Winnipeg, Manitoba
May 10, 2025


Unified Deck Checks Lead

Foil Me Twice...
AP gets Marked Cards - Warning for foils and is unable to find replacements within 10 mins. AP gets a game loss and their decklist is changed to include their choice of basic lands in place of the marked foils. During game 1 in the next round, AP's friend comes by with their replacement cards. Are they allowed to revert their decklist without further penalty? Yes. (IPG 3.8) More interestingly, when do we swap the basic lands out for the new cards? Policy is unfortunately a little unclear about this. If all AP's basics are still in the random portion of their library, I think we could execute the swap without incident. Otherwise I think it's best to wait until the game is over.

Shifting CreatureLand
AP controls a Shifting Woodland that's a copy of a Storm Crow. They mutate Cloudpiercer underneath it, what happens?. They will discard a card and draw a card, and the merged permanent will have reach. Characteristics gained as part of merging a permanent are applied in the same layer as copy effects, and since the merge has the more recent timestamp, the new characteristics will be added. (CR 613.2a) What happens at the end of the turn? The copy effect on Shifting Woodland wears off but Cloudpiercer will remain merged, and Shifting Woodland will continue to have the triggered ability (though it probably won't do much) and reach. While there is a targeting restriction that states that Cloudpeiercer must be mutated onto a creature, it doesn't continue to check the characteristics of the permanent after it's become merged. (CR 702.140a) Finally if AP activates Shifting Woodland again to become a copy of Storm Crow, what characteristics will it have? It won't have reach or the trigger, since the new copy effect has a newer timestamp than the Cloudpiercer merge, so all attributes gained as a result of the merge will be overwritten. (CR 613.7)

Now and Later
AP is given a warning for marked cards and needs to resleeve their deck, do they do it now or later? By simply reading the IPG we assume that they should resleeve now. (IPG 3.8) However, if we look at the MTR under sleeves it says the head judge may elect to have AP delay the change of sleeves until after the match. (MTR 3.11) Many judges feel that if only a warning is being issued, AP needs to change their sleeves after the match, but if it's severe enough that the judge feels they need to be changed now, the penalty should probably be a game loss.

Source & Target
AP activates their Martyr's Cause on NAP's Storm Crow, but before it resolves, NAP gives Storm Crow hexproof, what happens? The ability resolves as normal. The odd thing about Martyr's cause is that the only target chosen upon activation is whatever is experiencing damage, while the source of the damage is chosen upon resolution. So if AP was being attacked by Monastery Swiftspear and Slickshot Show-off and activated Martyr's Cause, they'd choose themselves as the target for prevention, then as the ability resolved they'd choose either Slickshot or Swifspear to prevent damage from.

Victorious Triggers
AP had one energy, controlled Guide of Souls and Voice of Victory. They wanted to know if they could attack and then use Guide's ability to pump one of the warrior tokens. They can. Both these things are on attack triggers, so AP can stack them such that they gain the energy before needing to pay it during the resolution of Guide's ability, normally they would need to select a target for that ability when it's first put onto the stack, which is before Voice's tokens exist. However the targeted part of Guide's ability is a reflexive trigger, which means it's not put onto the stack until the initial trigger resolves. (CR 603.12)

Legally Illegal
AP had a bunch of Savannah Lions that had the name sharpied out for use as tokens for Ajani, Nacatl Pariah. Savannah Lions is legal in modern, however the sharpied out name is an illegal artistic modification. (MTR 3.3) Having extra cards in your deckbox that could conceivably be played in your deck means they're considered part of your sideboard, and fall under one of the upgrades for Deck Problem. (IPG 3.5) In this case it's interesting because AP has taken steps to make them illegal, and thus potentially not conceivably playable in the deck. The philosophy behind the game loss is that we want to avoid people having 20 card sideboards. We exempt off-color and cards not legal in the format because someone slipping these into their deck is either so unlikely or so easy to catch we're not concerned about it. The average opponent will, after all, immediately call a judge if a Brainstorm is cast in modern. So can we also assume that the average opponent will call a judge immediately if a Savannah Lions with a blotted out name bar is cast? I think it's somewhat likely, but I'm not sure if it's likely enough that I'd be okay allowing these tokens.

...In Conclusion
Winnipeg was a really tiny show, realistically it's not a show I'd normally travel to, but getting local judges out there was particularly awkward, and the TO just felt like they needed another body. So while the heading says "unified checks lead" realistically I was responsible for two events of deck checks. And I hit my quotas in the second deck check of each event. That being said, I enjoyed the smaller staff and general chill attitude and camaraderie of the whole thing.