatever. But then another judge let me know that, in fact, it was only morph and disguise creatures that needed to be revealed. Interesting. This made sense because the HCE game loss upgrade only applies to morph and disguise creatures. (IPG 2.3) I delivered the ruling and went on my merry way, but a little while later I felt weird about it, and decided to check the CR just in case and alas I had been bamboozled by the other judge! Regardless of how it became face-down players are required to reveal them if they'd ever go to a hidden zone, or at the end of the game. (CR 708.9) It certainly feels a little weird, but my best guess is that this is to avoid any weirdness in formats that include both manifest and morph creatures, since a player could potentially illegally play a morph creature and then later manifest a card with morph and only choose to reveal that one instead at the end of the game.

Just Fifteen More Minutes!
Much like booster packs, the current state of what constitutes prerelease and release is a little ambiguous. On prerelease weekend players can buy packs and cards become legal in various formats. In Appendix B of the MTR it says we give players an extra fifteen minutes for build on the weekend of a new set release and on prerelease, but realistically, isn't prerelease just release now? This is ultimately very confusing, and I believe the philosophy of giving players extra time on those two weekends was because even if you'd played prerelease, you couldn't actually play with the cards the following week, so it's not like you could do any testing before release weekend events. In the current era that isn't true, and so for this event I just didn't give them the extra fifteen minutes.

Miraculously Expensive
AP miracles draws Entreat the Angels and casts it for its miracle cost with X=2, what is the mana value of the spell on the stack? 7, even though X is defined in the alternative cost, the mana value of the spell uses the same X value to calculate what it costs on the stack. (CR 107.3a)

It Depends...
AP controls Marvin, Murderous Mimic, Sakashima, the Impostor and a Basking Rootwalla, how many times can AP activate Marvin's Rootwalla ability? It depends on which creature entered the battlefield first whether Marvin or Sakashima. Normally in this scenario Sakashima will have entered second, and thus will have two copies of Rootwalla's ability. Whether or not Sakashima has a second copy of Rootwalla's ability depends on whether Marvin has the ability already, and vice-versa, which means this is a dependency loop and we need to apply the effects in timestamp order. This results in us applying Marvin's ability first, and having it gain the ability from only the Rootwalla itself, then applying Sakashima's ability, causing it gain the ability from both Marvin and the Roowalla. (CR 613.8b, CR 613.8a)

Landseeker
AP cast Spineseeker Centipede, which has a triggered ability that allows AP to search for a land when it enters the battlefield. NAP said "ok", and AP started searching their library. Then NAP said "wait, I want to do something before you started searching". In this case, NAP wanted to cast Vanish From Sight onto the Spineseeker Centipede. I felt like there was no reason we couldn't do this, the game hadn't moved unreasonably past the point where it would be difficult to allow NAP to cast this spell. However the FJ felt that NAP had missed their opportunity to react. I couldn't think of any good arguments initially and shrugged and told the FJ that while it isn't the ruling I would make on the floor, I would uphold him if he got appealed. He got appealed and after speaking to the player, I realized that this fit very squarely into reversing decisions, which was the justification I needed to overturn, I spoke with the FJ once more explaining the situation and the new revelation, the FJ understood, and I overturned. I think a few things were awkward about this, first of all, telling the FJ I wouldn't overturn before talking to the players was a little awkward, I think it's expected that if new information arises the agreement is off. However this wasn't really that, this was just the player presenting good arguments and jogging my memory on reversing decisions.

Advantageous Ruling
In a game of 2HG AP controlled Predatory Advantage, would it trigger for both opponents or just one? On the floor I ruled it would just trigger once and only if both opponents hadn't cast any spells (like Ghostly Prison), however this is incorrect, it actually triggers twice, anything that triggers on "each opponent's end step" will go on the stack once for each opponent. Unfortunately me and the other judge also failed to check the scryfall rulings and didn't end up getting to the correct answer on this one. (CR 805.4d)

Sunday - Modern Super Qualifier Floor Judge


It Really Counts
AP exiles Ulamog, the Defiler with Emperor of Bones and then activates its adapt ability, allowing them to put Ulamog onto the battlefield, how many +1/+1 counters will it enter with if it was the only creature exiled? It enters with five counters, since before it enters the battlefield, it's still in exile, which is where the game assesses what replacement effects need to be applied. (CR 614.4)

Glorious Exertion
AP activates Arena of Glory's exert ability to escape Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury, however after exiling the cards from their graveyard and announcing their mana abilities, NAP points out that AP controls a Damping Sphere, and actually has {W}{W}{C} in their pool, at which point they call a judge. I thought about it for a moment but decided to fully rewind the activation of exert. I considered not rewinding the mana abilities, since in this case the mana ability activation is a little more involved then most normal mana abilities. And we have the new clause that requires AP announce the exert, but realistically we can just assume they activated it as part of casting the spell and back it up.

The Same, But Different
AP controls Ral, Monsoon Mage and Ral, Leyline Prodigy, they activate his -2 loyalty ability, then before it resolves, they cast a Lightning Bolt targeting NAP. This causes their first Ral to flip, then AP chooses to keep the new Ral, Leyline Prodigy as part of the legend rule. (CR 704.5j) When the trigger from the old Ral, Leyline Prodigy resolves, will AP draw a card? Yes, at this point, AP controls a blue permanent other than the one that created the ability.

Only Some Artifacts Are At Risk
AP controls Collector Ouphe and has Cityscape Leveler in their graveyard, can they unearth it? Yes. Because it doesn't specify "artifact cards" or "artifact spells" Collector Ouphe's ability only applies to the permanents on the battlefield that are artifacts. (CR 109.2)

...In Conclusion
I had a pretty good time at Commandfest Toronto, while my last few events have left me feeling a little low, Toronto was actually a lot of fun. I think part of that was the fact that I got to be on the floor just taking judge calls for most of the weekend, which is inherently the fun part of judging. I think for a lot of this year I've been in some kind of leadership role, focusing on either mentorship, or managing people or the logistics of tetrising events into an overcrowded room, and none of that involves interacting with players or answering rules questions. It's been a long journey and I'm still not entirely sure what I love about judging, but I'm going to spend the next few events trying to figure it out.