Houston, Texas
Time: Friday December 6th - Sunday December 8th, 2024


Friday - Side Events - Floor Judge


Planeswalker Mockery
AP casts Mockingbird choosing to copy Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, what are the characteristics of Mockingbird? The subtype "bird" becomes part of the copiable values for Mockingbird, and thus is applied in the copy effects layer. (CR 707.9b, 613.1a) However at that time, Kaito isn't a creature, so it can't gain the "bird" subtype. (CR 205.3d) then later in layer 4 where Kaito's ability makes it a creature, he doesn't re-gain the bird subtype.

Dread Not, Want Not
AP casts Phyrexian Dreadnought, and then, before its trigger resolves, exiles it to Curie, Emergent Intelligence, what happens? Dreadnought's trigger resolves and does nothing, and AP has a really great Curie!

Saturday - Unified Checks Lead


Unified Checks
Originally I was just deck check lead on the main event, but because the event was so slow I offered to check the other Comp REL events as well. When your checks team isn't necessary for EOR on the main, I think it's a good use of resources.

Consigned to Misery
AP casts consign to Memory and chooses to pay the replicate cost. Before the triggered ability resolves NAP casts Commandeer and chooses to have the original Consign target its own triggered ability. While this seems cute, the Consign to Memory trigger will resolve and put a copy of Consign onto the stack before the original Consign to Memory counters it, so in this instance, Commandeer doesn't actually fix NAP's problem.

Triple Threat
AP had three Lightning Bolts in their deck, but had only registered two. Their current opponent was on the Colossus Hammer deck, which Lightning Bolt is very good against. I asked AP about their previous matches, but bolt was kinda bad in all those, they said that last night they'd been working on various versions of the deck and were waffling back and forth about how many bolts they wanted to play. All this seemed reasonable enough, and going up a Lightning Bolt didn't seem like a great cheat in the current meta, so I didn't disqualify the player, instead just giving them a game loss for deck problem.

Time Trials
AP was told that they had a one minute extension, but AP claimed that they had a five minute extension. I was worried that this player was perhaps trying to get a few more unearned minutes. Notably AP only brought this up when time in the round was called. Upon investigation of the board state, it looked like the extra minutes were not particularly beneficial to AP. In the end, it seemed like the more likely scenario was that the judge and player had different perceptions of time, and the judge failed to communicate the extension clearly.

A Certain Type of Question
AP controls a basic Plains and Leyline of the Guildpact, then casts Blood Moon. How much will they need to pay for Scion of Draco? The Plains will continue to have all basic land types, being unaffected by Blood Moon. Therefore Scion of Draco will cost two mana.

Sunday - Unified Checks Lead


Double Deck Debacle
The big policy question that was plaguing people was whether having one of those double deck boxes would be considered a deck problem - game loss or not. (IPG 3.5) The IPG says that extra cards stored with the sideboard are considered part of the sideboard if they could conceivably be played (so long as AP isn't presenting their sideboard). Historically I've ruled game loss on this, since I feel a player rooting around in their attached deck box won't really be noticed by an opponent during sideboarding. However on the main event the HJ didn't want to game loss for this, which was a bit surprising to me, as I didn't think this was a ruling that was at all contentious! It was interesting talking to the other judges on the event, since there was much more of a range of opinions on this than I first thought.

Policy Vindicated
AP arrived to round one of the 5k without a decklist. The HJ had instructed all players without lists to play their round one first, and then fill out a decklist afterwards. AP's games was one of the last to finish, this meant the round turned as soon as they were done. Meaning that they were writing their list at the top of the following round. Unfortunately they weren't told that there was any kind of time limit on writing their list, so they ended up making their round 2 opponent wait 15 minutes before they were done writing. When AP handed in their decklist the receiving judge instructed AP that they'd be getting a game loss for not having it ready at the start of round 1. AP was very frustrated, arguing that if they'd been told this in the beginning, they wouldn't have bothered writing the list or playing round one, they would've just dropped and gotten a refund. As it stood, they could no longer get a refund since they'd already played round one of the event.

There were a few things that should've been done differently here, first, while it's common in last chance trials to have players play their round first and then fill out a list, the logistics of an LCT are fundamentally different. They're much smaller, and single elimination, so oftentimes players that need to fill out a decklist are eliminated in the first round anyways. Second they're much less "competitive" than a big scheduled event. Registration is often unclear about whether a decklist is needed, and they feel more like on-demand side events than an actual Comp REL event. So adopting the LCT strategy for this event felt a little weird for sure.

In this event it the judge should've tried to figure out why AP didn't have a list right away, if it was a registration or MTGMelee issue, there might be grounds to waive the game loss entirely. If it wasn't one of those things, then they should've been told that they were getting a game loss, and should've been given ten minutes to fill out their list then and there, receiving a match loss if they took more than ten minutes. In the end the game loss was waived for AP since they really should've been told at the beginning they were getting one, and I felt that was a judge mistake worth waiving a game loss for.

A Sticking Point
AP was playing this Secret Lair Battlefield Forge in their deck. I noticed it while on checks, and vaguely recalled some legality issues with this card. After some investigation I found that this wouldn't be legal as a Plains due to the fact that the Plains part is actually just a sticker on top of the Battlefield Forge, and the addition of the sticker makes it noticeably thicker, and could be considered marked. Luckily without the sticker, it's totally fine and legal to play as a Battlefield Forge.

Cursed Nemesis
AP controls three creatures and casts Case of the Gateway Express, choosing to target NAP's Screaming Nemesis. After it resolves, how many triggers will Screaming Nemesis put onto the stack? One, because the damage is dealt simultaneously, Screaming Nemesis will only trigger once. (CR700.1) I actually got this one wrong on the floor and only discovered the correct answer when compiling this report. I'm a little frustrated I can't make it right with the player, and that I'm going to be someone else's "other judge" at some point in the future.

Bane of the Overlords
NAP casts Tishana's Tidebinder to counter Overlord of the Hauntwoods' triggered ability. What happens? Overlord of the Hauntwoods will be a creature and will have time counters on it, but they won't do anything, nor will they be removed at each of AP's end steps. (CR 702.176a)

...In Conclusion
Houston was my last large event of the year, and even though it was a little slow, I actually had a good time. I got to spend some time doing deck checks which I haven't gotten to do in a while, I had some interesting policy discussions, and even found some interesting rules questions. I got to just take some calls, get overturned on some stuff and just basically be a floor judge. It was a good time and a cozy little event. I was feeling a little exhausted and burnt out going into Houston, but in the end, I'm glad I went.