Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh
Time: Friday November 22nd - Sunday November 24th, 2024
Legacy Main Event Players: 1155


Friday - PM Sides Lead


Modern is too... Modern
On Thursday the Modern events didn't launch, and on Friday they were some of the smallest side events. It's a little weird since Modern is usually the premier format at large events. But here, it always played harmony to Legacy, which seemed to draw the biggest crowds.

Heavy is the Head that Wears the Crown
AP casts Palace Jailer and becomes the monarch. Later in the game NAP becomes the monarch. The next time AP attacks NAP, neither of them remember the triggered ability to transfer the monarchy back. (CR 722.2) I think this is missed trigger, but NAP wouldn't get a warning because they don't own the card responsible for the existence of the trigger. (IPG 2.1)

Max Cardage
AP has two cards in their hand and casts Kozilek, the Great Distortion while they control Storm Cauldon and Sanctum of Ugin. What is the maximum number of cards they can draw? Five cards. So long as AP taps their lands for mana while casting Kozilek, they can order all the triggers as they please, ideally having Kozilek resolve first (drawing five cards) then sacrificing Sanctum of Ugin, and finally returning the tapped lands to their hand. (CR 603.3b)

Saturday - Floor Judge - Breaks Team


Sneaky Peeker
NAP activates Polluted Delta, but before its ability resolves, AP flashes in Opposition Agent. Can AP look at NAP's hand while searching NAP's library? Yes. NAP would be able to look at their own hand while searching their library, so AP can look at it as well. (CR 720.4)

Inquiring Brains Want to Know
AP attacks with Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student, then casts Brainstorm. AP announces the Tamiyo trigger and then passes the turn without flipping Tamiyo. NAP drew a card for the turn and cast Bristly Bill, Spine Sower, then noticed that AP hadn't flipped their Tamiyo and called a judge. Bristly Bill was previously known to AP, so I felt this was a pretty clean backup and associated Game Rule Violation - Warning for AP, and Failure to Maintain Game State for NAP. (IPG 2.1, 2.5) This isn't missed trigger because AP announced their Tamiyo trigger at the correct time, effectively putting it onto the stack and then not resolving it correctly.

Traitorous Trigger
AP controls City of Traitors and plays a Scalding Tarn for their turn. They activate Scalding Tarn, putting a Volcanic Island onto the battlefield. Then use the mana from the Volcanic Island to activate Vexing Bauble, and draw a card, at which point NAP calls for a judge. There are a few things to unpack here, first City of Traitors only triggers when AP takes the special action of playing a land. (CR 116.2a) This means it won't trigger off a land being put onto the battlefield with Scalding Tarn. The next thing of note is that all the actions AP took could be taken in response to the City of Traitors trigger. I let the player know that the game was currently legal and reminded AP to sacrifice their City of Traitors before taking any sorcery-speed actions.

Walk the Walk, Talk the Pox
AP flashes back Cabal Therapy by sacrificing Poxwalkers, what happens? After AP completes the steps of casting Cabal Therapy, the game will check to see if any abilities triggered off the casting of the spell. At this point Poxwalkers is in AP's graveyard, and will trigger. (CR 601.2i)

Disrespect the Frog
AP discards a card to Psychic Frog and before the ability resolves NAP casts Crop Rotation and puts Talon Gates of Madara onto the battlefield, targeting Psychic Frog with the triggered ability. Will Psychic Frog get a +1/+1 counter when it's activated ability resolves? No. When the ability goes to resolve, Psychic Frog is being treated as if it doesn't exist (CR 702.26b) and can't be affected by the ability.

This is Why We Don't Allow Lands in Front
AP has their lands in front of their other permanents. They activate Karn, the Great Creator's -2 loyalty ability, and reveal Mycosinth Lattice from their sideboard. They leave the Lattice face-up beside their face-down hand in the same general vicinity as the rest of their permanents. They tap 6 mana but don't say anything, or move the Lattice from where it is on the board. Then they tap three more mana and activate the Channel ability of Boseiu, Who Endures, pointing at NAP's Scrubland, NAP searches for a land, and afterwards AP passes the turn. NAP then asks what's happening with the Mycosinth Lattice, as they had a Force of Will to counter it. I asked NAP what they thought AP had tapped six mana for, and NAP said they weren't really sure. I mentioned that AP had been a little unclear, but NAP also had the opportunity to clarify before resolving the Boseiju. I ruled that the Lattice had been cast earlier when AP tapped six mana and hadn't announced any floating mana (MTR 4.1, CR 106.4) NAP appealed and the HJ ruled that we would rewind the game to when Mycosinth Lattice was on the stack, undoing the Boseiju entirely, but issue no infraction to either player. However upon speaking with some other judges I now think the correct ruling would've been to rule that Mycosinth Lattice was actually still on the stack, as Boseiju can be channelled legally in response to it.

Extra Special Opener
NAP draws 8 cards for their opening hand and keeps. AP plays a land for the turn and passes. NAP forgets to draw for their turn and plays a land at which point AP notices the error. This is a bit of a weird one, since currently, NAP has the correct number of cards in their hand. Hidden card error - no fix feels very tempting here, but it is notable that's not legal for a few reasons, firstly HCE only gives us the "do nothing" option if the affected set no longer exists, which isn't true here, the affected set still very much exists. (IPG 2.3) I also think "do nothing" is kind of terrible, in that drawing an 8-card opening hand and skipping your first draw is actually pretty advantageous, especially in Legacy. I think a better fix here is to do a simple backup of returning the land to NAP's hand and having AP perform the "thoughtsieze fix" on the 8 card hand.

A Caged Yard
AP activates Goblin Welder, targeting their Grafdigger's Cage on the battlefield and their Cityscape Leveler in the graveyard, what happens when the ability resolves? Because sacrificing Grafdigger's Cage and returning Cityscape Leveler happen simultaneously, the game assesses any effects that would apply to Cityscape before it enters, and at this point Grafdigger's Cage is still on the battlefield, so Cityscape Leveler is prevented from entering the battlefield. (CR 614.1)

Get Boned
At the beginning of combat, AP mentions their Emperor of Bones trigger, but then declares attackers. Afterwards, they realize they failed to return a creature to the battlefield, and call for a judge. Weirdly enough this is a missed trigger. Because AP didn't declare a target for the triggered ability, it's assumed that AP put the ability onto the stack but selected zero targets, and resolved the trigger correctly. (IPG 2.1)

Whenever You Think You Understand Sylvan Library, No You Don't
Every time I feel like I understand Sylvan Library, I actually discover that no, I actually just have no idea what is going on with this card. AP controls Sylvan Library and draws for the turn, but then chooses to dredge twice with two Stinkweed Imps. AP will have to either pay four life or put the card they drew for the turn back on top of their library. However, if they dredge three times instead and draw no cards this turn, then they won't have to pay any life. This is because there are no cards in their hand that were drawn this turn, and thus no cards eligible to pay four life for.

Ghost Fumigation
Can AP choose to exile NAP's Grist, the Hunger Tide with their Ghost Vacuum? If so, what happens when they sacrifice Ghost Vacuum? Yes, AP can exile NAP's Grist with Ghost Vacuum. When they later activate its ability, Grist will be returned to the battlefield, however it won't be a creature or a Spirit, as a permanent can't have subtypes that aren't associated with its type, and on the battlefield its a Planeswalker. (CR 205.3d)

Valkyrie's Chariot
AP controls Valkyrie's Call and their Smuggler's Copter dies while it's a creature, what happens? Valkyrie's Call returns Smuggler's Copter to the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it. However if it's later animated, it won't be an angel. The answer for why is a little more complex. Both the ability that turns it into a creature and the continuous effect that make it an angel apply in layer 4, so we simply apply them in timestamp order, we apply the angel subtype first, which doesn't do anything because Smuggler's Copter is not a creature yet, and an object can't gain a subtype that doesn't correspond to one of its types. (CR 205.3d) Then we later apply the effect that makes it a creature. (CR 613.1d)

The reason this isn't a dependency is because while both effects apply in the same layer, changing the order of application doesn't change what either ability applies to (they both apply to Smuggler's Copter even if the order means one doesn't do anything), it won't change what any of the abilities do (the Valykrie's Call ability is trying to make Smuggler's Copter an angel, and changing the order of application doesn't change that fact.) Finally it doesn't change the existence of the effect. Both effects exist regardless of when they're applied. (CR 613.8a)

Decklist Problems that Endure
AP was playing in the semi-finals of the main event, which was open decklist because the event had coverage, and NAP noticed that AP had registered Boseiju, Who Shelters All on their decklist. NAP asked "that's supposed to be Boseiju, Who Endures, right?" AP, shocked, exclaims that they were deck checked during the swiss rounds and the judges had said nothing about it! AP was playing a Mystic Forge Combo list, where the only instant or sorcery was Kozilek's Command. The HJ took a look at the situation and determined that due to the fact that both NAP and the judge doing the check thought it was obvious an unambiguous that the card was Boseiju, Who Endures, that AP wouldn't be given a penalty and that the list would be changed. (IPG 3.4)

Sunday - Floor Judge - Miscellaneous Team


A Device in Need
My feelings on electronic devices have changed a lot in recent history. We used to have a pretty strict policy against them, but everything changed when the Eventlink nation attacked. Ahem I mean, it's hard to tell players "no phones evar" in one breath while calling the names of all the players that failed to report their matches on their phones in the other. With the advent of electronic pairings and match reporting, we've had to allow phones before and after each match. But even during the match we allow players to look up their own oracle text. We also generally allow music to be played on a phone so long as the player has the phone in full view of their opponent during the match. (MTR 2.12) This leads me to wonder how relevant it is that we take player's phones while they're in the bathroom? With phone use way up and staffing levels way down I often find myself unable to watch a player's phone while they're in the bathroom, and I imagine we'd have a pretty severe issue if a player's phone went missing after a judge told them to leave it on the table so they could pee. Perhaps we should tell players to leave it in their bag at the table? But that has the same issue where a player's whole bag could go missing while I'm taking other judge calls. I guess this is just the age old tradeoff of tournament integrity vs staffing levels.

The next annoying thing about phones is that we allow "brief personal calls" but to maintain integrity we have to basically invade the player's privacy. I've gotta say, it is always awkward when a player asks whether they can answer their phone and I have to grill them on why while it's ringing. This past weekend, AP was having some Ikea furniture being delivered to their house. I figured this would be okay. Then I had to do the second awkward phone thing where I get real close to make sure the guy with the caller ID of "Ikea delivery guy" isn't actually a teammate spoofing their number and using "couch on porch" to mean "bolt the bird". The entire ordeal makes me feel like a low key stalker listening in on someone's private furniture dealings.

Should we go back to "no phonecalls"? That feels draconian. As someone who has wanted to grab some ubereats after determining mulligans in an RCQ myself, I think that would be a bit much. But is judge time really well-spent listening to someone try to explain that "they're in a game" and that "no they can't pause it" to their mom?

The final weird phone-related story is about a player who was using a decklist on MTGGoldfish as way to look up oracle text during matches. This was only discovered quite late in the tournament. The player said they knew they could look up oracle text, but didn't realize that there were other ways to do that outside of clicking on cards in MTGGoldfish decklists. This was definitely outside assistance, but also a pretty understandable mistake. Not every player knows that scryfall exists. So maybe we should just annihilate phones all together? This player was doing this decklist thing basically all tournament and only quite late did one opponent finally notice the issue!

I don't really have a grand theory of Electronic Devices to peddle here, I'm not really sure how to fix the current system, and only know that it feels kind of all over the place and incoherent.

Unsung Heroes
It's often said that while you often notice the judges that make your life harder, you seldom notice the judges that make your life easier. The judge that prevents a delicate situation from escalating, or the judge that notices that the person in charge of posting pairings has been waylaid by a player, and posts them in their absence. This weekend the main event ran very smoothly considering the somewhat thin staffing levels. I think a big part of this is because whenever side events had some extra judges they would send them over to main event to help out, and this really helped ease the strain on the judges actually assigned to main. Thanks side event lead, you were one of the unsung heroes of main. I also encourage you to try to notice and encourage some judges that are quietly making your life easier at your next event.

Counter Counter
AP is putting their third lore counter on Urza's Saga. Can NAP cast Consign to Memory to prevent AP from searching their library? If so, what happens? The ability gets countered, and then because the number of lore counters on Urza's Saga is greater or equal to the number of chapter abilities, it's sacrificed as a state-based action. (CR 714.4)

We Cut the Cut
This was my first time working Eternal Weekend and it certainly is a strange beast. First of all, there was no cut for day 2. The event was 9 rounds on day 1, then two rounds and then a cut to top 32 on day two. This is bizarre, and leaves me wondering why they didn't just do the same number of rounds as a Grand Prix, 8 on day 1, cut, then 6 or 7 rounds on day 2. It turns out the reason for this is because the contract for Eternal Weekend is actually older than the Grand Prix contracts, and was created when the main event was on average 300 players. I think the event structure should be modified in the future, the lack of a day 2 cut meant that a bunch of people who were dead for prizes just no-showed the first round of day 2, which basically forced us into wasting 20 minutes and doing a player meeting.

The Stack of Dreams
AP casts Lurrus of the Dream-Den, before it resolves, NAP sacrifices their Nihil Spellbomb. In response to that, AP casts Orcish Bowmasters. NAP then decides to cast Path to Exile on Lurrus. AP uses their Black Lotus to pay for a Force of Negation to counter the Path to Exile. NAP then pays to draw off their Nihil Spellbomb and draws a card, at which point the players realize that Lurrus was still on the stack when it was targeted with Path to Exile. Leaving the game as-is here isn't great because that means that the Black Lotus AP used to pay for Force of Negation would get exiled from the ability of Nihil Spellbomb. After some discussion with the players, they both mentioned they preferred the backup and NAP even mentioned that they were still going to cast Path on Lurrus after it resolved, so the rewind of Force wouldn't irreparably destroy the game.

A Gold Standard Modern
Gold-bordered cards were legal in all pre-modern events this weekend. Notably, only pre-modern, no other formats had this gold-bordered exemption. I asked around quite a bit before figuring out where this rule came from. As it turns out, the tournament organizer copied a lot of rules from third-party format websites. While I wasn't able to find out which specific websites, a search of my own revealed Hipsters of the Coast touting that gold-bordered cards were legal, as well as this article encouraging gold-bordered card use on Premodern Magic. Notably Premodern Magic does specify it's tournament organizer's discretion. My guess here is that in the same way that the cEDH community has embraced proxies, the premodern community has done the same for gold-bordered cards.

I'll Tell you What...
AP casts Show and Tell, can they choose to put Grist, the Hunger Tide onto the battlefield? Yes. It's a creature card in their hand, and they are allowed to select it for Show and Tell. Its characteristic-defining ability functions in all zones, and since Show and Tell mandates that you choose a "creature card" it cares about the characteristics of the card in your hand, not on the battlefield. (CR 604.3)

Abruptly Dead
AP casts Animate Dead, but before its triggered ability resolves, NAP casts Abrupt Decay on the enchantment, what happens? Animate dead will leave the battlefield, and its triggered ability will do nothing as it resolves because it has an intervening if clause that causes the trigger to do things only if Animate Dead is still on the battlefield as the trigger is resolving. (CR 603.4)

A Story for the Ages
This actually happened at a different event years ago, but was told to me at dinner, and I felt it was too amusing to not share. AP arrives late to their match and sits down, the judge offers them a time extension, but AP says "I won't need it, I'm playing a girl". Later on the HJ hears about it and confronts AP, asking "when the judge mentioned a time extension, what was your response?" AP replied, "oh, I told the judge we wouldn't need the time extension because I was playing aggro." I feel like I've never gone from 100% DQ to 0% DQ so fast. I think this is also very illustrative of why it's so important to speak with both players before just delivering a ruling.

...In Conclusion
I've never worked Eternal Weekend before and very much wanted to give it a shot. After all, I do love adding to my TO punch card. I really enjoyed it overall. It kind of gave me flashbacks to the Grand Prix glory days. I know those days weren't all sunshine and rainbows, but for a new judge they were. I think I'll always be nostalgic about Grand Prixs because that's where my judging journey really took off, and it's where I really began to find my place in the judging ecosystem. Boasting an impressive 1200 player main event, a swath of judges donning the old judge blacks and some classic head judges and scorekeepers at the helm of it all, I really felt like I had walked into a time portal to 2018. Heck, even the event cover sheets sported the "Beleren" font. I miss working large competitive main events, and sadly, I really don't get many opportunities to be part of them any more. Maybe things will change in the future, after all the Magic Spotlight series and Regional Championships both purport to draw large crowds of competitive players, but only time will tell whether that system is sustainable.