Crazy MTG Scandals That Changed The Game

[@NikachuMTG]

Be nice to the judges; judging is hard. The rules were enforced by them as they were written at the time. A lot has changed since then as a result of these incidents, but it’s not the judges fault for doing their jobs.

[@Rjthewolf]

pretty sure that in this specific case, that was a bad ruling by the judge. So bad they made a rule to clarify so it couldn't happen again. in most cases yes, i agree, but here. no. that judge was wrong, and the spanish speaking judge backing him up makes it worse. This isn't a local game shop, it's serious competitive play and it can have harsh and lasting consequences for the players. my response would have been "show me the rule." shortcuts are not rules, and enforcing a skip on a static ability has always been sleazy and underhanded, but even those cases when its enforced its usually steps afterwards, not the phase after.

[@hamcha]

@@Rjthewolf Shortcut are rules, they are part of the Tournament rules and they explicitly mention that once you use an established shortcut you cannot use it in a different way. Even the CR mentions them (724.1c). You may have a case as they are not THAT strongly explicit with regard to combat at least now, I don't know how they used to be in the past.

[@Orca00001]

Rules are important but when a mistake that obvious is made because of a dumb rule and someone speaking English as a second language it 100% should warrant a pass on the rules.

[@omologo95]

@@Orca00001 No, with judging there's a zero tolerance policy when it comes to tournament play. In FNMs, sure. While I entirely agree that this particular situation is completely stupid, I still stand by the judges decision on this. If judges started to allow take-backs on such situation, it will end up being abused. Believe me, Tournament players are ruthless in taking advantage of every, little single thing they may come across.

[@ptahtao1950]

Nah def the judges fault on this particular situation.

[@Sodmaster111]

By saying "combat" you miss your "at the start of combat" trigger is some of the most idiotic rules application I've ever heard

[@Bigj089]

Pretty much. I'd have just told them "fuck you", given them all the middle finger, and walked out. Dude definitely handled it better than I would have.

[@joaksannan551]

@@Bigj089 You likely would not as that would have given you an automatic loss, rather than another 2 games to actually beat miste ruleshark. There's also a LOT of money on the line in Protour.

[@Daz1One]

The judge was calling it a missed trigger. As far as I know, a "may" trigger can only be missed, so he couldn't miss this trigger right?

[@Bigj089]

@@joaksannan551 I can guarantee you I would have, there's a reason I don't compete in things like that. It brings out the worst competitive side of people.

[@josedelavega4706]

@@Daz1One You can miss forced triggers (not may) if they are beneficial to you.

[@humbertomazzarri2567]

the "beginning of combat" shortcut one is the worst one. Having a card that triggers at beginning of combat makes doing the shortcut absurd, glad he ended up winning.

[@davidhowell1415]

I couldn’t have said it better.

[@1993JoshG]

I was actually getting completely enraged watching that clip. Poor cesar.

[@GhostGK21]

I got so angry at that point. Feels like his opponent is just being an asshole when intentions are clear.

[@ShorinRyu74]

@@GhostGK21 I'm more annoyed with the judges siding against cesar.

[@GhostGK21]

@@ShorinRyu74 yeah, I assume “combat” shortcut is more of a colloquial thing than hard rules, and it’s a very reversible game state.

[@TheDatastalker]

MTG: "Wording is key, every card is carefully worded to ensure it is used properly." Also MTG: "Going to combat does not take you to the beginning of combat phase."

[@Eddysamson1]

What I don't get is if its not a May ability then it HAS to happen so there shouldn't be a possible way to skip its trigger right?

[@TheDatastalker]

@@Eddysamson1 I haven't played physical magic (only the online version) but I believe the rules are if you don't remember to declare an action it does not happen regardless of wording

[@mrosskne]

it's perfectly consistent.

[@vyren2030]

Thats why all my cards are in german.

[@902496]

The key thing here is that "go to combat" didn't have a codified meaning at this point. It was colloquially used by players and understood (by most) to have one meaning. The problem is they are at a tournament of a game where the meaning of words is very important. It was a bs call by the judge. They should never use words or phrases that don't have specific meanings within the rules to make a call.

[@wanderinghistorian]

Without a doubt, the "combat" controversy was the most absurd. Just listening to the judge say, "You said 'combat' which means you went to declare attackers and skipped your 'begin of combat' step," was making my brain hurt. The fact that anyone officially ruled that the word "combat" did not mean "combat" is so idiotic I am shocked that they were ever put in charge of game rules. It was also insult to injury that they did this to him knowing English wasn't his first language. I'm glad he went on to win.

[@rejektppc]

That depends on what the meaning of the word is, is.

[@brucedavis191]

@@rejektppc every one live knew this was a duche bag move, but the commentators were told to be nice.

[@rejektppc]

@@brucedavis191 it was a joke. Look up Clinton "meaning of the word is".

[@mr.voidroy6869]

It isn't like the rules are open for interpretation. They are explicit. It did specially say in the master rule book that combat means declare attackers. It would be a bad ruling to say he meant beginning of combat as the wizards of the coast master rulebook says otherwise.

[@DenTehMan]

@@mr.voidroy6869 ...and Wizards didn't see the utter absurdity of coining "combat" as an official shortcut for "declare attackers" rather than the more obvious "go to COMBAT" at the time? Heesh. I'm glad they changed it.

[@KingBobXVI]

Player: "Judge! My opponent said, 'combat' - I choose to interpret that as an intent to concede, so I win the match." Judge: "I see literally no flaws at all in this logic."

[@ThreatLevel9]

Seriously, such a dick move to argue ruling semantics to get the upper hand in a game.

[@ffiisskkeenn]

The rule worked both ways. Back then, if I say "combat" (intending to declare attackers), and my opponent say "sure, go ahead", I could freely declare any creatures to attack. If my opponent wanted to do something before I attack, they would have to say so instead. So, back then, If I said "combat?", opponent said sure, and I attacked, they couldn't say "hold up, I want to cast Cryptic Command, tapping your creatures and draw a card". Sure, this is something you just "had to know", but it was how the rules was. Don't get me wrong. I'm happy they changed the rule. It caused a lot of issues in that block, since a lot of cards did stuff at the beginning of combat. It had just never been an issue before.

[@themasterprocrastinator]

Well, I wouldn't mind those judges moving to yugioh ...

[@motherbat8344]

at the start of your match, put out your hand for a handshake, as soon as you have thier hand, raise your other arm, look to the judges and say "My opponent concedes" win every match, GG, WotC hate me.

[@motherbat8344]

@@ffiisskkeenn in this scenario the general result would be something like Active player: Combat? Non-active player: beginning of combat Indicating "I understand that youd like to move to combat, and potentially declare attackers, I may have a play in declare attackers, are we good to go there" I haven't understood "Combat?" as anything but "beginning of combat" in a long time, the short cute for declare attackers is to start stating attacks and see if you get interrupted, like saying "pass" and getting" "EoT" as a response.

[@nessearthbound3107]

The last one is so dumb, especially considering English isn't Cesar's first language. Thank god the rule was changed, otherwise this would be really discouraging for non-first language English speakers.

[@trolleymouse]

It's discouraging for FIRST language English speakers!

[@codyhumble7855]

I'm appalled that the humans involved with that situation didn't have the balls to speak up and say what was probably obvious to everyone - that the climate that produced this "misunderstanding" (which wasn't even that, it was more like a debate where one side is just telling the other that they have no recourse to their decision) wouldn't produce anyone willing to say "look obviously this is ridiculous, let's have the dignity to let happen what we know should happen here." That lack of willingness to speak up when something bad is happening is why corrupt politicians are capable of doing what they do.

[@1234NARIX]

I play with him here in panama he always do this win at every cost

[@1234NARIX]

He speak perfect english

[@tauntdragoon]

So most of these are both people knew what was intended but cause of its big tournament they want to win at any cost and rules lawyer it up thats why i like casual play better cause tournament play make everyone rules lawyer's and the land creature one is what u get when u dont pay attention to everything on the board i get that these high level tournament players pretty much know the cards once the see the art work it still pay to take the extra 2 seconds to look and make sure it what u think it is

[@BassWakil]

MtG judges telling a native Spanish speaker that when he said “combat” in English he meant a specific English-speaking slang term that doesn’t mean what the word actually means *in English* is so enraging I want to scream.

[@matiasc003]

When you are going to play overseas and learn a few words to call the phases. You learn to pass to the beggining of combat and suddenly it means you skip your next two turns.

[@thergonomic]

To be fair, the use of this specific slang had been exported to other languages as well. I don't know about Spanish, but in Finnish the use of the word: "Kompatiin" was interpreted as a shortcut for going into Declare Attackers Step. At least according to most Judges around here.

[@KasperSOlesen]

@championchap yeah, the judge did his job, and thankfully this highlighted a pretty big flaw in the rule system with this "shortcut". I have always considered it "going to the attack phase"... since that is what it is called. I have been in one tournament, a draft one. I think I might have run into this one and thought "wtf?" and just figured it was a strange rule that I had to accept. But I might remember it wrong. It was unlikely that I was going to win anyway. But reading through the comments, someone points out what I thought as well... his card does not say "may", it says "at the beginning of combat give target creature..." So even with the shortcut, he should not have been able to use it, even if that was his intent. Two judges, and they both missed that. Only with a legal target should it have been possible to skip the step

[@nonlamesniper]

@@thergonomic You only do this, when there are no triggers or nobody wants to crew anything or tap potential attackers. Magis in retrospective is most of the time very weird to look at.

[@waloacme]

Very dishonest.

[@DamonDemolition]

Poor Cesar, all he wanted was +2/+0, not a freaking court trial 😔

[@Sycord]

And attack with his vehicle. He got neither.

[@Muhahahahaz]

Even if he was allowed to crew his Vehicle during the beginning of combat, it would not get +2/+0 Targets are chosen when the triggered ability is put on the stack, which in this case happens as a turn based action before any player would get priority. He cannot make his Vehicle a Creature “in response” (Note that the ability in question must target an Artifact Creature)

[@Kylora2112]

@@Muhahahahaz He had 2 Scrap Heap Scroungers in play (valid targets for Weldfast Engineer).

[@garretnordlund1979]

@@Muhahahahaz right, he would make one of his other 2 creatures a +2/+0 and crew simultaneously. That was 6 damage that he missed out on and cost him that game.

[@skylar5257]

We he wanted the crew, which is what the whole situation was about. Something that is completely legal unless you’re in the attackers/blockers phase.

[@Lovuschka]

Cesar: "I want to go to combat" Judge: "So you want to skip combat and go straight to declaring attackers"

[@Furavara]

Well, no. "I want to go to combat" is interpreted as "I want to go to my combat phase", which has the following steps: Beginning of combat, declare attackers, declare blockers, damage step and end of combat step (I think). Normally, nothing happens in the beginning of combat step, so it is short-cutted to skip that, if you do not specifically mention "Go to beginning of combat" instead of combat in general, since you are expected to refer to combat, or the combat phase, as a whole. In that same vein, you were expected to already be in the beginning of combat step at that point, not in the end of the main phase, if you looked at your opponent and asled "Combat?" so you could no longer take main-phase action, if they did respond. That question was basically short-cutted to "I will end my main phase, assume you have nothing you want to do in response to that and now pass priority in the beginning of combat step over to you." Otherwise, if I asked "Combat?" and you decided to tap my Llanovar Elves in response to that, I could tap them and play a creature with the mana, because I asked to go to the beginning of combat step, meaning we were still in my main phase and you responded, so I get main phase priority afterwards. Is that the normal way people mean it? No. The problem, is that going to combat is a more nuanced situation in MTG, then is necessary a lot of the time. And if you are not being completely clear, it is interpreted against you. An intend rule there is in my eyes much more reasonable, as intend was quite clear here.

[@zabeleoito7846]

@@Furavara chill, man, Lovuschka was just being facetious. The situation warranted it, honestly.

[@David-zj2xy]

@@Furavara the card literally says 'combat' he said 'combat'. By the literal explaination of the card, should have been allowed to do it

[@abuelovinagres4411]

Me, as a defending player: So, is it time for me to remove your creatures, amirite? :u

[@ScorpioneOrzion]

@@abuelovinagres4411 or tap them all down

[@MassacreVegan]

The situation with Cesar was so gross. He's playing Magic properly. He's letting his opponent know that he's done with his first main phase and that priority is being passed. How else could you phrase that? The judges in this situation were simply incorrect.

[@NikachuMTG]

You would say “go to my beginning of combat step”. At the time “Combat” by itself was a shortcut to attack.

[@TrixyTrixter]

@@NikachuMTG So in the past you could just skip phases? i mean its a triggered ability and he has at least one legal target even if he wanted to shortcut, the trigger would enter the stack as soon as he moved out of his main phase, and he would need to refuse the trigger before actually getting into the declare attacker step. no under no circumstance should this have even been a thing in this situation. when combat happened in the main phase sure. But they already changed that at that point, so it had its own full phase there is no excuse for that judge to say "yeah sucks being you" instead of letting it rollback because of the misunderstanding and explaining that in any future case hes gonna need to declare beginning of combat. TLDR: That Judge is wrong and that was a disgusting thing to watch.

[@ricklawrence2515]

@@NikachuMTG so if I said combat and declared attackers, my opponent has no chance to tap down my creatures before they attack?

[@jeffreysanders7334]

@@TrixyTrixter F'ing this. Perfect argument.

[@ettoreozzy9932]

@@ricklawrence2515 Before yes, if you say combat and by then they don't tap your creatures you would be able to declare attackers because of how the rulings where before

[@mrknarf4438]

The last one happened at a tournament when I was a Lv1 Judge too: a player entering combat and trying to animate a manland. I was in favour of rewinding, since his intention was clear and nothing else had happened, but opponent decided to call the head judge who overruled me, saying "combat" meant "declare attackers". I also explained to the guy there was a "beginning of combat" phase, so his intention was correct but he couldn't get there by just saying "combat". The following turn, the guy says he's moving to the "start of combat phase" (slightly misremembering the name, but intention was obvious, especially given the previous judge call). Opponent calls judges again, again I am overruled by the head judge. I was livid. Rulesharks make playing not fun, and they make people mistrust judges. I understand we have strict guidelines to adhere to to avoid potential personal responsibility, but that was just a dumb and unfair rule.

[@joseneves3412]

That poor guy probably never played Magic again. Just reading this got me angry, jesus i hate rule sharks so much.

[@johnlowe1255]

sorry, but the head judge was incorrect in this situation

[@Dhips.]

So both the player and the head judge were dickheads. It's really sad, I hope it didn't ruin the game forever for the player that was cheated.

[@js2184]

that judge was outright wrong, you should've reported him to wizards. the second time he clearly said what exact phase, start of combat phase, turn phase 5, any clearer and it would've shown through his opponents opaque black heart

[@RealGateGuardian]

I would have beaten my opponent into a comatose state.

[@Naxvarus]

Riker: "Worf, where did you get that scar?" Worf: "In combat" Riker: "Alright, you just said combat, so now you have to declare who your attacker was." For the record, in this alternate universe the judge is Troi.

[@raphaelmorgan2307]

@Exo Megalo Ergaleio Exei Apo Kato Kai Alla Dio not if the joke wasn't meant for you, no

[@Imanmagnet00]

Will I sense you're upset

[@StormEcho]

Holy crap, that last shortcut shenanigan with the "combat" step is absolutely ridiculous, clear 100% bullshit - the "combat=declare attackers" shortcut isn't outlined in the rules of the game so it should NOT be a default shortcut. Cesar got rulesharked and cheated out of that game 1, 100%

[@ForeverLaxx]

Probably one reason they started printing more and more cards with "at the beginning of combat, before you attack" effects to remind players that this step exists.

[@filipefernandes8669]

@@ForeverLaxx Not a single card in magic says "at the beginning of combat, before you attack"

[@ForeverLaxx]

@@filipefernandes8669 Paraphrased lines usually aren't on the printed card, yes. You caught me paraphrasing. Oh no. Would you like a cookie, or do I need to activate that ability during the beginning of combat for you to get it? Shove off, kid.

[@KingBobXVI]

@@ForeverLaxx - I mean, just admit where you're wrong, no need to get hostile. "Beginning of combat" means beginning of combat, which is _always_ before you declare any attacks, so it's clear what it means. There are some old cards that say things like, "cast only before the combat damage step" like Berserk, but those are because of updates to clunky old templating.

[@petnikolaos9908]

@@filipefernandes8669 "Activate only during your turn, before attackers are declared."

[@EMPCraft]

The "declare attackers" clip is just straight up rulesharking from ceasars opponent. Completely stupid.

[@Randy14512]

Saddly rulesharking is a normal thing in high level pro play because players are trying to eek out that tiny bit of advantage

[@donkatsuNN]

Totally..he read the card that triggers off "beginning of combat" and approached in the manner to ruin Cesar's sequencing, anyone with good mtg etiquette would have ask to elaborate clearly when Cesar said "Combat"

[@EMPCraft]

@James Black the problem here is not that the opponent made a misplay, but that the "rule" the opponent is sharking on is based on verbal expression which is hard in a multicultural and languagebarrier based situation

[@KingBobXVI]

@James Black - Calling out violations is justified, but being the pro tour isn't an excuse for bad sportsmanship. However, this wasn't even a real rule violation. His intent was obvious as stated and everything he was doing was perfectly legal, he didn't play "imperfectly". This was Cesar's opponent pretending not to understand the obvious steps he was taking despite it being entirely clear. Which is why they changed the fine print of the tournament rules - because in this case, the rules were wrong, not Cesar.

[@joaksannan551]

@James Black The rules were very much wrong though. As the "rule" in question here, and the ruling that followed it in the tournament, was based on the "common" understanding of combat meaning declare attackers. Which makes no sense, that's not the order of steps nor does it make sense to shortcut that from a linguistic POV either. If Cesar had said "attackers" that shortcut would make sense, but he said "combat" and unless spesified that he wanted to enter attackers, he should not be in attackers. That rule is plain and stupid dumb. Even for a native speaker that would not be obvious in any way, shape or form. The reason they changed the rule after this, was that nearly everyone at the time screamed at wizards to change this horseshit rule so it made sense, because this was absolute bullshit. Could he have done things in a different order like you suggested, yes. Should he have had to do that, given that he just wanted to enter a step in which he could do that anyway? No.

[@EMPCraft]

As a L1 judge myself I have to say the last ruling was definitely sketchy. It was clear what ceasar was trying to do and the gamestate didn't change. There was no spot in which the opponent could've had a different choice of play because of what ceasar said. There were no new informations or effects added and regarding the language barrier it makes 100% sense to rewind to the beginning of combat here. Not even mentioning the bad rep of the opponent trying to shark out. I know it's a big event, but he properely represented the gamestate and only said "combat" which even when interpreted as "declare attackers" would allow a rewind if there was reasonable argument for the trigger not willingly beeing missed and begin combat used to crew. High level judging is hard and the game did get better in some ways, but some rules are still problematic. At regular REL (regular rules enforcement level) I would definitely give a short talk to the opponent for not trying to shark someone out over a technicality that didn't change anything about gamestate or known information.

[@moebiuseight7977]

i have to agree meaning was clear. i cant fault the oppo for trying to shark out its pretty common if not endemic behavior at the pro level. i used to go to gps all the time before the vid and you would see it constantly.

[@SylveonSimp]

are specific shortcuts even mentioned in the rules?

[@EMPCraft]

@@SylveonSimp right now in the rules it's less about specific Keywords (for example "combat") beeing said than both players beeing on the same page of what step their currently in. So situations like these would be seen as a communication error and thus be ruled more freely.

[@SylveonSimp]

@@EMPCraft That's what I hoped for. Thank you!

[@KingBobXVI]

@@moebiuseight7977 - I can - it's bad sportsmanship. Win the game by your merit as an actual player. Call out actual rules violations when they happen, but pretending not to understand obvious intent is just dumb. If you're playing Judge's Tower, sure, but even in a competitive level like the pro tour, you're just being an ass.

[@kylanrenfroe1092]

Definitely feel bad for Segovia. First two were honest but sneaky mistakes. Had their opponent paid close attention to detail they were avoidable. But how are you gonna say "Combat" isn't actually combat phase? Poor guy. Still won though!

[@everythingpony]

Not all combat is in combat phase

[@michaelgleason4791]

I watched that last one live. My friends and I couldn't believe the ruling. After that, we made sure to always say "beginning of combat phase," with a helpful amount of sarcasm. I'm glad he ended up winning, but that was just stupid.

[@xaldath4265]

Same....to the entire comment.

[@johnr.timmers2297]

Ok but why rush combat in the first place? The ability still triggers if Weldfast Engineer is tapped, and more-so the ability cannot be applied to an un-crewed vehicle.

[@xaldath4265]

@@johnr.timmers2297 in this particular case, the only difference is the "confusion", however, some game actions are habitually timed. Compare it to fetching during your opponent's end step even on a turn where it won't reveal any strategy by doing it earlier and you both already know that.

[@anneharrison1849]

@@johnr.timmers2297 Toolcraft Exemplar was in the format at the same time and probably in the deck (he was playing Mardu vehicles iirc, but maybe RB vehicles), that only got big enough in the beginning of combat step to crew Heart of Kiran, which then influenced this unnecessary pattern of play,

[@ForeverLaxx]

The look on Cesar's opponent's face says it all. He *knows* what Cesar was doing is perfectly legitimate and he's just trying to get out of taking more damage than he thought he would by rulesharking with a SHORTCUT RULING. What a sleaze.

[@wiredspider]

There are so many players who try to win this way. They don’t deserve to play this game.

[@Folsomdsf2]

FYI, the 'shortcut' is not written anywhere, and was not a rule.

[@jonathonharper3847]

That isn't what happened. Weldfast Engineer can only give +2/+0 to an artifact creature. Heart of Kiran is not an artifact creature until it is crewed. Since Weldfast's target must be declared at the beginning of combat, there was not a valid target. You have to have a valid target when the ability is placed on the stack, so he cannot crew in response. He needs to crew in main phase.

[@DarkAnon100]

@@jonathonharper3847 sorry, you're wrong on that one. as stated in the rulings of Heart of Kiran: '' Once a player announces that they are activating a crew ability, no player may take other actions until the ability has been paid for. Notably, players can’t try to stop the ability by changing a creature’s power or by removing or tapping a creature.'' meaning, Weldfast Engineer's effect (which effect change a creature's power) can only trigger once he pays to activate the Crew ability of Heart of Kiran (which he did when he tapped Weldfast Engineer) so at the moment Weldfast Engineer should have trigger, Heart of Kiran WAS a valid Target (Weldfast Engineer doesnt require to be tapped to trigger its ability and is mandatory)

[@LC-wv7tz]

@@jonathonharper3847 Wrong. There are two valid targets. Even with no targets, the trigger goes on the stack, both players get priority, then it the ability fizzles with no valid targets, but there were two valid targets so it is moot.

[@Blackninjafox13]

I remember always saying “combat” and would always give my opponent a chance to do something before I declared attackers. I also learned this from other players as a way to let them know I was beginning combat. Never in my life did I see combat=declare attackers. I was more surprised than anything that this was a scandal in the first place.

[@NormanFoxLee]

Obviously that asian guy knew this and just tried to play unfair.

[@Yroko]

@@NormanFoxLee yeah, rule lawyer to skimp out the phase. Im glad they slimmed down the phases and have a before phase for instance cards etc. Ie placing wild growth on declared attacking creature after declared blocking creature. Or what my buddy did was let our buddy drop his creature added socr and instances to said attacking creature. All for my 1st bud to drop a instance target player sacrifice a creature they control. All that land wasted. Lolz

[@bongsesh]

Never in my life have I ever seen "go to combat" mean that I'm skipping A PART OF MY COMBAT PHASE So from now on when I say "end turn" I'm shortcutting to skip my discard phase and everyone can suck it

[@AngoDecay]

Exactly this. Comes up often with tappers in limited. If someone made that kinda judgecall back then on me i might have just flipped the table.

[@ratedseven1710]

My friends and I will declare going to combat phase and allow others or ourselves the right to interrupt with a ; "at the start of your/my combat phase x triggers" or a "before you/I declare attacks activate y ability". This was kind of a ridiculous situation to end up in and one that certainly doesn't feel good. One of the things I always try to prioritize when introducing new players or playing with people who aren't as clear on the rules is the actual structure and steps of a 'turn'. Many people who have played for a while and are comfortable with the rules are totally okay with short-handing terms to try and keep the game moving, but it's really important that players know that they do have points within the rules to interrupt actions

[@wolfie-_-ranger7932]

The Borborygmos story reminds me of a story I heard in Yugioh. Basically someone activated Prohibition (A card that prevents any card from being used as long as there's a name) calling Black Luster Soldier. Their opponent Summons Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning (A busted card back in the day), and stated that the Prohibition prevented the original BLS from being played, which - you guessed it - Has never seen competitive play.

[@ohishwaddup]

Yeah Yu-Gi-Oh is my main game and honestly most of the exposure to modern and standard I get thru this channel since I only play commander so I was kind of confused this was a controversy. Between this and the whole you don't actually have to resolve a search you activate ruling I'm surprised with how much MTG lets players get away with

[@hentaidancer]

I would say that is mostly based on assumptions, you wouldn't know if the other player wasn't playing original BLS or not, so "legal target" wise you would have to take the literal, especially now with BLS, BLS envoy of the beginning, Toon BLS, BLS super soldier, BLS soldier of chaos, BLS sacred soldier, and BLS envoy of the evening twilight. which one am I naming if I name bls, do I get them all? And you also can't assume the whole "Never seen competitive play" portion to reason they aren't playing a card because of rogue decks and the freedom players have in deck building.

[@wolfie-_-ranger7932]

@@hentaidancer This event took place when there was only BLS and Envoy, and BLS never had support back then.

[@hentaidancer]

@@wolfie-_-ranger7932 I did say "especially now" to emphasize another point in time. My point is still valid in which the opponent has no knowledge beforehand what exactly is in my deck and if I am playing Envoy and/or original BLS.

[@chrismanuel9768]

@@hentaidancer Except they clearly did, otherwise they wouldn't have named that card to begin with. Everyone involved knows which card you're saying.

[@AutumnReel4444]

Ah yes, the professional competitive game, where saying the name of a phase does not mean that phase. Great game lol

[@jakx2ob]

I mean you still go to the phase, just to an arbitrary step in the phase rather than the beginning of the phase.

[@11epicnoob]

It's kinda stupid if you ask me that they LITERALLY had to make it so that going to combat means the start of that step Feel bad for the guy who had judge called on him for this

[@dementious]

One of the big reasons I quit playing FNM. Too many musty neckbeards so willing to call judge for every single little detail. "well acktchuwally you shkipped you're upkeep phase becuz yuo didint say upkeep so yuo cant trigger that effect, JUUUUUDGE" even though I didn't draw a card yet, but go off king.

[@jakx2ob]

@@dementious There is nothing wrong for wanting to play the game by the rule and it's always bad to figure out things immediately if something is unclear.

[@cameronlaw4201]

@@jakx2ob The problem is, there's a difference between playing the games by the rules, and attempting to munchkin a judge ruling. MTG is a super complicated game that people will shortcut in order to make playable. Attempting to use these shortcuts as a way to gain an advantage is a dick move, as you're adding unneeded complication, especially if you're playing with people who may or may no speak english as a first language.

[@HienNguyenHMN]

In the final example, the way Thien said "he said combat so missed his trigger" is just telling that the one trying to cheese the rules is Thien, not Cesar.

[@orkarinte]

Exactly, what a shitty win...

[@tonpalacios2964]

Exactly, I get it's pretty high stakes but that was a shitty way to win. Caesar was robbed

[@harleywalls6356]

@@tonpalacios2964 he ended up winning the next too rounds tho

[@brunomendes4607]

@@harleywalls6356 he was still robed from that first round, even if he ultimately won. also its "two" (as in the number) not, "too" as its used as an alternative to "also"

[@vidzrswow]

@@brunomendes4607 You knew what he meant yet you choose to correct it in a petty way. That would be like me telling you to use minimum punctuation and capitalization. People can mix up words unintentionally/not care about even minimum grammar(even though they know how) don't be passive aggressive/petty.

[@GuarocuyaBK]

The last case, Thien Nguyen just showed incredibly bad sportsmanship, rules lawyering, and sharking behavior. Hope he is not playing anymore with that attitude and all my heart goes to Cesar.

[@GhostGK21]

Yeah, I’m not one to hound ppl for one bad mistake, but his behavior and expressions just makes me so angry. Ppl like that makes me no want to play at events.

[@FinetalPies]

I don't think he was in the wrong for calling a judge but like, he must've known that ruling was bullshit. The intent was so clear once it was explained

[@patrickhenry4675]

He deserved to lose that end every subsequent match. Rules Lawyers that take advantage of limited English speaking players that way are terrible human beings. I heard rumor that his girlfriend left him and his Mother no longer loves him as a result of his behavior. Just look at recent pictures, his right hand is missing, proving his girlfriend left him.

[@joseneves3412]

I agree 100%. Watching that dude just absolutely salivating over the chance to angleshoot his opponent when he's fully tapped out and his opponent's intentions where so incredibly clear utterly disgusted me. Just wow.

[@zackestin1368]

Thien is notorious for doing that even before that incident and never stopped no. he is a player who just nobody really liked being around which made practicing harder for him, and so he basically relied on shit like that to be relevant, it takes a lot to be known as an asshole in a pro circuit as large as MTG's, but he makes basically everybodies top 3 people not worth talking to. he has fallen out of relevance in the online landscape though, where rules lawyering to get wins isnt as easy.

[@vulpophobia3104]

The combat one is by far the most infuriating to me. While the others are annoying I could see how they could happen. But when a phase is called combat why would entering combat skip to the attackers step.

[@Kylora2112]

Yeah, Borborygmos/Pithing Needle is pedantic AF, but good that the rule was tweaked so players don't have to worry about accidentally naming a similarly-named card. Dryad Arbor is why I like games having explicit zones for each type of card in play (like Yugioh having monster, spell/trap, and field card zones, and actual card placement matters a LOT), rather than just "this is how I like to arrange my field." The "combat" one is just sheer bullshit. Spinning a colloquial shortcut into a hard ruling is stupid. And there should never be a way to skip certain parts of your turn (I can see skipping the entire combat/battle phase of a turn, and in turn, main phase 2 if you don't want to attack on a turn, since that's actually strategic, but not skipping a part of the combat/battle phase)

[@blaze556922]

It never should have been a shortcut. Who in their right mind would want to skip over their own triggers? Clearly when you go to the combat step it means the beginning of combat. I don't know why that one really got my blood boiling. He's a nicer person than I am because I would have literally gotten up and left.

[@schumerus6786]

Maybe there is a card that has a negative effect at the beginning of combat, a shortcut would skip the negative, that’s kinda like cheating though

[@fcmbeast]

@@schumerus6786 thats not kind of cheating, that is cheating. you cant willfully ignore or "forget" triggers positive or negative

[@herpderp66]

Back then if you missed your triggers the effect doesn't happen. If you call a judge both players get a warning for not maintaining game state. This gives your opponent an incentive to be sure a negative effect for them is still reported and any player trying to skip a negative effect for themselves is caught.

[@jonathonharper3847]

That isn't what happened. Weldfast Engineer can only give +2/+0 to an artifact creature. Heart of Kiran is not an artifact creature until it is crewed. Since Weldfast's target must be declared at the beginning of combat, there was not a valid target. You have to have a valid target when the ability is placed on the stack, so he cannot crew in response. He needs to crew in main phase.

[@fcmbeast]

@@jonathonharper3847 I was replying to schumerus not the main commenter

[@thiago7963]

You can see the grin on Thien when he calls the judge, he knows he's being an asshole. Thank god he didn't win the match.

[@grishy8203]

I thought he did win the match. Or do you mean he won that game, but ended up losing the series?

[@thiago7963]

@@grishy8203 he won that game but lost the match

[@grishy8203]

@@thiago7963 Phew, always satisfying watching a poor sportsman get his comeuppance

[@fridak7788]

Ah yes, the classic "whoops you accidently went to the declare attackers step" that was so annoying to play around, had to be super specific about where exactly in the turn you wanted to advance to. Glad to see that finally changed, it was always a dumb rule.

[@jordanharrison8769]

But the issue is, the phase is named "COMBAT". That ruling has to be the most idiotic one ive ever seen.

[@amacuro]

Idiotic rule and made worse by the other card Cesar had in play which had a trigger and literally said "at the beginning of COMBAT". Unbelievable.

[@derickalsept]

I remember when this happened. At that point I was playing FNM very regularly and tried to be competitive. After this event, I began being very specific about what step I was in, and clearly stating if I wished to skip to a particular step or phase. "I've completed my priority of upkeep, proceed to draw?" Or, "Pass priority in beginning of combat, proceed to declare attacks?" The shortcutting rules are very tickytack at that level. (Or were.)

[@colgatelampinen2501]

​@@derickalsept Unfortunately back then even "Pass priority in main phase, move to beginning of combat?" was still shortcut to declare attackers. You had to say something like "I do X in beginning of combat" where X is what you intend to do. For example here Cesar should had just announced their trigger, which would had been proposal to move to beginning of combat as that is where it triggers.

[@princeofalltoasters8813]

I appreciate that these videos are done in such a way that a total MTG novice like myself can follow along and understand what's happening. That second one was absolutely a sneak play, he HAD to be a deliberate fake-out

[@GoldenSunAlex]

Yeah. Whereas the other two were legitimate rules mistakes by the players that were disadvantaged, the second one was the guy just being sneaky.

[@chrismanuel9768]

@@GoldenSunAlex You have to say the name of the card when it's played. He said the name of the card. If the other dude was unfamiliar with the card, he could have asked. It's both a land and a creature and it was separated from both his two other lands and his one other creature. It's not his fault his opponent wasn't paying attention.

[@caioapgs]

@@chrismanuel9768 Still sneaky

[@MrPsyren99]

@@chrismanuel9768 it was separated because it was untapped, the guy knew what he was doing

[@jacobgould3765]

@@MrPsyren99 Well yes it's a tournament he's there to win

[@DarBowsong]

The beginning of combat interaction is the most egregious, considering that the judges doubled down on this mistake with a follow up article stating that there was actually NO POSSIBLE PHRASING the active player could use to move to their own beginning of combat step.

[@simongreve]

So what? The card's ability was just completely unusable? Yeah this seems like how the game was intended to be played.

[@DarBowsong]

@@simongreve Effectively the statement made was that you as the active player couldn't respond to abilities that triggered in the beginning of combat step, unless you opponent wanted to move to that step. It was a really bad statement that was quickly rescinded and the rules changed.

[@jonaskoelker]

> there was actually NO POSSIBLE PHRASING the active player could use to move to their own beginning of combat step. Well, any such jump skips over the part where the opponent has priority. The opponent of course has to approve such a skip, and so going to beginning of combat always has to be a dialogue. So I agree that there's NO POSSIBLE PHRASING the active player could use to _unilaterally_ go to the beginning of combat step. However, a dialogue could. Here's the simplest dialog I can imagine: > Active player: pass? [it is my main phase and I pass; do you pass too?] > Non-active player: pass! [I pass too; it is now beginning of combat] If I remember the shortcut rules correctly: Player X proposes a sequence of moves. Player Y either accepts, or makes a different move before the sequence ends. [This gets more bureaucratic with more players, but not significantly more complicated; you just have more consent/deviate decision, one per opponent] This means that passing gives your opponent the same decision tree as proposing a shortcut that goes to the beginning of combat. So if there is no possible phrasing of a dialogue that goes to beginning of combat, this means either that you cannot pass, or that shortcuts equivalent to a single move are invalid, or something weird.

[@jonaskoelker]

@@simongreve > So what? The card's ability was just completely unusable? Yeah this seems like how the game was intended to be played. The Vehicle? I guess you could crew it during your main phase. The guy that triggers during beginning of combat? I have no clue. I guess the rules should state that you cannot skip past a decision that doesn't have a default choice. "May" abilities have the default choice of doing nothing. Anything with a target has no default target, except if it has at most one target: either the only valid target, or it does nothing because it has no targets. I can't make out the cards; does the Artificer dude have a target if the Vehicle isn't crewed when beginning of combat triggers trigger? maybe cards like that should come with a trigger warning?

[@DarBowsong]

@@jonaskoelker The statement effectively said that even stating "I am passing priority to you at the end of my main phase 1" could be construed as a shortcut to go to declare attackers. As for the scenario on the table, I believe there was another creature that could attack, as well as it having the ability to target itself.

[@Tourach74]

You forgot the greatest scandal of all, back to the origins of MTG: asking opponents to remove sleeves just to shuffle their decks filled with black lotus & co... Forcing opponents to forfeit so their cards don't get damaged. Leading to the rule you can't ask to remove sleeves but you just get disqualified if there is a mark on the back of a card.

[@kaspermoss8198]

How was that ever a rule? I swear, MTG tournament rules are a mess...

[@SuperHuscarl]

That’s cruel that people who call themselves players would do such a thing. It’s very much like how back in the day in Yugioh, there was a card combo that forced your opponent to shake your hand, and many players left their hands unwashed to force their opponent to refuse and forfeit the game. The ruling was eventually changed to “your opponent must only acknowledge the handshake”, which is very fair.

[@troublemaker9899]

@Exo Megalo Ergaleio Exei Apo Kato Kai Alla Dio That's funny. Complaining about a card game being a mess but also playing YuGiOh. Bit of cognitive dissonance there.

[@peterhowley1510]

@Exo Megalo Ergaleio Exei Apo Kato Kai Alla Dio imagine thinking yugioh where every card has an essay attached to it that can easily be misinterpreted is not a shit show of a mess. LMFAO!!!

[@SuperHuscarl]

@Exo Megalo Ergaleio Exei Apo Kato Kai Alla Dio. It was the old “Yu-Jo Friendship/Unity” card combo that forced a handshake between players. It wasn’t like the biggest strategy, but I distinctly remember it being an issue back in 2006, because I saw 2 guys get in a fistfight over it, and one of the guys said “You know damn well I’m not shaking your disgusting hand!”

[@DevilishGuts]

That guy against Cesar clearly had malicious intent. He knew he was about to get his ass kicked and tried to win through that bullshit. I'm happy I play only casually and don't have to deal much with this kind of people.

[@RW77777777]

oh you poor sweet cinnamon bun... casual players do this to; for 1 extra pack of product.

[@ScatterBrainedYouBetterFollow]

Just wait until you meet people who will do this shit just for casual games that are only played for fun.

[@TheMackhimself]

Like the whole "roleplaying scene" hasn't always been attracting autistic sticklers for rules..

[@jfast8256]

@@ScatterBrainedYouBetterFollow Those types of people get kicked out. You maliciously cheat, then none of us want you.

[@ScatterBrainedYouBetterFollow]

@@jfast8256I wish all adults/teens were good enough at conflict confrontation to get to that stage

[@654jimbob654]

I think the Dryad Arbor controversy also had the side effect of stopping players who used to play lands in front of their creatures too.

[@Enja_Near]

Sort of. The ruling specifically states that creatures must be in front of lands. If you don't play creatures.......

[@CSHummer]

Yeah we don't talk about those weird players

[@ArcanoSilverwind]

@@CSHummer you can't ignore us forever

[@becausewin]

holy shit that would be tilting, why the hell would anyone do that??? ...oh wait was it just to annoy their opponent?

[@Kylora2112]

@@becausewin There was a dude on the pro tour who did that (also with his cards facing his opponent) because that's just how his group played MTG.

[@blaze556922]

I think the judge in the end is just as guilty as the snake in the blue shirt. They did him wrong. English is the man's second language and we all know that he would not have missed those triggers. The game state had not even changed all he had to do was back up a step given this new information. Not even a hard fix

[@NikachuMTG]

At the time judges couldn’t back up if no new information was gained. That rule was created much later. It was probably worth mentioning.

[@blaze556922]

@@NikachuMTG I wasn't aware of that and am so glad they can back up to a stat that corrects such mistakes now. The judge didn't even try to understand here imo. Even a small child would understand that he was caught up in a technicality that shouldn't have ever taken place. Thanks for the additional info though. Enjoying your channel

[@TBDF12]

@@NikachuMTG he didn't have to back anything up as the phase should have went to combat. The issue in question was what phase they were in so it's not backing anything up to rule in one phase or the other.

[@2019inuyasha]

Instead of combat they back up to combat...lol

[@GoldenSunAlex]

@@sirgarde2293 No, he knew exactly what he intended, but it doesn't matter. At the time, saying 'combat' meant 'I move to declare attackers'. The guy didn't know the rule and misplayed, but it was still a rule.

[@jamesevans6332]

The whole thing with Borborygmos vs. Pithing Needle is literally the funniest thing I've ever seen. That's like THE definition of a finger curling on the monkey's paw

[@Zer0_._]

I feel like that was the cheapest thing I've ever seen.

[@jmhguy]

I call that "The Monkey's paw flipping the bird"

[@vincam2628]

There’s a similar thing in yugioh and it’s funny because people call something by the common name while there’s the full name

[@scottwallbank4794]

@@Zer0_._ Welcome to MTG tournaments. What rule loophole can I use to get an advantage? Let me look at the opacity of their sleeves and see if I can complain about that etc.

[@theravenflock6068]

@@vincam2628 it happen to me, they were play golden and I described the card after activating prohibition, he nodded said he knew the card I was talking about and then tried using the card saying I didn't name it

[@joshuameyer2461]

You are killing it with this series. Cant get enough of these videos

[@jesseharrold1812]

To be absolutely fair, the first example is *very* consistent with magic in folklore and literature. How many times have you seen a story where characters have a spell or wish backfire because of imprecise wording, or where they have to find a loophole in the phrasing of a curse to break it?

[@knightlon]

So the name of the creature "Borborygmos Enraged" is not Borborygmos?

[@envytee9659]

@@knightlon No, the name of the card is Borborygmos Enraged. Borborgymos is a different card.

[@knightlon]

@@envytee9659 I never mentioned a "name of the card" in my question.

[@Dannerrrr]

this is why there are deck lists submitted in some tourneys. Let me point to the card. Or choose from a list of all valid cards in alphabetical order.

[@MrSeba9999]

@@knightlon pithing needle calls for a card name, not a creature name

[@toastertrudel104]

that last one is the worst for sure. who the hell made the ‘shortcut’ for saying combat actually meaning attackers step??

[@ShadowWalker-ng1it]

Yep IMO "going to combat" means main phase over going in the combat steps

[@KingBobXVI]

@@ShadowWalker-ng1it - yeah, if it means anything else you can just shortcut your opponent's responses, lol. "I play X and go to combat. Oh, you can't counterspell it, we're already in the declare attackers step."

[@joaksannan551]

@@KingBobXVI No that would not be the case. The issue here is that for whatever reason back in the day it appearantly was a "known" shortcut. So when Cesar wanted to go to combat, intending to enter his beginning of combat step and Thien agreed, priority passed. He didn't skip over his opponents ability to interact or be in a step per se, opponent was given opportunity to respond. The issue here is that one of the players was aware of some weird and obscure interpretation of a shortcut that makes no sense and intentionally rulessharked that knowing fullwell it was not what his opponent wanted to do.

[@jamesonwalter9328]

I got "got" once at my first tournament i went to. Was game 2 of the round, i lost the first one and knew the guys deck was extremely aggro so i had to choose my blocks carefully. As i set up one block and im trying to decide which creature to block with my second blocker (the creature is literally in my hand moving around on the field as im sliding it infront of the two attackers trying to figure out which one might keep me alive), the guy asks me: "damage?" And im just kinda confused and ask what he means. And the guys points at my one blocker and asks again "damage?" And me being still confused say "uh... Yes?" To which he extends his hand to me and says it was fun playing. And i am even more confused now and say what does he mean, im still blocking? To which he calls a judge over without telling me what has happened. As the judge comes over, he explains to me that when he asked damage and i agreed, i was acknowledging i didnt have any further blocks and was taking damaging. Even tho i still had my one remaining blocker in hand i wanted to declare. And the judge agreed with the guy saying that "damage is a shorthand term in competitions" and said that if i ever plan to play in another tournament i best learn the shorthands so this doesnt happen again and the guy across me was smiling so big and said "aw i didnt know you didnt know what that meant, im sorry man". Thus... 18yo me never went to another tournament lol

[@NikachuMTG]

Yeah, the rules are way more relaxed towards this stuff at regular rel events like FNM. But it’s still pretty strict at a competitive level. Pretty crappy way to learn this rule.

[@GoldenSunAlex]

"if i ever plan to play in another tournament i best learn the shorthands so this doesnt happen again" Yeah, judge had a point. Sucks it happened that way, but you basically went into a tourney not knowing all the rules.

[@jasoncuriale8613]

I get that it’s a rule you should have known, but imo the fact that your opponent knew that you were inexperienced and took that as an opportunity to get a cheap win was exponentially worse. They should have honor rules at these things.

[@biohazard0119]

The opponent seems like they intentionally made the question in a way to confuse you, the fact that he did choose not to clarify what he meant by “damage?” and just repeat the question is an AH move if you ask me.

[@lordgod9958]

@@jasoncuriale8613 Mtg tournament? Honor? Pick one you can't have both lol. Seriously the lengths people will go to are insane

[@DotHacker99]

Good thing they changed the rules with pithing needle because naming "Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar" correctly would be a nightmare >__

[@amberlee4536]

And boy do I expect to see her getting "named" for a lot of Pithing Needles.

[@KingBobXVI]

That would be a glorious exercise in playing dumb. "Ok, needle enters the battlefield, triggers - I'll name Asmor... As... Asorenodarmi... Asmorandomoric... uhh... dice bean at dracularr...?" "Who? I don't know a card with that name." "A smorgasboard ice a die tin abla narda cat decor?" "Nope, don't understand, could be anything." "Gfy"

[@Mandolorian1001]

It's pretty easy to say if you actually put 5 minutes into it and break it down

[@KingBobXVI]

@@Mandolorian1001 - it is, I can say it fine, but that's what I usually hear from others :P

[@benzpinto]

the person who created the name of this card is an IDIOT trying to be smart.

[@metalteuffel2484]

Had a similar thing happen in my first and last yugioh tournament at a local shop. I had a dragon deck, so did the other kid I was up against. He pulled out a buster blader and used the effect wrong, adding up his dragons as well as mine, called a judge over, judge ruled in kids favor. Later owner of the store was surprised I lost right at the start, told him what happened and yeah, kid pulled a fast one and turned out he was buddies with the "judge" that ruled in his favor. Thankfully kid got knocked out his second match and that judge wasn't allowed to judge anything after that.

[@sokritlun1624]

That doesn’t make any sense the affects clearly states on opponents side of field and graveyard

[@jbutchet6317]

@@sokritlun1624 yeah but im assuming the op meant that the kid counted the dragons in HIS board and GY along with the op's

[@chromegaman]

That whole "shortcut to Declare Attackers" I feel was done because the opponent didn't want to face down a massively Crewed artifact creature, and he lied to a judge who was not a Spanish speaking judge in order to flavor the ruling in his favor, as judges pass on their interpretations thus far to other judges before the new judge has a chance to hear the rules question from the players. So glad he eventually won the match, but it sucks that he had to take a loss on a game he could have won if the other player didn't cheese the system to try and get a cheap victory.

[@Cheesusful]

Not only that you can see he lost the game by one life, if he'd got his +2 trigger that's a win

[@rogersmith5021]

@@Cheesusful He must put the trigger on the stack so he must be in beginning combat step but he can't target the vehicule. He still have the priority and he can activate the vehicule.

[@Cheesusful]

@@rogersmith5021 that is a completely correct statement. However you seem to be missing the fact that he had other artifact creatures he could have put the +2 effect on without needing the vehicle.

[@rogersmith5021]

@@Cheesusful that's what i said, he must put the trigger on the stack but he can't target the vehicule, after puting the trigger on stack he have the priority and can activate the vehicule. He haven't choice to skip the beginning of combat step, he just can't, that's the rule. The judge cheated or he was incompetent in both case "head judge and ask him to fire this judge"

[@Cheesusful]

@@rogersmith5021 I'm confused why you're even talking about the vehicle at all...

[@emperornapoleon6204]

The last one is definitely the most ridiculous. The game is called Magic: the Gathering, not semantics😂 The difference with the Pithing Needle situation is that it requires a deep knowledge of the card pool and the opponent’s deck, so it’s not the same. Though I am fine with descriptions being allowed. Not everyone has time to memorize all the relevant or irrelevant names of cards in their format.

[@attoboi9763]

people specifically go to games hoping to rule shark their opponent, I knew a player in my playtest group would actually practice literal semantics to try to get people warnings and game losses, because, its part of the game, like this video showed, you can call someone on bullshit like "entering combat"? well, fuck wizards, make them fix their shitty rulebook, im here to win, was basically his mindset. I hated it, I play fair because im good at the game and want to win with skill

[@KingBobXVI]

@@attoboi9763 - It's so obnoxious, I played a game against someone doing that and lost because I missed a combat phase where I could have gotten 2 free damage in after a pointlessly long judge call that clarified nothing. It was a valid thing to call out (whiffed a play under my own magus of the moon, which I caught as I did it and before the judge was called - it was round 1 and really early, lol), but in the end I had 6 damage in hand and he was at 8, so that 2 would have won me the round.

[@joaksannan551]

That is a dogshit comparison. Wether I misremember the name of an opening or a midgame being deployed by my opponent in chess, is absolutely and utterly irrelevant as long as I play against it properly. The change where being able to describe the effect well enough that it can only refer to one spesific card is a good rules change.

[@KingBobXVI]

@@MinstrelSauce - you don't have to know the names of any strategies in chess, only the names of the 6 pieces and how they can interact with the board. The skill is in how you use the pieces, not in how good your memory of various terms is.

[@joaksannan551]

​@@MinstrelSauce So in your parallell universe one cannot possibly find something stupid and in need of change, if one does not personally benefit?

[@ceoofgrilledcheese3299]

I’m still mad about this one: at the beginning of me playing commander, I had a crap ton of tokens out, and a Glare of Subdual. Person I’m against can kill me if he can get through, but can’t. He plays a Brutal Hordechief, activates him, so now he could get through. He declares moves to blockers, then super quickly says “attack all out, I win”. Then, he refuses to let me respond to his moving to combat, saying that he went straight to attacking, and that I didn’t have a chance to interact. I was still a newbie, so I didn’t totally understand the rules, and I listened, and died. No big deal, but still makes me feel sad that this more experienced player took advantage of my lack of rules knowledge to win.

[@NikachuMTG]

More than likely, they didn’t know the rules themselves.

[@bennettpalmer1741]

I had a person who would tap mana, put a creature onto the board, and then if someone went to counter it, he'd say that because it had already resolved, (because he had put the card onto the battlefield at the exact same moment he had said what the card was) it was too late to counter it.

[@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena]

@@bennettpalmer1741 thats a person you never play with again till they learn the rules

[@shawnmorgan7834]

Last one got me a little bothered because the “shortcut” was literally bypassing sections of the game because older players weren’t interacting in meaningful ways in those stages. Glad he ended up coming out on top.

[@MsMiDC]

In Yugioh we have a same type of card to Pithing Needle called Prohibition, and it causes the exact same shenanigans. Play Prohibition, call Black Luster Soldier (meaning BLS - Envoy of the Beginning) and the opponent summons BLS - Envoy of the Beginning because Black Luster Soldier is another legal target for Prohibition

[@kennyminer2245]

what the fock is a black luster soldier. this is magic we are talking about kidd

[@Caesar454]

@@kennyminer2245 That's why he proceeded that comment by saying "In Yugioh".

[@byssted]

To be fair there are so many BLS monsters in Yugioh now the distinction is needed. You could mean BLS Soldier of Chaos, for example. But back in the day yeah if course you meant Envoy, lol. (For Magic players, just... Just picture someone back in the day naming “Jace” instead of “Jace The Mind Sculptor” or something. And nowadays there are even more Jaces so...)

[@MsMiDC]

@GentlemenGhidorah yeah its an older example, but one i could think of quickly.

[@MsMiDC]

@GentlemenGhidorah i did sorry bout that lol

[@bbobjs]

The combat ruling is easily the worst one only because if "Combat" means declare attackers, then a card that says "At the start of Combat" would HAVE TO MEAN it triggers at the declare attackers step.

[@MachiriReviews]

Exactly, it’s like the judge completely forgot about that wording, which is absolutely embarrassing given how much work it takes to become a judge.

[@donb7519]

Apparently you used to have to say go to the next phase and never use the word combat according to some people

[@drjjloveman]

​@@donb7519you can't skip automatic triggers. So the game could not proceed through to attackers until that trigger resoves.

[@donb7519]

@@drjjloveman correct im just passing on what people say was the verbage back then i think the judge was really dumb here

[@jonaswilliams9755]

That "combat" one is such BS. It should be clear that "combat" refers to either beginning of combat or end of combat. "Declare Attackers" doesn't have "Combat" in its name, so I see no reason why the shortcut would put you in that phase.

[@jonathonharper3847]

That isn't what happened. Weldfast Engineer can only give +2/+0 to an artifact creature. Heart of Kiran is not an artifact creature until it is crewed. Since Weldfast's target must be declared at the beginning of combat, there was not a valid target. You have to have a valid target when the ability is placed on the stack, so he cannot crew in response. He needs to crew in main phase.

[@jonaswilliams9755]

@@jonathonharper3847, he had Scrapheap Scrounger as a valid target. The problem is that he wasn't allowed to crew Heart of Kiran during beginning of combat because the judge said he'd passed that phase, even though he didn't.

[@jonnystorms3310]

@@jonathonharper3847 how many times do people need to correct you lmao

[@IIARROWS]

@@jonnystorms3310 Well, if you want an answer, you should count how many time he copy/pasted that shit. XD

[@AzureRoxe]

That last one was just hilarious, especially when card itself states "at the beginning of combat" and was clearly and deliberately choosing to use it [aka they can't say he did a mistake or forgot].

[@fallendeus]

Its even worse when the actual rules of mtg literally say (even back then) that you CANNOT skip phases and steps.

[@GoldenSunAlex]

@@fallendeus Worth noting that tournament magic had slightly different rules to normal magic.

[@DeynaAndSilaqui]

@@GoldenSunAlex Now that should be one of the first things they change, what a needless bunch of insider garbage you need to understand to play by the rules

[@anachronity9002]

I laughed when the judge said with a straight face to him "you forgot" at 16:45

[@colgatelampinen2501]

@@fallendeus From MTR 4.2 "A tournament shortcut is an action taken by players to skip parts of the technical play sequence without explicitly announcing them. Tournament shortcuts are essential for the smooth play of a game, as they allow players to play in a clear fashion without getting bogged down in the minutiae of the rules....Most tournament shortcuts involve skipping one or more priority passes to the mutual understanding of all players;...Certain conventional tournament shortcuts used in Magic are detailed below. They define a default communication; if a player wishes to deviate from these, they should be explicit about doing so. Note that some of these are exceptions to the policy above in that they do cause non-explicit priority passes." this defines several shortcuts that are used by default. Back then it included that passing priority with empty stack in precombat main was shortcut to declare attackers so saying anything like "attacks", "combat" or even "to beginning of combat" would all move to declare attackers. This was originally made to protect NAP from angle shooting like AP says "to combat" NAP taps their team with Cryptic command and then AP plays haste creature as they are still in main phase. Next time AP says to "attacks" instead and NAP chooses to wait for their cryptic command, but now it is too late as they are in declare attackers already. Unfortunately this had downside that AP had really hard time to actually act in their beginning of combat if they wished to do so. Currently shortcut for passing to combat reads "If the active player passes priority with an empty stack during their first main phase, the non-active player is assumed to be acting in beginning of combat unless they are affecting whether a beginning of combat ability triggers. Then, after those actions resolve or no actions took place, the active player receives priority at the beginning of combat. Beginning of combat triggered abilities (even ones that target) may be announced at this time."

[@TheGravityAxe]

I used to declare everything in detail when playing. "I will draw. but before I do, I'm activating the ability that allows me to shuffle my deck before each draw phase" "Main phase is finished. This allows me to use the At the end of your main phase ability" "I declare attackers, and before you declare blockers I activate my ability during the declare attack phase to tap your defenders" "It's now the end phase so I can return this card to my hand" My opponent would usually get very angry with me but I have been on the wrong end of a mis-timed activation and had to forfeit because my deck didn't work like I thought it did.

[@dukestariowa]

You wrote the line in the Yugioh tv show detailing the effect of Pot of Greed, didn't you!

[@Dracomandriuthus]

Unfortunately you can get a rules violation for that. It's called slow play. It's annoying

[@Pastree117]

I do the same, with less words. Maybe less clarity tho? Pretty normal at my LGS's tho. "s for verbal, * for physical communication. "Draw step, activate (cardname)", *do the thing, draw the card* "End of Main (cardname) triggers" *point/tap my card* "Move to combat, declare attacks" *turn/push/pull cards* "Before blocks (cardname)" "End of Turn target (cardname) in my graveyard with (cardname)" *set cast spell middle of table, tap lands" That's my syntax for better or worse, in case you wanted to see another way to roll. I'm super interested in form. When I watch Legacy players on Thursday at my LGS (cuz I'll be playing Modern, two tourneys one store) I can't help but admire their form. I'd like to be as clear and consistent as I can be. And they don't have MtG form class at college right? And if one ever wanted to play Magic in a nation where they don't speak the language I think the physical communication would be huge.

[@rolandfrerichs5625]

Absolutely. If I find myself playing anywhere where this is needed or expected, I'd rather not play at all. I've jokingly stated in such places something like 'I will pick up my cards and at end of turn leave this place, because there is no way I am enjoying this game."

[@rolandfrerichs5625]

@@Pastree117 I've only been in ONE lgs in my life where this level of playstyle was common and it closed 15 years ago. All other LGS have been full of people shouting that they're right or mumbling inaudibly while vaguely pointing at the table in general expecting everyone to understand exactly what they mean. As you may understand, I've pretty much given up on playing in LGSs.

[@TP_Rockstar]

That last one, with the shortcut to declare attackers, that feels like a rule that (before the change) was specifically made so that you could "get" someone who just said "combat" or "go to combat", and intentionally missinterperate it. A shady rule, for shady people. Glad it was changed. People should not lose games, even at this level, by people "getting them" with the specific words being used meaning slightly different things, espessially when the intetion is so clear.

[@Willd2p2]

Ironically the shortcut existed specifically to avoid people trying to deliberately misinterpreting their opponent's intentions. It existed because before it someone could say "go to combat" and then if their opponent did anything in response they would claim to still be in their main phase. It was a significant problem when Cryptic Command was legal because the combination of it being a counter spell that also had the potential to tap creatures to prevent attacks meant that getting the opponent to accidentally cast it to tap down your team in your main phase rather than in beginning of combat would let you cast a haste creature and attack without them being able to either counter or tap it. The shortcut definitely outlived its usefulness and the potential for the sort of angle-shooting seen in this video shot up with the increased prevalence of "beginning of combat" triggers. The original problem is now avoided by having an explicit assumption that any action taken by the non-active player after the active player passes from their first main phase is happening in the beginning of combat step unless stated otherwise.

[@colgatelampinen2501]

@@Willd2p2 or unless they affect whether beginning of combat ability triggers. AP: "Combat?" NAP: "Bolt Rabblemaster" NAP is assumed to act in main phase unless they specify otherwise in this case

[@superstandardman]

"I wish to proceed to combat." Okay declare attackers. "No I want to go to the combat step." Shortcut to attackers it is. "No, I want to use a triggered ability that requires the beginning of the combat step." We know that you *meant* to say you wish to shortcut to the attack step, who are you attacking with? "I literally want to go to the combat step as described-" JUDGE

[@Super-F1]

The third one is absolutely absurd! Why can't you crew vehicles after going to "combat"? I can't imagine how many times that probably happened before it was fixed.

[@matthewgadus2245]

The third one with “go to combat”. still hurts me to watch to this day. I still cannot believe the way they ruled on that one. I am so glad that caused a rule change because it makes no sense.

[@thergonomic]

I used to be a L1 judge and that last one was actually something that I argue with pretty much every other judge in my country, including our L3. The instructions in the end were that when I or the players wanted to go into the Combat Phase it had to be declared as: "Beginning of Combat Step". Announcing "Combat Phase" was ruled to be shortcut for going into the Declare Attackers Step. And though I had not been a judge for a year when Kaladesh came out, it was still a bit cathartic when the ruling came out.

[@GiuseppeGaetanoSabatelli]

Quick question: What section/line of the Comp Rules described the shortcut to declare attackers? Especially when it comes to international tournaments where everything should be specifically cited in the comp rules?

[@ProfGlitch]

i used to be an L1 too and i was told it was literally impossible to move from your main phase to beginning of combat unless there was a trigger. good thing that BS was changed since i last cared about magic lol

[@fallendeus]

Well then those judges you argued with suck and should have never been judges to begin with if they don't know that you cannot skip phases and steps. Rule 500.1, literally the BASIC RULES OF MTG, says that every step and phase happens and apparantly these judges don't know the fucking rules to the game lmfao. Good to know that a vast majority of judges dont evem know the game they are judging and are just clowns.

[@clintonwilcox4690]

I would say the third one is the most ridiculous. Caesar clearly meant he wanted to go to the beginning of combat step, and while these matches are important and maintaining the rules are important, it was pretty classless for his opponent to insist that he missed his window when he clearly intended to move to the beginning of combat step.

[@mrosskne]

there's no consolation prize for class. try to win as hard as you can or stay home.

[@riffbw]

I got mad just watching that one. If a card says "beginning of combat" then you cannot enforce a shortcut of "combat" meaning "declare attackers." Clearly Cesar is in the process of setting up his combat phase before declaring attackers. This video really should have showed his declare attackers phase so we can see it as a distinct second action. I never played tournaments, but the way we always played was saying combat was the end of the 1st main phase and it was announced so any responses to ending the main phase and any beginning of combat triggers could be activated before declaring attackers started. I'm glad they removed the shortcut from the game as it's in direct conflict with all "beginning of combat" wording on the cards. It essentially erased an entire phase of the game by saying a word clearly printed on your card. And that's before we talk about players that don't speak English as their primary language to really muddle this.

[@fleentstones117]

@@mrosskne Spoken like true garbage

[@Diogenes2077]

But Thien is right, rules are rules. This is so embarrassing because the idea of just skipping a phase of your turn is absurd, especially when there is an ability trigger during the phase. Not to mention being able to accidentally do so. This is completely Wizards fault, Thien is completely correct by addressing that rule.

[@ToxicatedLum]

I would not have shaken his hand.. what a complete dick head honestly ... I would have stared him in the eyes and said "really?? this is how you want to cheat?"

[@jangelaclough5457]

I think the issue I have with the 3rdbone (declaring combat) is that the opponent couldn't do anything either way. I can understand if he played or planned something based on the assumption of "declare attackers), then I would agree with the judge. But when your response to either interpretation is "I sit and take the damage", then it should've been out onto the intention (especially since it wasn't a retcon move where he declared THEN activated the effect)

[@MrRavellon]

With the last case, I'm pretty sure that "go to combat" being a shortcut to attacking phase was a convention, not an explicit rule. So if Cesar was unfamiliar with the convention, which is not impossible, there was no way for him to know about this because it wasn't written down in the rules he was provided with. Because I'm pretty sure there was no rule that outright stated that saying "I proceed to combat" meant "I proceed to attacking phase". So Cesar was just robbed of his win in that game. The ruling was wrong because it was based on a convention among the players, not the rules as written of the game or tournament.

[@GoldenSunAlex]

No, it was an official tournament rule regarding shortcutting, not just 'a convention'.

[@lightshadow3683]

It was an official rule, however a rather stupid one. Old magic was strange, and the idea of missing a non-optional “beginning of combat” trigger that you clearly would want to hit wasn’t considered unusual, since you could essentially skip through some phases of a turn if the trigger was “forgotten.”

[@MrRavellon]

@@lightshadow3683 was it written down and given to him in writing?

[@j0kar841]

The worst thing in my opinion is that (to my knowledge) when there are abilities that HAVE TO TRIGGER you have to trigger them, sure his opponent doesn't have to remind him, but normally the judge would rewind the game to when the ability triggers. Meaning that this entire mess in the third situation would never happen.

[@alexvalentim1418]

On that day, if you missed a trigger that was beneficial to you, too bad. They considered that using the shortcut, he just gave up the trigger, which makes it even more ridiculous

[@MCTimemaster]

Actually that isn't how it works. at that level of play you are allowed to miss your own (positive) triggers, missing your negative triggers is a warning for Game play Error Once a triggered ability has been considered missed (which is massively arguable here and I think the ruling was wrong but skipping over that) The judge can rule one of three things: Continue play, Opponent chooses whether to put the trigger on the stack now, escalate to suspected cheating for skipping triggers (this one is rare)

[@gokuashnaruto]

There have even been points where it was up to both players to keep track of triggers and ensure a proper game state. So his opponent failing to note the triggers could have been a violation in itself, and an attempt to cheat.

[@jonathonharper3847]

That isn't what happened. Weldfast Engineer can only give +2/+0 to an artifact creature. Heart of Kiran is not an artifact creature until it is crewed. Since Weldfast's target must be declared at the beginning of combat, there was not a valid target. You have to have a valid target when the ability is placed on the stack, so he cannot crew in response. He needs to crew in main phase.

[@DarkAnon100]

​@@jonathonharper3847 sorry, but you're wrong on that one. as stated in the rulings of Heart of Kiran: '' Once a player announces that they are activating a crew ability, no player may take other actions until the ability has been paid for. Notably, players can’t try to stop the ability by changing a creature’s power or by removing or tapping a creature.'' meaning, Weldfast Engineer's effect (which effect change a creature's power) can only trigger once he pays to activate the Crew ability of Heart of Kiran (which he did when he tapped Weldfast Engineer) so at the moment Weldfast Engineer should have trigger, Heart of Kiran WAS a valid Target (Weldfast Engineer doesnt require to be tapped to trigger its ability and is mandatory)

[@stevebrewer1679]

The second and third ones would’ve gotten me upset if I was playing the match. The Dryad Arbor being kept with the lands was definitely sneaky on its controller’s part. I can see why that rule was put into affect. And the whole “go to combat” one was crazy, the shortcut shouldn’t have prevented the actual flow of the game as dictated by the rules

[@obluraschibus]

On the other hand Dryad Arbor IS a land and to be fair he kept that pretty separate from the other lands.

[@Foozefighter]

i remember a big game when i attacked with goblin guide and my opponent said "thinking" so i waited, then the judge came over and said i missed the trigger of goblin guide ... i said to him im waiting for my opponent, because he said "thinking" then the judge said nah! you must flip the top card immediately ... and proceeded to almost kick me from the tournament and at the end of a 10minute pause gave me a warning ... yep

[@NikachuMTG]

crazy

[@chrismanuel9768]

Magic judges are some of the lowest IQ humans I've ever interacted with.

[@everythingpony]

Explain more?

[@Foozefighter]

@@everythingpony why? did you miss something?

[@thesilentmajority2765]

The last clip is absurd, and doubly absurd given the fact he has a beginning of combat trigger. The other 2 are fairly clean. A bit shitty for that guy to do what he did with pithing needle but also a fair loophole

[@davidhickey8613]

Ehhhh the pithing needle one is angle shooting. They should have received warnings for not clearly maintaining the game. His intent was clear, to name a card in his deck and the op should have clarified.

[@Beyfire99]

@@davidhickey8613 but at the same time when the goal is to win you take every misplay by your opponent you can get, im kinda in between tho. think carefully of what you say, it may not come out like you mean.

[@nps1024]

"Don't hate the player, hate the game." LITERALLY. Stick to the rules, whatever they are. If a player loses because they don't know, misinterpret or don't adhere strictly to the rules then it's their fault. If the rules are ridiculous then their authors' are idiots and the rules should be changed but nevertheless when you enter a tournament with a certain set of rules, this is what you play by. And if it's competitive then calling out your opponents' mistakes is not only fair game, it's almost mandatory.

[@thesilentmajority2765]

@@nps1024 couldn't have said it better

[@DiariX69]

@@nps1024 that's why I quit magic. This game is full of picky ***holes that can and will abuse of every little shady things or formula to win. And most of the time the people who are doing this and annoys everyone they play with ends up by losing. Most of the time, the intention is very clear and understandable, but they will nitpick about how you said it or how you moved this or this card and call judge. That's beyond BS.

[@dyne313]

If he would have said, "Go to second main phase", or "End turn", or "Declare attackers" you could ignore the trigger as a missed trigger. The fact that he just said combat means the trigger wasn't missed or ignored, so it should have kept him in that phase, unless he declared a specific phase after that he wanted to shortcut to. They should have changed that ruling.

[@rramirezvip]

the rules changed. The ruling was correct tho

[@Clabian96]

That situation with Cesar was sad... I remember watching this live. I'm glad these situations changed the rules.

[@dmitrivladimir2923]

Please do more scandals videos like this, I enjoy the breakdown of each scandals. Also notice in 18:03 how Cesar became more expressive when he could finally communicate with someone who speaks Spanish, it shows you how language is power and without a level playing field Cesar is at the mercy of an unfamiliar environment, in this case a situation where the English language is absolute. Sadly even with a Spanish speaking judge, that situation Cesar was in couldn't be resolved. As for my ranking of the most ridiculous is: 3) By far the worst, Nguyen is taking advantage of the situation even after Cesar pointed to the card saying "At the beginning of combat...", he could be a good sportsman and tell the judge that it was a misunderstanding due to the language barrier but like all sore losers he just couldn't let go. 1) Like the 3rd one but with less malicious intentions, both players knew what card Bradley was mentioning since they knew the cards and strategy they're playing but Bob took advantage of the situation for like you said "a really cheesy victory". 2) Less of a scandal and more a ruling issue since players don't need to group up their cards properly, also it's more of a sleight of hand since Dryad is on the table in play. You could argue it's at Yellowhat's end for not noticing the card, it's not deliberately hidden, Gabriel should be more attentive on whats in play. As for the 1st and 3rd scandals, rules not being specific are one thing, being a bad sportsman is another.

[@XpPotions]

"And pro player Gabriel Nassif walked right into that one!" is an odd way to describe one of the best magic players ever getting screwed over by an opponent willfully misrepresenting the boardstate

[@Zerato]

I'll give him this when I use a card that makes a 1/1 into a mana rock I usually toss him with my lands or with my other rocks Also when I change a land into a creature with nissa or something I usually leave it back there because my dumbass will forgot it's mana

[@jonathangoodman9089]

The opponent has six cards out. If you cannot take the time to look at all 6 cards before making a decision, you deserve to lose.

[@larrychatfield]

@@jonathangoodman9089 agreed. if there is no said rule about grouping then placing your land within the lands zone actually makes the most sense.

[@kathic6402]

@@jonathangoodman9089 It certainly looks like a Forest and I doubt he named the card when he played it. The intent to pass it off as a forest is clear.

[@UgatoSA]

@@Zerato does it look completely identical to a land? Most people are discerning enough to pick out a distinctly creature card from among lands. Playing a dryad arbor casually as a forest while your entire body language screams “please don’t realize this is a creature” is an extremely different scenario

[@edge929]

I always say "going to combat" so my opponent can play fast effects BEFORE I declare attackers (like tapping my creatures down). If I did that at declare attackers, they wouldn't have a chance to tap them.

[@PrincessPoohs]

As a beginning player looking at that last scandal, what I want to know is: if saying “combat” in the judges’ eyes meant that he had passed over the beginning of combat step and was going directly to declaring attackers, meaning that he could not do anything for the “beginning of combat step”, when WOULD he have been able to use that ability? And what was he supposed to say that WOULD allow him to use it? Like I genuinely want to know because it seems like his hands were tied there. Did they want him to say “beginning of combat”? And just because a statement is an accepted or unwritten shortcut to something else, it doesn’t mean you get to disallow someone from using the term correctly! That one was the craziest to me.

[@NikachuMTG]

At the time, you had to specifically say “go to beginning of combat step” or something like this. Then he would get his trigger. Just “combat” meant to go to the attackers, and he missed his trigger.

[@colgatelampinen2501]

@@NikachuMTG That still went to declare attackers back then. He needed to announce his trigger to not miss it. If there was no triggers and one just wanted to do something in one's beginning of combat, one needed to announce that "I activate/cast this in beginning of combat." Any sort of "combat", "attacks", "pass priority" or even "beginning of combat" were all shortcuts to declare attackers. Ironically this rule was originally in place to protect non-native speakers from angleshooting so you couldn't trick your opponent to act in your main or miss opportunity to interact at all depending on your exact wording.

[@tibalt966]

Even if we give Thien the benifit of the doubt, Weldfast engineer isn’t a “may” ability so it will trigger no matter what

[@Pastree117]

Not exactly, he was between a rock and hard place as soon as he said Combat. BC the vehicle had to be a creature BEFORE he said Combat in order to be a valid target. So it was either he missed the trigger (which is possibly a game loss at that level idk, and it was fairly obvious he was aware the ability happening), or failed to Crew the vehicle before saying Combat. Which is totally understandable bc Vehicles were real different at the time, and I still make mistakes w Crew timing. I thought that was the issue, idk how it got turned around into "he shortcutted"

[@L3raje]

​@@Pastree117 You can crew at the beginning of combat when the +2/+0 ability of the Weldfast Engineer is on the stack, the vehicule will be a creature by the time the ability resolves and benefit from it and then you can proceed to the "Declaring attacker(s)" step. The misunderstanding was when he said "Combat" they all implied he skipped the "Beginning of combat" step and got boned.

[@Pastree117]

Laraje thanks, I'm having trouble remembering why I was so sure it couldn't work, but I think you are right. Just target on resolution of the trigger, not as it triggers. 🤔

[@V2ULTRAKill]

@@Pastree117 he had a different legal target so no trigger was missed but it didnt go onto the vehicle if we rules check properly

[@V2ULTRAKill]

@@L3raje nope The vehicle has to be a target BEFORE the trigger enters the stack, targets are delared upon trigger not resolution

[@UTUB2kholle]

Frankly n°1 and 3 equally sucked in my opinion, arguing technicalities when what was intended was in fact crystal clear. Competition always spawns this kind of sleazy individuals who will do literally anything to win.

[@sweatyfeetconnoisseur440]

nope

[@UTUB2kholle]

@@sweatyfeetconnoisseur440 If you say so.

[@BanditZRaver]

@@UTUB2kholle So "Rules are made to avoid sleazy character finding loopholes" and "Only Sleazy Characters Rule Shark people" like, which side are you on then? Its only a good rule if it protects people, and its also a bad rule if its used to win? Or is this a "fuck anyone I don't like because the narrative told me to" situation?

[@UTUB2kholle]

@@BanditZRaver You're putting quotes in my mouth here. Rule sharking sucks in my opinion, that is true, but this is also a sign that rules were imperfect and needed to evolve, yes. A legal thing to do is not always a good thing to do, but not everybody agrees on that I understand.

[@BanditZRaver]

@@UTUB2kholle That's what I wanted to hear, we BOTH know there is a limit to these things. Pithing Needle example is on point, he named a specific monster, and just assumed they both "Agreed", but was it sleazy? No in the bit because clearly there was no due diligence and of course if I was the player who heard "Combat" and my Opponent started to do "non-attacker things" Why wouldn't I call judge? Does that excuse what happened in example 3? No, but there was no way I'm letting my opponent do something if it wasn't clear to the both of us regardless of how the situation appeared. Are Rules meant to be broken or enforced to the T?

[@ikejohnson5494]

15:00 “you mentioned declare attackers” no he didn’t....

[@M_McFly]

That is the most ridiculous part of this whole video!

[@rramirezvip]

At that point the judge is not trying to "change" Cesar's version, he's just trying to understand better the situation. That's why he goes to double check with another judge right after he says it...

[@ikejohnson5494]

@@rramirezvip no, because as I said, he deliberately misquoted him

[@rramirezvip]

@@ikejohnson5494 he didn't tho

[@ikejohnson5494]

@@rramirezvip it’s literally in the video. The player says one thing. Then the judge said “so you said “ and then said something that objectively, the player did not say. That is a deliberate misquote

[@satanas1729]

Man I appreciate the fact that you explain the relevant cards and decks before each scenario. Nice to see content that doesn't assume that I know every single meta deck since legends

[@johnatello90]

My friends and I always operated under the ruling that a turn phase isn't ever really 'skipped' just that it passes by with no triggers or effects, unless a card specifically forces skipping of phases. I don't know if that's totally accurate to official rules, but it would have saved Cesar a headache lol.

[@kingjames4886]

that seems like the logical way to do things...

[@blnd6513]

Yeah just like yugioh

[@FGCDean]

@@blnd6513 This. Yeah in yugioh pretty much everyone declares each phase they are going into and what effects are triggering in what phase. I'm sure thats how Caesar was operating his turn.

[@ArielPronouncedREL]

The phase isn't skipped per se. The shortcut is essentially saying "I'm passing priority without doing anything until [such-and-such a phase].”

[@drew8235]

It's crazy that you at any point had to name a card perfectly. There is no way in hell I'd remember the exact name of a card like Babalignis in the middle of a game.

[@TuberTugger]

In all fairness, you're always allowed to ask a judge for the correct name of a card. They just moved that ruling so you could basically describe the card on the fly instead of needing intermediate help.

[@kaldo_kaldo]

To be clear, the issue he was that he named a card perfectly, but it was the wrong card. I know it doesn't mechanically apply but I don't want to spell the name of that card he used, so; the guy basically said "forest" instead of "dryad arbor". He COULD have said "that forest that's a 1/1" and it would have applied to dryad arbor by most judges. But if he said "forest", it would be a regular forest.

[@Luxalpa]

@@kaldo_kaldo Indeed, the issue is that the ruling is generally too strict. Like in the real world, court rulings are based on intentions ("the spirit of the law") and not "the letter of the law". It seems that here in the game they made the rules too strict to not allow decisions based on situations and instead require a well-defined state.

[@samuelalexander8030]

@@Luxalpa But following a spirit of the law approach could cause lots of problems, too. Easier to fix a solid system than a floaty one.

[@anomis77kiki]

This comment has me dying lmfao Babalignis along with that Hagrid picture

[@DiZzYDeNnis2k9]

I still remember a situation during a Grand prix where a player had a cavern of souls and named "Changeling". Then, when he later wanted to cast an Angel creature and make it uncounterable, his opponent called a judge. The judge ruled, that Changeling is not a valid creature type and he could choose a new one. He chose angel and his angel was uncounterable. That was probably the most aggregious thing I have experienced so far about magic rules.

[@NikachuMTG]

wow, that's pretty terrible. And what's the point of naming a creature type if you think you can just magically name changeling?!

[@ggpt9641]

As if Caverns of Souls wasn't good enough already? "I'ma just put this untapped 5C land that makes any creature I play uncounterable!" in my deck.

[@Bsweet117]

The correct thing was to call a judge upon the opponent first naming Chageling, whereupon they would be forced to name the creature type on the spot

[@damionwhitehead1165]

@@Bsweet117 You have no obligation to correct your opponent when they make a mistake. If you name a type that isn't legal, you should just not get the benefit of it. Imagine if he named "Forest" as his creature type, then later on the judge was like, ""Oh, forest isn't a valid creature type. Go ahead and choose again. Oh what's that, you're naming the creature type you're trying to cast right now? That's fine."

[@SleepyStreak]

@@damionwhitehead1165 Technically that is up to your opponent, unless it's clear that the player misplaying, intentionally did so to try and gain an advantage. You can't just turn a card off cause the player didn't know a specific ruling on it.

[@SiiciocheSei]

I put a folded piece of paper, with written "I resign" in front of my opponent. "What's that!?" I asked "Don't know!" He answered. What's written in it!?" I asked. "I resign!" He told me. JUDGEEE !!!!

[@JDKT002]

Makes me glad that in the card game I play and judge for auto-playing and turn shortcuts are explicitly against the rules. You cannot skip phases under any circumstances. If there's a dispute as to what phase a turn is in, the last effect that was resolved dictates what phase you are in.

[@jclindsay007]

if you don't mind me asking what game? Always interested in seeing different mechanics and how different games work.

[@JDKT002]

@@jclindsay007 Keyforge. The game's certainly it's own beast given the design model of "no deck building" and "no two decks are the same".

[@bak2grave4u]

all 3 were so cringe, bad sportsmanship from the players. Pithing Needle: he named a card in the deck and it wasnt enough, Dryad arbor: Guy tried hiding it with his lands. Last guy was a douchebag

[@80081355318008]

I don’t think the dryad arbor one was that bad, at the time putting dryad arbor with your lands was how I saw most people play the card

[@DXYS95]

The Dryad Arbor one was straight up scummy. There's always that one guy in every edh group that groups his lands with mana rocks and Dryad Arbor. Then a board wipe hits and they "accidentally" forget Dryad is a creature. I'm glad they made a ruling to address this

[@TrixyTrixter]

@@DXYS95 I know this kinda thing. I fully insist they move all their things that aren't just lands out of the lands area.

[@albertocar741]

I'm sorry but you're lying, when Thomas plays the dryad and ends his turn, most of the time the card is visible and separated from the other two lands. If he used the alternate art with the intention of taking advantage that is impossible to know from the video, but that is a different matter.

[@Ceracio]

@@albertocar741 I dunno, I see most players separate their tapped lands from their untapped lands, for clarity's sake. Also, could someone explain why there is no rule to say that players just have to name their cards as they play them? It seems like it would avoid dumb situations like this, and cause no discernable problems, would it?

[@RagingRevine]

This series is becoming very awesome! you're also quickly becoming an amazing magic content creator. Keep it up my man. Love it!

[@RuneRaged]

I always feel bad for judges at high level events cuz it's stressful But also thank christ that the "beginning of combat" step was changed

[@dhantefranklin336]

I felt actual rage at that last one.

[@telph3223]

"I have a beginning of combat trigger so i need to go to combat and then use it at the begining of it." - what any sane person would think. That situation was literally semantics at its worst. I am so disgusted by that call. This is why richard garfield abandoned us for keyforge.

[@jonathonharper3847]

That isn't what happened. Weldfast Engineer can only give +2/+0 to an artifact creature. Heart of Kiran is not an artifact creature until it is crewed. Since Weldfast's target must be declared at the beginning of combat, there was not a valid target. You have to have a valid target when the ability is placed on the stack, so he cannot crew in response. He needs to crew in main phase. Weldfast Engineer does not have a valid target, its effect fizzles.

[@theotherguy4456]

@@jonathonharper3847 save for the fact there was other artifact creature who were in fact vaild targets save for that one fact

[@blondiwithstyle]

@@jonathonharper3847 Wow. You've copy pasted that sentence on so many comments now.

[@molyon12]

@@blondiwithstyle And he's wrong every single time, how absolutely tragic and embarrassing for him

[@grandogrando6505]

They did Cesar dirty

[@rramirezvip]

Nope, the rules were correctly applied.

[@serenitysilvermoon]

There's a similar thing to the Pithing Needle thing in Yugioh, being Prohibition, and almost that exact situation happened where the Prohibition player named 'Heavy Storm' (a banned card) instead of 'Heavy Storm Duster', but discpite Heavy Storm being banned, it could still be named for Prohibition

[@wesomek]

This kind of non sense is why I always ask beginning of combat? This allows my opponents to tap down my stuff or remove creatures before stuff triggers, but It's just easier and more respectful to the game as a whole. I've had someone during a local fmn sealed event for Scars of Mirrodin try to cheat me out of a win. I forgot to add a basic land to my deck, I had taken the sb card out, but forgot to put the land back in, and I won the first match. I did a card count and my opponent said, "this would usually count as a game loss, but we can replay the first match instead". I replay him and beat him both games with a janky mono white list. He was so upset that he asked what I pulled. I showed him my list because I had nothing to hide and he accused me of cheating because I was playing too many rare cards in my pool ( most of them were artifacts like mimic vat and the imprint scyth). The shop owner said he needed to drop it because they all watched me pull those cards and they all know I only went to one event at one store. I was so proud going 3 and 0 against someone so stuck up with the rules that they would try to catch everyone with, "failed to find", when fetching for lands.

[@kene6954]

When "Karona, False God" came out, I asked Wizards if her ability which says, "Whenever Karona attacks..." was fake as a thematic play on the fact she was a false god, given how strict they were with naming cards. After putting me on hold for a minute, they came back and said that they normally were strict as such but basically they were making an exception for her.

[@irbricksceo]

As a YGO player, these are very funny to me. The first one we solved basically the exact same way regarding the card prohibition. The second one is wild to me because it is generally accepted that is the responsibility of players to keep knowledge of the board state, so the idea that the rules had to change at all are funky, but we also don't have as many cross-zone type cards. The third is just BS however, phases don't skip and it was clearly a shark based on slang. I've definitely seen players attempt to rush phase jumps in order to make opps miss triggers, but I've NEVER heard of a judge enforcing it. Typical Convention would be "End of Main?" then "start of Battle?" then "Attack with X". If I said (while in my main phase) "Go to battle swing with charles", and my opponent said "On end of main", his thing fires.

[@Kylora2112]

Agreed. I don't think Yugioh has any cross-type cards that can be played in different zones AND be used as both types of cards (pendulum monsters are *only* monsters in the monster zone [and in your deck/extra deck, graveyard, banish pile, and hand], and *only* spell cards while in the spell/trap zone), and card zones are very cut, defined, and specific so that the exact zone your card is in matters a LOT. And I know you can't skip parts of your turn, outside of electing to not enter the battle phase at all (which also skips your main phase 2 by rule of there not being a battle phase).

[@sasir2013]

​@@Kylora2112What about trap monsters?

[@Kylora2112]

@@sasir2013 They explicitly state that they are or are not considered a trap while in the monster zone in the effect text. The First Monarch is both a monster and a trap while it is face-up in the monster zone (meaning it can be hit by both Raigeki and MST), while The Prime Monarch is not a trap while in the monster zone (it's summoned as a monster while it is in the graveyard through its effect).

[@sasir2013]

@@Kylora2112 yeah, I just mentioned it because they are the most notorious cross-zone card in yugioh (although that changed a bit with Snake eyes and other modern archetypes). Is true that both of those cases are specified on the text though

[@Kylora2112]

@@sasir2013 Yeah, Yugioh's pretty specific zones and stuff. The only fun thing that happens is when you try to book a trap monster, and that's only because Konami refuses to publish an actual ruling book (the only published TCG ruling is for Gozen Match and Rivalry of Warlords if those are activated while a player controls multiple types/attributes).

[@DarthSironos]

Man, I got literally angry at the opponents in scandal 1 and 3. Trying to win like that ought to get you booted from the tournament for bad sportsmanship and is tantamount to cheating. Glad Wizards changed these rules.

[@V2ULTRAKill]

The pithing needle one would still go through after the changes if worded the exact same way The rules change just added more ways to clarify if you dont know exact card names

[@JulianneStingray]

I see no issue with the 1st one. He said the wrong card and didn’t clarify

[@tylerduncanson2661]

But the second one wouldn’t? The player clearly put the Dryad Arbor down with the intent to disguise it as a basic forest.

[@xaerusblade7854]

@@tylerduncanson2661 i think that dryad arbor one should be legal.. as this diversify the game.. it is like an instant counter card, but for creature..

[@tylerduncanson2661]

@@xaerusblade7854 Those exist, its called creatures with Flash. You should know what boardstate you are playing into.

[@sizettv7396]

The last one doesn't make sense to me the card says at the beginning of combat and isn't even a may trigger so all he is doing is to respond to the trigger to crew and get the +2/+0... This head judge feels incompetent to me...

[@clintspikes1865]

This.

[@welehorogan9366]

exactly, the lack of 'may' on the card should've made it impossible to miss

[@patrickbuerke1390]

He has to declare a target when the trigger procs; that is, he can't respond, crew, and then target

[@clintspikes1865]

@@patrickbuerke1390 603.3d. The remainder of the process for putting a triggered ability on the stack is identical to the process for casting a spell listed in rules 601.2c-d. If a choice is required when the triggered ability goes on the stack but no legal choices can be made for it, or if a rule or a continuous effect otherwise makes the ability illegal, the ability is simply removed from the stack. You are correct. He should have crewed then said "combat".

[@IIARROWS]

@@clintspikes1865 Right, but they were not ruling against that... they were ruling against skipping a step. This whole situation would have been different if they just said "Heart of Kiran is an illegal target" but the judges insisted on breaking the rules of the game instead.

[@SaintAnix.]

Maybe one day Mtg will be played like World Series of Poker. Cameras on cards in hand. And (for registered decks) a full deck list with chance of draw shown to the commentors and audience. Will make the commentors more interesting too. I also advocate for mechanical shufflers for key matches.

[@ForeverLaxx]

I was with you until mechanical shufflers. Those things do not like sleeved cards. They only work for normal playing cards because they're made out of a different material than Magic cards and don't use sleeves. But even those shufflers eventually ruin the cards put in them and decks get swapped out all the time. There really isn't a "hands off" solution to shuffle manipulation that isn't just putting better eyes on these people.

[@christiansmith5047]

@@ForeverLaxx better mechanical shufflers duh

[@moebiuseight7977]

the common argument against mechanical shufflers has always been the sleeves however I'm sure a smart engineer could knock out a prototype in a few hours, after all its a pretty mature technology

[@ForeverLaxx]

@@moebiuseight7977 Again, the problem is the material of the cards and the sleeves themselves. The only way a mechanical shuffler could be used is if it never touched the cards directly. The mechanisms are very rough to the cards and even the much more durable Poker card that they're built for starts suffering edge damage and must get swapped out for tournament play to prevent any "marked card" advantage. And really, would you want your cards that you spent upwards of 500-1000 bucks on randomly getting damaged/caught in an auto-shuffler? I know I don't.

[@SaintAnix.]

@@ForeverLaxx Classic, a solution does not currently exist, so lets ignore the issues. I agree that shufflers as made today are ill suited for sleeved MTG cards. However, Hasbro is a multinational conglomerate with a market cap of $13.7 Billion. If they wanted, they can easily make one. Issue is as it has always been, they don't actually care about or believe in the serious growth potential of TCG in a physical space. The physical TCG pro scene will never be more than niche if uniformity and stability can't be brought to the format. Pro Magic isn't dead yet, but its on its last breaths and Hasbro is tapping its foot waiting for it to die. Here is a cheap manual card shuffler that does not bend cards. Its obviously imperfect for our needs but serves as a great base for what could and should be used at a high level of play to avoid several cheating issues. and introduce some form of uniformity. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jJevYYtsnNl1rK8 To be clear I think players should be able to manual shuffle but need to run it through the shuffler before other player cuts cards. That's just my 2 cents though, it's never gonna happen anyway.

[@TecDax]

1: It was obvious which card he meant, bt he DID technically name another card, so...yeah. 2: That art is irritating, but I have to say that it was his own fault for not paying attention to what card his opponent was playing. 3: Absolutely ridiculous and inexcusable, that ruling was 100% wrong.

[@SJNaka101]

Well, they changed the rules for 1 and 2, so clearly wizards doesn't agree with you. And neither do I lol

[@TecDax]

@@SJNaka101 Understandable, but according to the rules as they were at that time the judges can't be blamed imho.

[@Ninguin]

@@SJNaka101 They changed it for clarity's sake not necessarily because the players were in the wrong. The first one felt scummy, the second felt to me like he wasn't paying attention. If the commentators know it is dryad arbor, so should his opponent. The third was just bs.

[@Ahayzo]

As nuts as it was, that last one was not at all 100% wrong. Their was an official shortcut that a statement like "Combat?" or "Go to combat?" meant your Declare Attackers step. This was a high level event, and that means no hand waving that away. The change was 100% justified because the old shortcut was dumb as shit, but based on the rules at the time, sadly the call that judge made was the right one. Even if the opponent likely knew they were being a dick. I'm just glad he didn't get screwed out of a deserved win by it.

[@mattc3581]

Re: 1 This is just pretty careless really, at pro-tour level naming the wrong card is your own fault. I thought he was going to get caught out for having not pronounced it quite right or some rubbish like that. But just leaving off half of the card name is down to you. Part of the skill of that card is knowing what crucial cards your opponent might be playing that you can name. Bad pronunciation I think you allow for, but if you don't know the names of the key cards then you probably shouldn't be playing a card that asks you to name them!

[@reidleblanc3140]

I am once again thanking your for explaining what the cards do, I don't play magic but play other games with similar mechanics so your explanations are just enough for me to understand what's going on!

[@NikachuMTG]

You're welcome!

[@MegaGenguy]

Once had a game at fnm where I was dead on board to my opponent, but I was lucky enough to top deck a torment of hailfire large enough to kill him. He read the card and scooped and so did I and we played out game 2 where he won and I ended up winning game 3 because he unfortunately got mana screwed. I write up the score 2-1 with me winning on the slip and he got confused and called a judge. He said that he won the first two games and insisted that our game 3 he thought was a "for fun" game to pass time. I explain how the games played out to the judge and he supposedly read torment of hailfire incorrectly in game 1 and thought that he could sack all of his lands and some creatures to stay alive and swing after my turn for lethal and said I was the one who scooped because I was dead on board and it wasn't him scooping first. He had a reputation of being the really try hard guy at the lgs and no one really believed him but there were no witnesses so the judge made us play a 4th game which I of course get mana flooded and lose. That was Hour of Devastation release weekend and I'm still furious about that.

[@GoldenSunAlex]

That was an incorrect judge calling tbh.

[@ColinRichardsonMUSIC]

So from how I saw it, Cesar declared that he was entering the combat step. Trigger goes on the stack, he must declare a target before he can crew anything making the vehicle an invalid target. He could still crew Heart though in the begin combat step while pumping the Scrounger

[@diotenchi]

Cesar: "Combat" Twitch chat watching the match: "I believe he want's to COME TO BRAZIL!"

[@Patrick_Bard]

I only knew the first two cases. After seeing all of them, for me cases 1 and 2 are sneaky tactics, but within the realm of reason. I agree that the policy is better with the changes, but if I were in one of that situations in the least favored side, I would accept that it was my mistake, a tiny mistake that could make me angry, but mistake. The last case just blew my mind, magic is a game so precise on its wordings, how could a shortcut like that be acceptable at high level tournaments? If there is a step named "Beginning of combat" I think is safe to assume that going to combat means going to the phase that starts with that step.

[@andresjaimes9088]

When I first started playing the game I played this guy who apparently has won many tournaments and in the game I was going to deal lethal damage but he refused to take the damage because I didn’t say “swing” and that I tapped my creatures before saying that word so now they’re tapped and can no longer attack

[@NikachuMTG]

Well that’s stupid. I would call a judge about it.

[@Cbaker6191996]

I know this comment is old but it's not even a matter of saying swing, you literally can't just tap a creature because you want to. A creature becomes tapped as a result of attacking or if an effect causes it to become tapped. By his logic you just chose to tap the creatures for no reason, which isn't even allowed, meaning they are not available to attack. That's not how this works, that's not how any of this works.

[@evilmonkey2184]

i once played a detention sphere targeting what i thought was my opponents desecration demon, he has two on the field and i would lose if he attacked me with them. he played a life bane zombie and passed. he placed the zombie in between the demons when he played it. i started my turn and played the d-sphere as soon as it went into my main phase, now i did not say demon when i put it from my hand to the field, i just put it on the card on the left, after i let go i then said demon only to see the two demons still on the field and the zombie covered by my d-sphere, he had switched them wall i was looking at my hand, im sure he wasn't trying to trick me, but the guy called a judge and stated i didn't say the target until after i let go of the card. the judge said if that was the case then my intent would have to be what ever i put it on regardless of what i declared after (mind you the difference in timing was like half a second from playing it to declaring my intent), i pointed out that it would make no sense for me to have played it another way, but he said it didn't matter and then hit me with a delay of game for trying to contest the point. also made me take a loss right then and there making the match 0-1 before even the first game finished because he said he made his decision and i was only wasting everyone's time by trying to dispute it. he swung the very next turn and killed me with the two demons, so i lost 0-2 after the first game. it wouldn't have been a big deal, but he judge was such an ass about it; we were the top 8 and the tournament had been going on for like 8 hours i think he just wanted to go home, shit was like 8 years ago but it still bothers me. i dont even care that i lost it just felt like a shit call

[@Kakerate2]

Sounds like a mix of the guys manipulation of his cards next to your D. Sphere and you not centering your rebuttal on that. It ETB and THEN it picks a target, not even in the same realm as a Path to Exile targeting a creature. You cast, it resolves on the battlefield, and then you target. If you hadn't named a target yet (regardless of where it is on the board), you wouldn't have picked a target already. It almost sounds like life bane zombie wasn't even on the bf when D.Sphere entered (depending on the scenario you're describing), so that ruling would've been utter dookie. However even if it was, the ruling is STILL, utter dookie. Sounds like you got shorted friend.

[@DyrianLightbringer]

This is why I don't touch my cards to my opponent's cards. There is a player in my group that, when casting a kill/damage spell that targets an opposing creature, will just touch the card to the target creature until you either remove the creature or stop its death. When I cast, I place my card on an empty area of the table and declare my target, either by name or by pointing to it. Mostly, I think it's more of a courtesy/professional thing to do it that way, rather than holding your card over an opponent's card until they do something.

[@FreshLeafyVegetables]

@@DyrianLightbringer arrogant and pretentious. That's the vibe I get when someone reaches into my bubble without asking. 100% appreciate your approach, friend.

[@astanix]

The beginning of combat was ruling was SO frustrating to watch. I'm glad Cesar ended up winning that match.

[@restionSerpentine]

Back in the late 90s I was just playing a local store tournament, with a squirrel deck, coat of arms, deranged hermit, Overrun, and Exhume, and a card I forget, sac a creature, to bring a creature from the graveyard to play...Couple of players got together to say, the rules were changed, so that come into play abilities only triggered when cast, not due to phasing or coming from the graveyard. Next Week I went to the library to use the internet, and confirmed, the abilities still triggered. So next tournament, I told the shop clerk, the correct rule, but he could not check and since it was 2 to 1, went in favor of the other guys.