DDR

[@JudgingFtW]

Errata: After consulting some of my colleagues and reviewing some old gameplay, it seems like subgames are not normally played for ante, even if the main game is.

[@fragniz]

Was about to come comment this. The last line of Shahrazad says "The subgame has no ante"

[@jacksondetterbeck4983]

Interesting though that section is not included in the current oracle text, and isn't mentioned in the subgame rules​@fragniz

[@MaskedBeeX]

"What do I have to lose?" video cuts to black "Oh no they got him."

[@dyne313]

I love the idea that there is a tournament using both ante and Shahrazad.

[@HuskyVerbatim]

"There is currently no known way to have a face-down card in the ante zone." This phrase makes me so happy. It perfectly embodies the spirit of magic.

[@christopherlundgren1700]

Here's a question from the Real Life Files, as in it actually happened: Q: Amy makes a deck full of nothing but trash commons, plus a few copies of Darkpact. At the first opportunity, Amy casts Darkpact to exchange ownership of your ante with a random card in her deck, then concedes the game. What happens? A: Everyone stops being friends with Amy.

[@GreenLuthor]

4 Dark Pacts, 56 Swamps.

[@nixtarma]

Honestly, ante might be a funny twist for a cube draft.

[@CptManboobs]

That is probably the only place where you could get away with it.

[@MakeVarahHappen]

I was thinking you could do it with just a typical tournament between friends with the agreement all cards are returned at the end.

[@levendefjorder3239]

Planning to do just that. Play old rules, have spells resolve in batches instead of using th estack, play quirky mechanics like banding. Ante cards, maybe even proxy some power cards. Play a many-game tournament, adjusting your deck as you go. "These kids today with their collector numbers and their newfangled tap symbol. Twenty Black Lotuses and twenty Plague Rats. Now that's real Magic."

[@MAlanThomasII]

Interestingly, the printed text of Shahrazad specifies that the subgame has no ante, but the Oracle text does not. Rule 724 says to follow rule 103 for starting the subgame; it makes no reference to rule 407 for ante. It further notes that the subgame is a "normal game", but does not say that it is a "traditional" one, which is the usual rules text distinction between vanilla and a casual variant. Rule 724 _does_ specify how to start a subgame of a game type listed as a "Casual Variant" in the rules by moving cards between command zones, so it is clear that a casual variant game type is inherited by the subgame. That being said, "ante" is not a game variant, it is an "optional variation" mentioned only in the zone definitions. I would either rule that the text of rule 724 makes ante illegal, as it is neither "normal" nor part of the explicit direction to follow rule 103 for starting the game, or I might be persuaded that the subgame could have ante if the players agreed to play it for ante, as ante is an optional variation that must be chosen independently for the subgame (unlike an automatically-inherited casual variant game type). Interestingly, this could mean that both libraries in the subgame have to be stripped of all ante-related cards prior to the subgame beginning. As the stripped cards are, in my view, outside the subgame-407.3 says that removed cards cannot be brought into a game from outside of it-they wouldn't be shuffled back into the main game library at the end of the subgame, as only the cards _in the subgame_ are shuffled back in. How curious!

[@daviegourevitch]

I can't believe you touched on ante with subgames! I played a silver-bordered cube with ante and this actually came up. The players anted in the subgame and we had no idea where the cards should end up when the game finished.

[@Greg501-]

I love how Shaharazad says "also you can't ante in the subgame"

[@FakeLifeGames]

I'm kind of surprised there's so much stuff in the rulebook still covering all these ante cases. Back in the 90's, my friends and I saw the rulebook and the Pocket Player's Guide talking about ante like it was a normal thing you should always do and played with it like the rules told us. After one or two games someone lost a super-powerful card like an Air Elemental and we collectively said "wow, this sucks" and never played for ante again. I suspect a lot of people probably had similar experiences.

[@laurelkeeper]

I mean, they can’t remove it from the rulebook. It’s still on printed Magic cards, regardless of their format legality.

[@Melissanoma]

there really isn't that much. Ante is just a single rule with four sub rule. Rule 407.1-407.4 all define the ante zone and how it works. Everything else in Dave's video is just him coming up with examples of how it interacts with other rules.

[@FarrelClement]

@@laurelkeeper They absolutely could. Who's going to stop them?

[@laurelkeeper]

@@FarrelClement I mean, they could, but it would mean there are cards in the game that functionally do not work in the game.

[@trentbowman2117]

Awesome video! The Shandalar clip at the beginning had me reminiscing about using Bronze Tablets to steal Moxes from the computer, and then it showed up at the end of the video! I didn't know about AI opponents never paying life; I always got them down to 10 or less life before using the tablet.

[@SomeGuy712x]

I've always just used my Bronze Tablets regardless of what the computer's life total was, and never once did I see them choose to pay 10 life or concede the game, so I kinda figured they were intentionally letting me take their cards, and I guess I was right in that regard.

[@85mcarnold]

Love Shandalar. I’ve spent so many hours on that game in my lifetime.

[@Lanceweilder]

Does Shahrazad no longer disallow ante in its subgame? It explicitly says so in its original printing, but omits mentioning ante in its oracle text... Did that get wrapped up in the CR so they did not feel the need to specify anymore, or can you actually ante in Shahrazad subgames now? It was weird hearing you go on about ante in the subgame as the card right next to you explicitly said "This subgame has no ante"

[@VioletEdgar]

I was wondering this too, actually. What other ways are there of making subgames? That aren't Silver Bordered, of course.

[@gkiyo]

This was a fun one. Glad I now know what happens if you ult a Karn Liberated while playing for ante.

[@hulloclayton6685]

Loved the discussion about magic's history. Would appreciate more of this

[@danielbakergill]

Seems like a blast putting this one together. I really enjoyed it, cheers.

[@DerekScottBland]

Back in the day, ante wasn't as big a deal because there weren't cards worth hundreds of dollars in sealed play, which is where ante was primarily used. It was Ice Age, and the first time a standard card hit $20 (Jester's Cap) that ante started becoming an issue. There were also a LOT of bad feelings about ante games. One guy in our area would play a powerful deck with big desirable cards, then challenge someone to a game for ante and secretly swap decks for 20 swamps, 15 erg raiders, 15 dark rituals, 10 unholy strength (this was before any real deck construction rules obviously). The day he took someone's Shivan was the day he almost got a severe beating.

[@afrodarkwaver]

Back in the day before Katrina hit me a neighbor kids would play “flip” with yugioh cards. The rules were usually “the winner is the “keeper of sticks/stones”.” Alternative win conditions: double/triple/undecuple down until you get your stuff and there stuff since the game is bull anyways

[@MAlanThomasII]

I remember a story in Duelist about a guy who would go to conventions and offer to match anyone's ante. Someone ponied up a Beta Black Lotus ($300 at the time), which he matched, and the challenger-who was on the play-proceeded to turn 1 Fireball the guy for 20 without using Channel.

[@zurreal8087]

Here’s something I’ve wondered before: Can you use wishes (e.g. Burning Wish) during a subgame (Shahrazad) to fetch cards from a public zone in the main game?

[@ThePe5e]

Yes, you can. Funnily enough you can even get the Shahrazad that is currently resolving since the stack is a public zone.

[@haeilsey]

​@@ThePe5eand because of that it is theoretically possible to make a deck where you fetch your shahrazad from exile and put everything back into your deck at instant speed to get your deck to 59 cards again (minus the shahrazad on the stack) and make infinite subgames

[@fieldrequired283]

​@@ThePe5e Genuinely hilarious.

[@umpatte0]

@@haeilsey I've personally been in a subgame of a subgame of a subgame of a forked subgame of shahrazad. Our decks for the deepest subgame were about 20 or so cards. The guy's deck had 4 Shahrazads, Fork (I think it was restricted at the time?), and Ring of Mah Ruuf to pull in Shahrazad from a parent game. Also Copy Artifact to copy the Ring. It was such the meme deck.

[@TirelessGod]

Best 666 video

[@Tharkon]

Idea for future video: Duplicant targeting a commander which then gets put in the command zone. I always thought this would change Duplicant back to a 2/4 but a lot of simulators seem to disagree.

[@crovax1375]

I'm actually working on a Commander draft cube that includes the Ante cards. The gimmick being that players would play for the Ante and each game would be worth points based on the Ante pile. Also there would be time for players to trade Anted cards between each other

[@ben_clifford]

I've got a single ante card in a powered cube: Contract from Below. The way it works? When someone casts that spell, they just introduced ante to the game, with only their one card being risked. If they don't win from there, that's on them. 😂

[@justincartmell3771]

I only played 1 or 2 random ante games back long ago and i am suprised to see a video in the modern era about it. I stopped playing mtg for nearly 20 years, so ya coming back, no mana burn, man those were the days!

[@catman08724]

This could not be a more perfect subject for this DR number

[@daviegourevitch]

OMG yes! I've always wanted this video but never thought you'd make it!

[@psymar]

I feel like there's one way a tournament could work with ante: Shadow Draft. One player brings a box and leaves with all the cards, but cards could change ownership for the duration of the tournament due to how limited works.

[@SomeGuy712x]

I definitely enjoyed taking advantage of Bronze Tablets and Contract from Below in the old Shandalar game in the past. I pretty much never used any of the other ante cards in that game, though. Also, the audio level for the Shandalar footage you used here was very loud, and I could barely hear your voice over it. You should probably reduce the volume of such footage if you use it again in future episodes.

[@MakeVarahHappen]

If I have an affect that makes it so Jeweled Bird goes to a zone besides ante the rest of the effect happens right? Like say I give it unearth with Mishra.

[@OriginalMaRul]

I like it as a mechanic for Shandalar but that is about it.

[@randomcookieboy]

Naturally, episode 666 has a thumbnail containing two explicitly demon-themed cards

[@Zeukemor]

My man has some sick MTG Shandalar Discord tech

[@DyrianLightbringer]

Ante was a very interesting idea at the time, despite the legality of such a thing, it put a sort of metagame check on players running very powerful cards, since the more powerful cards in your deck, the more likely one of them would end up ante'd. This would require a player to strike a balance between not using all of their best cards, to ensure their safety, or hoping that going all out with their best cards would improve their chances at winning. Pro players would probably still run the same OP decks they run now, since they can probably afford to replace a lost card, but just imagine having to carry an exact duplicate of your deck to tournaments to replace lost cards, or perhaps tournament rules would have changed due to ante so that decks weren't required to be rebuilt exactly between rounds, but that might create whole new problems.

[@drillerkiller9]

Time to put Amulet of Quoz, Krark's Thumb and Krark's Other Thumb into a deck and enlarge my collection

[@SomeGuy712x]

But, Krark's Other Thumb works for die rolls, not coin flips.

[@iTzDritte]

Judge, I accidentally put a card into the ante zone instead of the exile zone during a Comp REL match, and we haven’t noticed during the last 5 turns. Does it stay there?

[@afriendofafriend5766]

Gambling is still very much encouraged in magic. It's called booster packs.

[@allopeth]

Congrats on your 666th daily ruling!

[@tylerantony7399]

I think it would be cool if an oldschool format where ante was just a pre-emptive exile zone, and nothing more. No exchange of cards occurring, and all ante cards do is just swap cards in and out of the ante zone, which is just a special type of exile. Obviously there would be some errata, like to Darkpact. Maybe in a multi-game match you lose ante cards in games you lost for the subsequent games? This would then make you have to seriously consider taking the concession from Demonic Attorney, for example, if you know the top-decked ante was going to increase the probability of losing the entire match even if you conceded the game.

[@ben_clifford]

"What do I have to lose?" 😂

[@TheGrifcannon22]

Well, we know about ante now but what about uncle?

[@TimmytheSorcerer]

Love the hypothetical scenarios. In OS there are ante leagues, so this vid is actually useful (usually you end up with a ton of Jeweled Birds).

[@LydiaFossmark]

If you have a game where you're not playing for ante, but where you have ante-relevant cards in your deck, do you have to exchange the ante-relevant cards you remove from your deck with legal cards, or does this allow you to go below the minimum deck size? If it's the latter then yeah contract from velow is by far the most powerful card in the game, as it allows for higher consistency at almost zero opportunity cost (the only cost being a disadvantage against mill). If not, then I'd still say pre-errata lurrus has a chance, since there are so many competitive decks where he has zero opportunity cost (decks that already prefer not breaking his requirement), whereas contract from below always has some opportunity cost to drawing it (if you have zero mana generation available, don't wanna discard some of the cards in your hand, or are playing against a deck with cards like waste not or bowmasters).

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

I've played a fair bit of Shandalar and never knew that!

[@thebos1213]

Judge ! I have a question: could a player put X ante card in their deck, knowing that they won't play for ante and remove them before the, thus thining their deck and giving them a huge advantage ? I assume the "before playing" in ante rules means "before you sit down at the table and shuffle your deck" but I'd love a confirmation on this.

[@kacyhasthecandy]

At 1:51 you can see this in the CR text blurb: "When not playing for ante, players can't include these cards in their decks or sideboards."

[@thebos1213]

@@kacyhasthecandy Oh, you're right ! I missed that. Thanks !

[@kacyhasthecandy]

@@thebos1213 no problem! glad to help

[@Citinited]

What happens if you just refuse to hand over your ante'd cards at the end of the game? Not sure if magic rules are legally binding haha

[@zurreal8087]

This is such a fun video!

[@laytonjr6601]

The Oracle text on Shaharazad doesn't say that the subgame is not played for ante (unlike the original card). I hope this is a mistake, and no ante is to be used for subgames

[@electra_]

If you control your opponent via something like Mindslaver, are you able to make them ante cards? Another funny thing I wonder if is possible with ante is to bring a Cube as your deck, exile your opponent's decks with an infinite combo, then give your deck to your opponents mid-match (possibly with the use of subgames?) to create a sealed/draft format inside a normal game of magic.

[@Melissanoma]

probably yes, you can make the decision for them if you activate a card with an ante ability. Keep in mind though rule 719.6. "The controller of another player can’t make that player concede. A player may concede the game at any time, even if they are controlled by another player." Mindslaver essentially becomes Door to Nothingness then. They would just concede before they lose more cards. If your opponent has the resources to cast and activate mindslaver, you were probably going to lose anyway.

[@electra_]

of course, they can and will just concede at this point. they could also concede to other ante abilities, like the ones that switch cards.

[@markkarlo4869]

I had a situation last week that mirrors what DDR#279 explains but I’m not quite sure it applies. Does the card Commandeer work the same way?

[@Nagol93]

In an ante Commander game can you use Whisk Away to put your Commander on top of your library, then cast Contract From Below, then use the Commander zoning rule to move it to your Command zone instead of the Ante zone, while still drawing the cards from Contract From Below?

[@Noirevert]

The official Commander rules specifically mention graveyard, exile, hand, and library so you’d need to get your playgroup to agree to that one.

[@altromonte15]

If they were not banned, could you fill your deck with every ante card, not play for ante, remove them all from the deck before the game starts, and play with an extremely thinned deck? With 9 ante cards, that's 36 copies. You could play with a 24 cards deck and make it extremely consistent

[@RafaelAAMerlo]

I'm still not sure if CR 407.3 completely rules out this. "Can't include in their decks" could mean to follow the card rules text instruction and removing them, leaving a less than 60 deck size; or it could mean to game rules not allowing them to be in the deck in the first place, and the card rules text being not even possible to be performed. I tried to search in judge forums about an official position about this but was unable to find :/

[@Tbor12]

thank you

[@T4N7]

Would a wish be able to grab cards from the ante zone of the game u set aside if u r currently in a subgame?

[@domotoro3552]

I’ve always been amused that the ante cards were seemingly banned in tournaments not played for ante so you couldn’t take advantage of the “remove me from your deck” text to have a smaller deck. makes sense, just funny to me.

[@DutchBlackMantha]

So in a multi-player game, if one player loses, he might still be able to keep his ante if the game ends in a draw?

[@Melissanoma]

correct. if someone loses early, they shouldn't rage quit and leave the room. Still a chance to keep their card (though not likely. how often do you see draws)

[@Calintares]

You answer a judge call during a legacy tournament, AP says "one of my cards is in the ante zone and none of us can remember how it got there" what do you do?

[@horserage]

Presumably it's a case of moving it to it's owners exile?

[@roguebanshee]

Given that _all_ cards mentioning Ante are banned from sanctioned play, having a card end up in the Ante zone should be impossible if both players use legal decks. Thus the decks & sideboards of both players will have to be examined for containing illegal cards, having an illegal card in your deck is grounds for a DQ.

[@VulcanGray]

666 for gambling? Add all the numbers on a roulette table and you'll get 666

[@donaldbrorson4583]

Thought we lost you there for a sec

[@rogerstewart5525]

If I'm drafting an old set with ante cards and I pick up an ante card, but we're not playing for ante, can I put it in my deck anyway and then use the "remove X from your deck before playing if you're not playing for ante" ability on the card to play a 39 card deck?

[@Melissanoma]

no. rule 407.3 says "When not playing for ante, players can’t include these cards in their decks or sideboards, and these cards can’t be brought into the game from outside the game." If your limited event isn't playing for ante, then you would remove the card from your pile as soon as the draft portion is done.

[@magazinefed]

Google shuffle cut ante. Ante is alive and well.

[@jackfeger7634]

are there enough ante cards to build a deck thats just thassa's oracle, and 2 islands then you win all games that aren't played for ante on turn 2?

[@jackfeger7634]

*in some event where ante cards are allowed but ante isn't mandatory

[@Gamebuster]

okay but can you mindslaver your opponent to make them activate an ability to put up a card for ante

[@ryanstudham640]

magic still encourages gambling through booster packs

[@RibusPQR]

111.7 A token that’s in a zone other than the battlefield ceases to exist. This is a state-based action; see rule 704. (Note that if a token changes zones, applicable triggered abilities will trigger before the token ceases to exist.) This means the Tempest Efreet token will work perfectly well, since SBA are not checked in the middle of resolving an ability.

[@anastasiaparker9451]

State-based actions aren't checked during an ability, it's true. However, they are checked after placing an ability on the stack but before resolving it. Since sacrificing the Tempest Efreet is a cost to activate the ability, it will be performed before the ability is resolved. Then, with the ability on the stack, the active player will receive priority. But first, state-based actions must be checked, and it is then when the token ceases to exist. Only after all players pass priority without taking any actions will the ability be resolved, which means there is no way to skip any state-based actions that occur as a result of paying the costs of an ability.

[@RibusPQR]

@@anastasiaparker9451 oh, you're right. whoops

[@MTG_Scribe]

Love the subtle joke here with the episode number. As someone who did play back when ante was a thing I half expected this video to just be you saying, "It doesn't. How did you do?" Edit: Having watched the entire video now, this is unhinged in so many ways, all of them fantastic, lol. Great job.

[@6LordMortus9]

I started playing Magic when ante was still a thing.. but my play group quickly decided to not use it in our games.

[@D0012D13]

5 color was the best format

[@pyrobryan]

I played exactly 1 game for ante back in 1994. None of us liked it. So we decided never to use it again.

[@Justjoey17]

Ante cards would be so broken if they were tournament legal but tournaments didn’t play for ante. Play all 9x4 of them and you get to remove them all before playing so then you get to play a 24 card deck… is that how it would work?

[@AlmostUselessPenguin]

This is a question I was also wondering - I assumed that they would be a rule somewhere that decksize is counted after removing ante cards (or it is just solved by not having legal ante cards in non-ante tournaments).

[@snakeman830]

Rules question: Does a Cycling ability getting copied trigger abilities that look for a card being cycled an additional time? For example, if Amy controls an Unbound Flourishing and cycles a Shark Typhoon with X=1, will she create one or two shark tokens? She definitely draws two cards.

[@chrissomnitz6123]

From the comprehensive rules: "702.29c Some cards with cycling have abilities that trigger when they’re cycled. “When you cycle [this card]” means “When you discard [this card] to pay an activation cost of a cycling ability.”" So unfortunately no, copying a cycling ability won't cause abilities that look for a card being cycled to trigger again. They trigger off of the discard, not the ability going onto the stack.

[@IeuroI]

there's no reason the ante zone couldnt be errata into the exile zone. then everyone keeps their cards and we also get to play with ante cards

[@kevinmcknight5000]

Since Shahrazad says that the subgame has no ante, wouldn't that mean that you are not playing for ante in the subgame and thus any ante cards left in the main library when the subgame begins would be removed from the (sub)game? This would solve the problem of whether the exchange of ante cards happens before or after you return the cards to the main game, as there would be no ante cards to exchange.

[@Lovuschka]

Number 666 indeed!

[@HyperHowie56]

Ante is still very much a thing in the Old School community. And they keep ante cards facedown to increase the suspense.

[@HazmanFTW]

Speaking of old and wacky mechanics, what happens if start a subgame in a subgame?

[@voliol8070]

Answer to the title: Not.

[@fel_95]

Ante should never have been printed

[@laurelkeeper]

Hottest take on the market