Langley, Canada
Saturday June 13th, 2026
Modern RCQ HJ



Appropriate Bye-In
Before the start of round 1, the modern event had 63 players registered, including two players who had round one byes. In Canada, the winners of the in-store RCQs are awarded round one byes to Face to Face tour stop events. It's an incentive for players to keep playing RCQs even after they've gotten their invite, but it also encourages players to come out to the tour stop events as well. Anyways, the frustrating part of players with byes is that they count as two players when calculating the number of rounds, thus our "effective player count" was 65, notably if we'd had 64 players we would've had a six round event, instead of a 7 round event. Even more frustrating is after we began, there were enough no shows to put us well below 64 players. I had already announced the number of rounds, so there was no changing it at this point. I did ponder whether it would be problematic to change it in future events after getting an accurate player count in round 1. The main issue with this is the fact that if we based the round number on the actual player count, there would be a bunch of extra byes in round 1, but not a sufficient number of rounds to counterbalance them. However, not counting double no shows in the total player count wouldn't cause these sorts of problems. In the future perhaps I'll wait until the top of round 2 to announce the number of rounds, and subtract double no shows from the total player count. There also an option of running a players meeting, though I thoroughly dislike the amount of time those waste.

Glorious Leyline
AP controls Leyline of the Guildpact and plays Arena of Glory as their first land of the game, does it enter the battlefield untapped? No. When assessing replacement effects, we look to see what the game state would be as if the permanent was on the battlefield, but don't actually consider the permanent on the battlefield for the purposes of the look ahead (though we assess its abilities as if it is on the battlefield). (CR 614.12) This is a similar situation to assessing devotion for cards like Heliod, God of the Sun, which if we recall, won't enter as a creature even if you cast him when you already have devotion to white four (meaning Heliod entering would cause it to be a creature when it enters).

A Saga Consigned to Obscurity
AP controls an Urza's Saga with two Lore counters on it, and places the third lore counter on it and its associated trigger onto the stack. If NAP casts Consign to Memory choosing to counter the ability, what happens to the saga? It is sacrificed as a state based action since it has three lore counters on it, and is not the source of a triggered chapter ability that is still on the stack. (CR 714.4)

An Insightful Dredge Indeed
NAP controls Rest in Peace and AP casts Dredger's Insight, are they able to select a card to put into their hand from the triggered ability? Yes. If a spell or ability instructs a player to put a card from among the milled cards into their hand (or discarded cards etc.) it can find the set even if it isn't in the zone it expects. In this case, exile instead of the graveyard. (CR 701.17c)

...In Conclusion
I overall enjoyed this event. There was enough going on to keep me busy, but other than being in charge of the Modern event at the beginning of the day, I didn't have any giant responsibilities, which was nice. It allowed me to have fun with the players, actually take some calls and just generally do the things I enjoy about judging.