Just have to tell one of the worst stories I have. Brought my little brother to play modern for the first time pre-pandemic; he was on a budget mono red prowess deck. He was 1-1 going into the third round. Paired again a 30-something year old man playing UW stoneforge. Guy was unpleasant the whole time, swearing and cursing about luck, made my brother very uncomfortable. Game 3 he stabilized against my brother with 2 life; he proceeded to path 3 bonecrushers in a row, with my brother missing the 2 damage triggers as he was new. After those, he topdecked a batterskull, smugly slammed it and asked how he was going to beat it, then closed out the game. I went and told the store owner who chewed him out a bit, but it left an awful taste in my mouth. It's one thing to chalice check a guy at a 10k. It's another to do it to a kid half your age while swearing about how lucky he is and how his draws are unfair.
Reminds me of when I first started playing magic. I was barely a teen and most of the other players were much older. They shared a book of printed errata to double check all the cards played against them to see if the card was changed in their favor, but never shared the book since it was "our responsibility" to be updated on the rules. This was like... 1996-97
The thirty-something year olds who play magic are either the nicest dudes you’ll ever meet or just actual douchebags. I remember when i was about 12 i was playing at a draft tournament and went up against this dude in his thirties who looked like the stereotypical unwashed neckbeard. Like just a gross dude. Then he whipped out this anime titties porn playmat and used it against me. Again, I was 12. Why would you play that against a 12 year old. It made me very uncomfortable. Fuck that guy
This is definitely a big part of my opinion. Angle shooting is always going to be a bit of a dick move but there's a time and place for it, FNMs or any low stakes table isn't it.
This comments section is exactly perfect: a porn bot, someone saying first, someone attacking the video for being negative about angle shooting, and someone attacking the video for being positive about angle shooting
Because there r 2 different borborygmos' and it was a tournament its not like it was an FNM smh... Magic has became so fisher prices its ridiculous i miss when this game had to do with skill... Like does it suck of course but that's life.. Also its not like he was a new player if u don't kno there's 2 different borborygmos' then u need to study modern more (at that time) lol. I've lost many games from "dumb" and misplays but i didn't cry about it i shook my opponents hand told them GGs and GL in the rest of ur matches.
People hate that scenario and example, but I have to say - Huang basically knew the rule, knew as a result that his opponent technically misplayed (and confirmed with a judge so he could lean on that as a strategy), and rode that through for the win. I'd argue that it wasn't an angle shoot - it was some top tier rules lawyering. You could argue it was unsporting, but in this situation all the fault lay with Wizards for basically having the rules set up where this could happen (as well as reprinting characters multiple times so just their name wasn't enough in a case like this, even if it was obvious which version was intended). I don't think Huang did anything wrong there, but I do think Wizards was correct to update the rule afterwards.
@@subzero308 Man, you said yourself that it sucks, so why not remove the sucky bit and make the game better for it? The game can still be skill intensive, if you want it to be, and I don't see how forcing the players to remember the name of every card ever printed would make it any better.
@@jaxsonbatemantotally agree, don't see anything wrong with what Huang did and actually think it was kind of brilliant. Obviously doing that to a kid at FNM would be incredibly lame, but this was the top of the professional game. I also think it made sense for WotC to change the rule afterwards but at the time those were the rules and Huang did nothing deserving of the criticism he received.
@@subzero308if I misplay, I take it in stride, but the guy playing pithing needle didn't missplay. I live in the USA, according to your logic, I can go to a country that uses km instead of miles, find a road where the speed limit sign only has a number(lets say 60), and when I get pulled over say "I wasn't speeding, the sign says 60 and I was friving 60mph"
My least favorite angle shoot of all time is when "combat" was a shortcut to "declare attackers". A player where english was their second language declared "combat", intending to go to start of combat. He attempted to crew a vehicle, and his opponent called a judge. This particular interaction was insane to me; the implication here is that it is entirely legal to skip a phase of the game as though it didn't happen. If at that time i had a card that said "at the begining of your opponents combat phase, do x", then just by my opponent declaring "combat", if I didn't decline that and tell them to specifically go to start of combat, in theory my effect would just be missed entirely, because even though they are allowed to declare attackers still, they never had a start of combat phase. On top of that, you have a guy who had to learn the language using it in an entirely natural way taking a game loss because "combat" used to mean "go to declare attackers". Smh. Unrelated, I hadn't heard about the rest in peace angle shoot before, man that one is pretty messed up.
I think most people agree that was just a wrong judge ruling these days. It was just so utterly bizarre otherwise ("Hmm yes, combat doesn't mean go to combat, it means declare attackers!", plus the fact that it's pretty much saying that everyone needs to be familiar with non-rules codified slang-terms to be able to play, and like, whilst the rules do now say slang terms are allowed it's only if it's making it clear what you meant; given the person meant something else that argument doesn't apply here)
I was going to comment this exact situation. I've seen a lot of scummy cheats things in magic, but this is the one that always sticks in my head. The double whammy of abusing a language barrier, and the judges going along with it just pisses me off.
L2 judge here. The second one doesn't work anymore. It's not a default action (see MTR 4.2 for a complete list). Therefore, we usually go with how a reasonable player would interpret the events. If a player declares "ok, so your dork's dead, pass." I believe the intention is quite clear: deal 2 to the dork and 3 to the walker. Hence the opponent will face a rather stiff investigation, resulting in potential cheating, if they were aware this is against the rules; or at the very least warning for IPG 3.7 (Communication Policy Violation) or IPG 2.5 (Game Rule Violation).
Don't a couple of these not function amymore? I was under the impression chalice checking works at present is that missed triggers are put on the stack when it is noticed the trigger is missed, and the spell has already resolved so the chalice has nothing to counter. That means the RIP example would just exile all graveyards a few phases later as well. And I've been told that the chameleon colossus example is now considered a failure to maintain game state and therefore also not legal.
@@joshdedrick6162 see IPG 2.1 (you can find it on wizard page) if you want details, but generally the opponent of player who missed the trigger gets to choose if the trigger is put on the stack. There was a change when it comes to chalice triggers, as we are now allowed to do simple backups when fixing missed trigger, but all that really means we can return the permanent onto the stack if nothing happened in between. This is important when a player forgets their own chalice trigger. Cause we used to have to leave the permanent on the field if the trigger was deemed missed (you can't counter permanent, you can only counter spells), now we can put it back onto the stack and let it be countered.
@@joshdedrick6162 Also, failure to maintain gamestate means something completely different. It is when: "A player allows another player in the game to commit a Game play error and does not point it out immediately." (Game play error is really anything that breaks comprehensive rules i.e. the rules of magic as such, not tournament rules). We might be talking about 3.7 (Communication Policy Violation), but that would require the player to violate section 4 of Tournament Magic Rules.
In a major modern tournament my opponent, while facing a lethal attack, tried to tell me that they weren't actually dead because I didn't announce my prowess triggers (it was a burn mirror) I was really insulted by how blatantly stupid and desperate such a remark was. but I had a deflecting palm in hand and actually welcomed the opportunity to slap them over the head with that card when they attacked back. After the game I told them to have fun shooting angles in losers bracket. they felt really bad and broke down under the pressure. we met later and talked about it and apologized to eachother so it was all good, but I leaned from a judge after that you don't have to announce prowess triggers. so good to know.
I mean with 15 prowess creatures it gets a little bit nutty to say on every noncreature spell 15+ times "trigger", also do to those actually mattering for gamestate they cant be missed.
I haven't been a judge in a couple of years, but back then the ruling was that you didn't need to acknowledge triggers such as prowess until it affected the game state, i.e. change your opponents life total in this case.
Also - always call judges for missed triggers!!! (I am saying this as an L2 myself) There are some stupid cases where a missed triggers are put on the stack!
In poker, the disdain for angle shooting comes from a deontological concern for the health of the game overall. The only issue with the Chameleon Colossus example it encourages people toward a paranoid and obsessive rereading of your upside down cards whenever they go to do anything. If you believe that managing your time limit, keeping track of the board state, and general knowledge of the card pool (i.e. remembering and having in mind the prot. black), then I think this kind of play is cool. I agree that it is the most cuspy case you discuss.
I was in a legacy tournament playing 8cast against delver. We are in game 3 i have a chalice on 1 and he casts ponder . We were bantering the whole game so i say "lol your not gonna chalice check me" he says "you had a chalice on one all 3 games and i played 6 one drops into your chalices and you let them resolve" 😂 i still won but damn he knew my only weakness, i cant talk and concentrate lmao
I once “chaliced checked” a guy with summoners pact and he was like you all most got me with the chalice check. I was completely focused on summoners pact costing “4” and how I was going to pay for it. I ran it right into the chalice on 0. I was like I completely forgot there was a chalice in play I’m just bad 😂
@domri4203 I mean it's legal, in a competitive tournament keeping track of triggers that benefit you is your responsibility. It would be illegal if I for example, tried to cast one drops into my own chalice on one but since it's my own chalice I can miss the triggers and it's my own fault
My roommate lost finals of a modern rcq when his opponent cast a hammer, triggering sigardas aid to equip it for free. Opp had 2 ornithopters and placed the hammer "on top" of one of the ornithopters without announcing his trigger. My roommate obviously tried to remove the thopter the guy had indicated towards with the hammer, only to of course be told that the hammer was still on the stack because he didnt announce the etb trigger. Judge sided with opponent and said my roommates removal spell was cast with the hammer on the stack and that the opponent could then equip the hammer to the other thopter. Super angle shooty as the opponent had clearly indicated which thopter he was going to equip
In this case, timing and honesty/wording in the investigation is important. If the investigation played out exactly as you have said, then the judge call is correct as the Aid trigger can still target the other thopter when it triggers and is put on the stack. If your roommate had in fact allowed the Hammer to resolve, AND then let the Aid trigger target a thopter, THEN responded by removing the thopter, AND THEN TOLD THE INVESTIGATING JUDGE THIS SEQUENCE OF PLAYS, then the judge should have ruled in your roommate's favor. Note there are many intricacies surrounding this ruling. If your roommate did indeed try to respond with the hammer on the stack, AND THEN during the investigation change his story and say he was responding to the AID trigger, that would be a lie and he might get some kind of GRV or Cheating penalty. Also, I'm a little unsure about the complete sequence of "backing up the gamestate" that a judge needs to adhere to (I assume this has more to do with the result of the investigation). Without knowing what words were said during the plays (did your roommate state to the opponent that he was allowing the hammer to resolve and responding to the Aid trigger that was OBVIOUSLY targeting that thopter? Did he tell the judge this during the investigation?), it's hard to say how the judge should rule. I agree it was an angle shoot, but one that could have been avoided with clear communication. Magic is a complex game and timing and priority needs to be understood and agreed upon by both players at every step.
@@Xanlau it was definitely a miscommunication on timing that my roommate could have avoided by asking for clarification on timing and triggers. He accepts responsibility for how it played out, but he also feels it was an angle shoot because of how clearly the opp "indicated" the one thopter. He's a skilled player and knew how to respond to the situation, even if he didn't announce it as clearly as he could have. It was pretty feels bad
It's so wild to me that people can miss ETB or cast triggers, but maybe that's because I basically muscle memory say "trigger" pointing at the card whenever it has one of those triggers. It's like part of playing the card to me. Totally understand missing other kinds of triggers, even though I'm one to call out opponents' triggers too, but damn for real as soon as money is on the line, people just change.
The thing about missed triggers is that that's the only part of the rules that works that way. You're not allowed to check if an opponent will forget about their Teferi, Time Raveler by casting a spell on their turn the way you can Chalice-check. Which makes me more convinced that it's the wrong rule, but the fact that it's specifically allowed by the rules makes it hard to condemn people taking advantage of it.
It's largely because triggers are reactive whereas Teferi type effects are proactive. The Chalice responds to you playing a card while the Teferi doesn't allow you to do it at all. I'm the former, you're not taking an illegal action. You can cast spells and let Chalice counter them. In the latter, you're taking an illegal game action.
@@RedOphiuchus Teferi is just an example. It doesn't have to be you taking an action at all: if your opponent controls a Dragon's Rage Channeler and doesn't attack because they didn't notice they have Delirium, you're required to call that out. Whenever your opponent makes any Game Play Error other than a missed trigger, and you don't correct it, that's Failure to Maintain Game State.
@@gregconen if they don't attack because they forgot they had delerium that's legal and on them they just decided to not attack but if you blocked and they assumed their DRC died for instance because they forgot delerium then it would be an illegal game state
The PT Aether Revolt "Beginning of Combat" debacle due to shortcuts, a language barrier, and a player who angle shot the crew mechanic of Toolcraft Exemplar. This incident was so egregious that it actually caused ME to amend my phase announcements. I specifically say, "Begining of Combat", instead moving to combat because those two phrase could be misconstrued as having two different meanings. Also, shortly after this happened, I had a scummy person at a local event try this tactic against me and two other people before being ejected from the event.
There's a Tron player near me who fancies himself a bit of a celebrity. I was playing mono green devotion vs his rakdos midrange, a hard matchup for him indeed. I slammed absolutely ridiculous threats from a turn 3 storm the festival, namely a skysovereign and a cavalier of thorns, and from there the angle shooting began. "Why are those cards in a separate pile there?" That's my hand and I'm resolving a storm. "Why are you drawing twice off kiora triggers when you need to legend rule one of them?" And worst of all, he ate the win from me by saying I couldn't crew the skysovereign after moving to combat -- even though I could and I remember doing that on arena. I didn't wanna argue with him because again -- he's a magic microceleb, and there wasn't a judge at the store to give unbiased advice. This was after he tried to insist my brother played extra lands during a turn when he himself had missed a drop. From then on, I audibly tell my opponents I'm auditing our matches because really there's no game if you don't follow the rules. We're grown now. Let people enjoy the game the way it's meant to be played.
For additional context, this was a weekly event where all entry goes towards the prize pool in store credit, so while it wasn't comp REL therefore explaining the lack of a judge, it was definitely for money and very scummy of my opponent to cheat me out of 60$ then NEVER show up to the game store again lol
Yeah, "Move to Combat" is a stupid (and poorly worded) shortcut because it disallows the DEFENDING player the chance to do anything either. I can cope with, "you passed priority, so you don't get to do anything", but you shouldn't be able to pass multiple priorities because the other person needs to be able to do stuff. At that point, knowing that the opponent wants to take a step back and do something -- anything -- is information you wouldn't have had. (I hope that made sense. Backstepping after a player has made physical movements -- like picking up one's graveyard in the video example -- taints/colors subsequent decision-making.)
@@jdonvance For me it's always been "move to combat?" as a question, as in "I want to go to the beginning of combat step, do you want to do anything while you still have priority?"
FWIW this shortcut has changed in early 2017 to be far more reasonable. Additionally, your use of the term "beginning of combat" never worked as you expected it to, or shouldn't have. While you're technically correct, as in you're precise about what the step you want to proceed to is called, it's too close to the many similar phrases that would shortcut into Declare Attackers, making it a language issue again.
Foreign cards are another angle shoot. I was in eternal weekend some years back and playing legacy. My opponent had a full Japanese deck and I asked if one of his cards had deathtouch (a dredger that had found its way into play, but couldn’t remember which creatures did what in play). He said no, I attacked into it with a much larger creature. He snap blocks and announced that the ability was “when this creature does combat damage to a creature, destroy that creature”. Which is not deathtouch. Part of me respected it, but it didn’t cost me the game, so that played a part.
I had a similar experience asking for wording on a foreign card and I just asked the judge for the English version instead. Found it way easier to waste my opponent's time with a judge call than to have to dance around accidentally asking a loaded question that they can obfuscate the truth over.
The best one I've ever seen in person was in modern someone played V-clique and their opponent revealed their hand assuming they would be targeted then the guy who cast it wrote down all the cards in the person's hand and then targeted themselves
Wow, that’s awesome. I’d actually say that this is okay, at least if Player A said nothing besides ‘cast V Clique’. Targeting yourself with V Clique is common enough for this to look normal and the opponent shouldn’t make assumptions before revealing information
@@deansilvers9088 The way it happened, it actually crossed a lot of boundaries at the time. The point being, it could be argued that when player B started to write the content of player A's hand, this implied he was the target all along.
I played faeries for 6 years. Three common rules calls were- bitterblossom does count as a faerie, spellstutter sprite is not a hard counter spell ( people would assume it was even if I didn’t have enough faeries and I’d have to remind them they don’t lose their spell), and I would say cast vendilian clique- let it resolve and they would drop their hand, I write down and then take a second to decide if any of those cards are worth taking but usually targeted myself after that happened. That mistake only happens once to the same player so use it carefully. Most good opponents would ask who I am targeting with the clique or I would say “etb trigger” and declare my target after seeing them not immediately show their hand
"All legal targets" in this situation also includes the opponent's creatures, which potentially turns on certain counterspells such as Rebuff the Wicked. This is a strictly worse play than just targeting their own creatures, the only reason anyone would do this is if they didn't want to point to specific targets cuz they knew they couldn't target the Chameleon Colossus. Pretty scummy imo.
but at the same time it is on the person for not "rtfc" for the pro black creature or better yet just clarifying by asking which targets because as you said their creatures are also technically legal.
Yes, it's strictly worse, but I wouldn't be so quick to attribute to malice what could be attributed to stupidity. Now even without knowing what format this interaction is from, I'm still confident players are more likely to take disadvantageous shortcuts than to consider this type of effect in their plays. But even so, given more context on the boardstate it probably becomes obvious quite quickly when they're angle shooting.
@@alicepbg2042 "All legal targets" couldn't be more clearly defined. "All my guys" on the other hand is quite confusing, when you have an illegal target on your side of the board.
@@Krunschy they are avoiding saying the targets. they know they are angle shooting and that it's scummy. don't defend that. like I said, "all my guys" is a shortcut. an actual one. "all legal targets" is avoiding saying the targets because saying them would be bad for you.
A recent local RCQ has a problem amulet titan player who always forgets his pact triggers and does not pay.......... "You missed the window to point out pact" :L
I was playing in a Vintage tournament, and was at the "feature tables" for round 3. Currently 2-0 with UW Mentor Control against Shops. I lose game one, got game 2 fairly quickly. Game 3 is kinda grindy, and my opponent asks for a judge. They ask if the top card of my library was a Flip Jace, and I asked if I could look at the card to confirm, and it was. I asked how they knew that, and they mentioned that because my deck was directly under the lights, they could vaguely see that it was A FLIP card, with Smoke Dragon Shield inner sleeves, and just used reasoning to determine what it was. I mentioned that, from my angle, I honestly couldn't tell, and that it took being directly under a light to even. I offered the judge to sit in my seat so that he could varify, but he said no and gave me a game loss. He mentioned that I could buy darker sleeves for future rounds, but I circled "drop" on our slip and just silently went home. It sucked
you might be able to move your head and you will be in the correct angle to see the card. you might sit in a different place and there it will be obvious to you without moving your head. I think they were correct. intentional or not on your part, the end result is marked cards. blame the sleeves.
If people do it accidentally that's one thing. If someone is constantly trying to cast in my challice, that is blatant attempt at cheating as he is aware of the chalice and trying to miss it's trigger.
If chalice said 'players can't cast' then yes, it is cheating. You may not like it, but it literally isn't cheating. You can't call a judge for it and if you did your opponent wouldn't get DQ'd.
@@sammilner1780it is cheating, the rules are dogshit and don’t prevent all cheating That person is trying to get something to happen that does not happen if you are doing what the cards say they do.
@@turgid4391 So then how about if you're playing a prowess deck and just want your prowess triggers ? Is casting your spells into chalice expecting them to be countered still cheating ? Or in a storm deck when all you want is to up your storm count ? Then I guess that means the rules change depending on what you're playing.. See why this isn't cheating yet ?
@turgid4391 Again I fully accept you don't like it, but you don't get to call it cheating just because you don't like it. It literally isn't cheating. Chalice doesn't say 'you can't cast spells' so casting spells with a chalice in play is a game action, plenty of reasons you could do this without expecting your spell to resolve.
@@alilhard that isn't what the op is saying. I can cast a spell into a chalice and say that it is countered and both my opponent and I know what is going on in the above cases. It is just good communication. Otherwise, it appears you are trying to shoot an angle and be a turd.
I count this one as "deliberately obfuscating the game state", which has been a punishable offense for many years in Magic but wasn't when this occured. This is also why you can't shuffle your creature into your lands and hide your combo pieces under your tokens in any tournament (at least not anymore).
Also, it's not a correct statement. You could target the same creature more than once, so you have to indicate the targets separately elsewise the "all legal targets" is not definitive. If you're going to use language to angle shoot then you can't use language that doesn't meet the requirements of the card.
eh, I dunno, I'd probably shortcut to the words "all the stuff I can," especially if there's a lot of things on the board... but I'd also make a distinction with how I lay things out visually. like, I'd put the guys with fear in one grouping and the guys without in another. and I'd also summarize when finalizing attacks ("these guys have x, these guys have y..."[edit: well, the wording I'd end up using would be "x creature and y creature with fear, z creature without evasion"]) I would totally shortcut at the time of casting, but that isn't ALL I would do. i'd make the distinction in other ways too.
My first GP ever as a baby Magic player, first round, first game. My opponent and I are each leaning over looking at the boardstate, and I make a misplay. Now normally to call a judge, you do something like lean back, raise your hand, and make the call. This guy instantly just _screams_ *"JUDGE!"* at full volume _right_ in my face. Technically legal, but a dick move, and it threw me off what little game I had. A later GP, it's day 1, round 2. I sit down and my opponent is being nice and personable, I pull out my deckbox, and he calls for a deck check. It was a larger box, because I had double-sided cards and a whole bunch of tokens taking up extra room, but it checked fine. Immediately, this guy becomes a walking salt mine, just surly the entire match. I didn't realize until after he was just trying to find a free win, presumably hoping I'd had some chaff or something with the deck. (Thankfully I won that round.) Bonus experience at another GP, I overheard a woman talking about how her opponent used a (completely made-up) rule where when you were deciding your attackers, if you tapped them, that was it, they were attacking. That's more "cheating" than "angle-shooting", because actively declaring your attacks and passing priority is a thing, but still.
I've heard something about attackers and tapping before. That someone got rules lawyered in a tourney because the rule is declare all attackers, then tap them. So the guy did what we all do. Say I'm attacking with this guy and tap it then go to tap his next guy then the opponent calls a judge over. Judge rules that yeah, first guy can only attack with 1 creature cuz you tap all guys after. Pretty scummy imo.
Some years ago I got an opponent trying the "all legal targets" on me. I just asked which the targets were. He lied. I called a judge to try to shark on a win for calling their lie. The only thing we both got was a cold stare and a "for fucks sake, this is a LGS tournament, not the Pro tour" from the judge. I still think he was on the wrong and what I did was justified.
@@alexanderficken9354 what's the worst scenario for me there though? He angle shot, then lied, I called a judge to raise awareness of the situation. Did I do it with "not completely pure intentions"? Yeah. But fuck their lying ass. If more people had done as I did they would have stopped angle shooting a long time ago.
def feels like a question of intent; if they just stuck with the "allow opp to sometimes misinterpret on their own" instead of "deliberately lying when opp asks for clarification," it would be fine - still sweaty - but not scummy. i've got no respect for lying. sorry the judge didn't correct the opp at all; really just ended up letting opp go on to scambag other innocent players.
@@lequinow basically, yeah. I remember it was a Finale of eternity and I had a protection from black apostle of purifying light I had boarded in for game 2.
Hey Vince, completely agree with the Chalice one. I'm a former legacy MUD player and when I missed my chalices triggers I would be furious. Not at my opponents, but at myself. If you can't remember your own triggers, you probably don't deserve to win anyway. I also disagree with the chameleon colossus one, because I think it's clear in magic rules that you have to announce clearly what you targets are when you play a spell or ability, so "all legal targets" when you have a mix of legal and non legal targets on board is cheating imo. Good video :)
Yeah, although on this one I would be like "So you're trying to give fear to 8 creatures when you paid 6 ?" since it's not limited to your own creatures.
I think the difference here is the intent. I think you should lose for missing your triggers, but you don't deserve to win from chalice checking- by banking on the opponent missing their triggers. I'm personally more into integrity, so I will also reminder things you miss even when I didn't have to.
@@yargolocus4853 the rules treat may and must triggers the same in terms of whether you need to remember your opponents' so I don't see a reason for players to have to do otherwise.
@@yargolocus4853that's an interesting take your opponent should lose from missing their triggers. But you shouldn't win from them missing them. You're contradicting yourself.
Yeah the RiP interaction would have been ruled differently as the Judge wasn’t aware of the player acknowledging the trigger. The player exiled the graveyard, realized there was no announcement so they put it back. The Judge was unaware of the at the time of the ruling and would have ruled differently if they knew as the trigger at that point has been acknowledged and thus not missed.
Chameleon Colossus one is not ok. The game would be fucking exhausting if you need to interrogate every statement your opponent makes at all times, especially when cards now have more words on them than the Oxford Dictionary
I dunno, man...like read the cards. I just go "Yeah, except for your Chameleon.". In paper the game includes a social component, and being able to outwit your opponent (with a technically legal play) because they're not paying proper attention is valid to me.
@@greyaye8565 how many cards are currently legal and seeing play in any given format? are we expected to know every interaction? are we expected to stop and read every card to make sure nothing is missed every time? the opponent was being scummy. specifcally not saying the targets. don't defend that.
@@alicepbg2042 It was not scummy, the other player should have heard the weird wording of “all legal targets” and asked for clarification if they didn’t immediately see what was up
@@alicepbg2042 They accurately communicated their targets, their opponent just didn’t know what their cards did. It’s no different than saying “I target all my white creatures” and the opponent assuming all of their creatures are white. I don’t think it’s scummy to take advantage of your opponent not paying attention, but I’m also a pretty competitive player so I acknowledge that in a casual setting people might react differently
I remember the Rest in Peace one, and yeah, from memory the main deciding factor for the judge was that they weren't aware that the graveyard had been picked up after RIP was played (I believe the "you missed the trigger" player may have even denied doing so, but can't say that with certainty). The issue with that whole situation is that the picking up of the graveyard implies that the other player is aware of the trigger, and as such - with both players being good players and sporting people - nothing more should need to be said. But yeah, the 'defending' player tried to rules lawyer it; you'd say it was successful, though I'd argue it was more about the judge's lack of information rather than their specific angle shoot. Magic would go even slower than it sometimes already does if you had to announce literally everything and couldn't rely on obvious implications in order to avoid being rules lawyered.
So I have an example. Cavern of souls for the first month did not make the valid creature played from it uncounterable, unless its controller actively declared the second mode when paying for the spell. Because mana abilities defaulted to the first mode, the colorless mode. They changed the rule quickly, but for that month, or if they never changed the rule, would it be an inappropriate angle shoot to counter a creature?
I think the bigger issue with the paper/online disconnect is not that paper doesn't match online, but that online doesn't match paper. I don't use arena or magic online, I use an open source fan project called Xmage, and whenever you attack something with trample, the game asks you 'How much damage do you want to assign to the creature?', whenever something triggers, it asks you, 'Hey, you wanna activate this?' and whenever the turn player passes priority, it prompts you if you want to act, and there are buttons to skip to your turn or to the next main phase and such which will auto-pass priority. While it may be annoying at times, it teaches new players about the intricacies of magic! A new player might assume that trample *automatically* goes through, but when you play on xmage, you learn that you can assign more damage to a creature, which has been useful in a game of commander for me before, where my opponent had the worm that draws you cards equal to the damage you dealt to it when you kill it, so I assigned all my trample damage to it and drew an extra 5 cards rather than dealing 5 damage to my opponent. Magic Arena *smoothing over* the intricacies of magic only gives new players a false impression of how the game actually works. In paper, there is no magic engine that does everything for you, you have to keep track of everything going on or you will get screwed by players with superior rules knowledge.
Chalice checking is fine because the way chalice is worded playing cards countered by chalice is a legal game action, and players have a responsibility to remember their mandatory/non-optional triggers. Players failing to remember detrimental non-optional triggers like upkeep costs are necessarily penalized, missing beneficial non-optional triggers need no penalizing because missing them is intrinsically penalizing. Additionally, players implicitly have to be able to chalice check for edge cases where you want to play into it. If your opponent has a 2 counter chalice and you have a 2 cmc spell you want in the graveyard, playing it into chalice is a real fringe play. The chalice player is also making a gamble when they chalice check, because if the opponent does remember their triggers the person trying to chalice check gets blown out losing their spell. If Chalice said that the opponent can't cast spells, not that their spells are automatically countered, the discussion might be different because then chalice checking in and of itself would be an illegal game action and "illegal game actions are fair game if your opponent doesnt catch that you took one" isn't a good precedent to set for your game's code of conduct. Now, imho, the second you attempt to do any sort of social engineering like trying to use conversation or obfuscate your intentions to try and forcibly make your opponent miss the chalice window or trying to fast play past the window, is the second we're in scumbag who should be DQ'd for sportsmanship territory. Just like other similar social manipulations like "you didnt say combat" or "you said target so youre using the third mode on esper charm". There's a big difference between chalice checking and using trickery to try and force a failed chalice check.
While I completely agree with the point about Dryad Arbor from a gameplay perspective, you gotta admit the dryad hidden among the forests is a pretty good Lore Win !
With my group we remind each other of mandatory triggers, but when it comes to optional ones, if you miss it, you miss it. Sometimes we remind each other of optional triggers, and most times the game is still in a state where we allow the missed trigger to happen That's because this is a game, and meant to be fun, and acting in the spirit of good sportsmanship
4:00 - the "calling a judge just to make you mess up" thing can be really annoying. I lost a tournament match to it once, first game of the day and I wasn't totally in it yet - tapped a mountain and an Ancient Tomb, went to take off two life, realized I have Magus of the Moon in play so just untapped instead (which is pretty trivial), opponent called a judge, nothing happened, but I forgot to swing with the magus as a result - which ultimately won them the game, though they might not have known it, because by the end they had me dead on board, but they were at 8 life while I had a Fiery Confluence in hand. Had they lost the two life from the magus I would have won that tediously annoying round against an obnoxious opponent (they were doing similar things for the rest of the matches too).
The thing that rubs me wrong with saying "its on you to track your triggers" is that this only negatively impacts new players. They are the ones that are going to struggle to remember triggers so its just like; what you need more of a handicap against someone who doesnt know what they're doing?
The Chapin incident was actually a double angle shoot because he didnt say all legal targets he said all MY legal targets. Whether you interpret "my" as "all i control" or "all that are possible" shapes whether the Command also targets Budde's guys, giving him a window to fizzle the spell by bouncing one of his own guys.
I've seen more senior players taking advantage of newbies lack of knowledge while naming mana abilities with pithing needle on multiple occasions. Naming Llanowar Elves or something similar, for instance.
I am so paranoid about being accused of cheating via foils during competitive events I never buy foils unless its for EDH. Also play a lot less competitive because of behavior like described in this video.
I personally am quitting magic as a whole, but know this: Foils are not cheating. Any capable judge also knows this. Its not illegal to have a tron deck with all tron lands being in foil. The problems arise only if they are visibly curved or somehow distinct from other cards (sleeves and such). Imagine getting a foil promo booster and not getting to use the cards that you open from them. You do not need to be afraid, as youre doing nothing wrong. If someone accuses you, call a judge.
Foils themselves are *not* cheating and shouldn't net you an accusation. Being able to distinguish cards in your deck from anything but their front side is. So if your foils are curled that could be an issue. That would be marked cards, which would result in you being asked to exchange the cards/sleeves for ones that can't be distinguished from the other ones. If there is a clear pattern - such as all tron pieces being curled foils - then you will get a harsher penalty. The best way to evade any issues is to ask the head judge of the tournament you are attending to check your deck before the event. He will shuffle a bit and look at it and then either ask you to replace cards that he has an issue with (I would carry non-foil spares for secret lair cards and others that tend to curl heavily) or give you the green light to use the deck. If anything comes up mention that the head judge gave you a pass and the issue should be sorted out.
Completely agree that Magic is a very complex game, and with the best will in the world even the pros miss things. Deliberate angle shooting leaves a really sour taste in my mouth though: a few years ago I was playing against a Jeskai Prowess deck, and they put out two Monastery Mentors. At the end of their turn I said "I'm paying X mana to tick up the counters on my Blast Zone to three", tapped all relevant lands and moved to my turn. When I tried to pop it, however, my opponent smugly informed me he'd noticed I'd forgotten to actually tick the die up from two to three and therefore nothing in board would be destroyed. I should also note that nothing else had happened to change the board state in between. I let it go, took the loss and destroyed him in the third game just like I had in the first and was on track to do in the second but it was a real eye-opener. What still gets me is the obvious pleasure he took in pointing out my mistake - all he had to say was "well I'm really sorry but actually there are only two counters on it, maybe you forgot to put one on but sadly as it stands the Mentors will be fine".
Question, was there a judge at your event? Your opponent would (technically have a point) if you tapped XX mana, pointed to Blast Zone and only added X-1 counters as this is a legal play. If you pointed and said it was going to 3, this should be no different than accidentaly changing the face of the die.
So, i went to Game Day for Eldridge Moon with a friend. I played magic with this friend pretty often. One of his turns, he gestured to me the same way he's passed turn every single time. I was holding up a counter spell, i also had a creature to flash in. So thinking he was passing turn the way he always does, i flashed in my creature. He goes "no i was just passing to combat"
I was playing at a pre-release for All Will Be One, and my opponent had a Toxic deck with Staff of Compleation. He hit me early on for a few points of Poison and then cast the Staff. At the end of each turn he would tap the Staff, pay 3 life and say Proliferate, while gesturing towards the board. I didn't increase my Poison counters once when he did this, because he didn't specify that he was proliferating my Poison counters. I managed to win the game at 9 Poison, and he called a judge on me at the end of the match after asking how I managed to survive that long. I explained to the judge that he simply tapped the Staff and said "Proliferate" without announcing what he was Proliferating, and the judge sided with me.
My issue with missing triggers in a casual setting are the other players. More often than not, your opponents will let you get your trigger as long as it wasn't an unreasonable amount of time after the missed trigger. This to me shows a level of respect between players as they're going to want to play against your deck the way it was intended to play. But there is always that one player that absolutely refuses to let you get your trigger even if you remember the trigger moments after you've missed it. Meanwhile that same player will throw a fit when you call them out for a misplay. It's everyone's job at the table to know the board state and play accordingly, not just the owner of the card. If there's a collector ouphe on board and someone uses a treasure for mana, even if the owner of the collector ouphe missed it, the other player who used the treasure is still effectively cheating because they couldn't use it according to the board state. People need to remember that sometimes someone is playing a new deck and they're still unfamiliar with how it works and refusing to allow that player to resolve their trigger is encouraging them to continue playing that deck incorrectly. I had a player refuse to let me draw a card from an end step trigger when the next player in the rotation hadn't even untapped yet. I remembered this and later in the game when they tapped their lands to cast a spell, said x mana was floating but realized they were 1 mana short so they untapped their lands, I asked "What piece on the board allows you to untap your lands?" Their response was "I was 1 mana short so I couldn't cast my commander" I proceeded to tell them that "That's not my problem. You tapped your lands and announced mana floating. What are you playing?" They threw a tantrum and packed up their cards and left. You can't have it both ways people. If a full turn or something passes, a missed trigger is a missed trigger. But if it's literal seconds later, don't be that scumbag.
The chameleon colossus example isn't an angle shooting that should be allowed. (Ref 13:40 of video) That's because it's against the rules to put profane command on the stack targeting 6 creatures, one with protection from black, and then when it resolves, only 5 of the creatures are affected. That's because you can't put something on the stack without valid targets when it goes on the stack. Since you can't target chameleon colossus, you can't legally put profane command on the stack with it targeting chameleon colossus. Things need to go on the stack with "all legal targets", and when it resolves it works on "all legal targets". You don't get to target whatever you want when you place it on the stack and then it only affects "all legal targets".
I saw this in action by a well respected Vintage player to a friend of mine, with my friend with a Chalice on 1 and the Vintage player casting a brainstorm into the chalice. Short story was instead of saying countered and pointing to the chalice, he said ok - brainstorm happened.
I feel like the "all legal targets" angle shoot depends entirely on the board: are there any other more obviously immune creatures, like a shroud creature. If so, that's a little rougher, since it makes it more ambiguous the targets at a glance, but if the changeling is the only illegal target, that phrase should at least open your mind to the idea that not all the opponent's creatures are legal targets.
I actually use "All legal targets" as a training tool with my son? Only a few dings at the kitchen table sharpened his play. Not just to pay attention to what his opponent was doing, but also his own plays, and was a starting point for his own sense of bluffing. Def a jerky dad thing to do, and not something i'd feel comfortable doing at my local store, but it has its place.
When it comes to angle shooting, I really like and respect the sort of meta-game type angle shoots, like putting random tokens in your deck box or the pen thing or the one you talked about recently with LSV bluffing by counting blockers and reaching for tokens when he had settle in hand. Even Dryad Arbor I think is kind of funny and clever. In that case you're misleading your opponent with bluffs using information outside the game state and if they just completely ignored you and made their plays it shouldn't affect their decision making. So they're basically trying to get an advantage using information outside the game and you're trying to give them false information so they make suboptimal plays. That's fundamentally the same as looking at your hand and pretending to think about countering in response to your opponent casting something when you don't have a counter in hand, which is the most basic type of bluff that I think everyone is ok with. What I absolutely don't respect is angle shooting that's just semantics or rules lawyering within the game itself over things both players know what the intended outcome is. That "you didn't SAY you want to do trample damage" thing is the perfect example of bad sportmanship and just being a scumbag, because you and I and anyone watching both know that the assumption is it's going to deal trample damage and it doesn't need to be said unless the damage is going to be assigned *differently* from that default assumption because both players know. The type of game these players want would be a nightmare to play because you'd have to very explicitly verbally walk through every single step of the game to make sure your opponent doesn't find some minor angle where they can just pretend not to know what the obvious play is and catch you out and that's just miserable and slows the game so much. I put Chalice checking into the same bucket also. I get why its legal but it feels like ignoring the spirit of the law in favor of the letter of the law and I don't really respect that.
@@IAmebAdger It's definitely a bit of a dick move but I still think it's kind of a fair bluff as long as when you play the Dryad Arbor you properly announce it to your opponent. If they forget it's on the board and lose to it, that's on them, they knew it was there and should have been keeping up with the board state. Same logic as if you have a manland up and your opponent forgets and attacks into it (which I've lost to plenty myself), that's their fault. It only crosses into cheating imo if you were to like play it secretly when your opponent isn't paying attention and try to play it off as your land drop for the turn or something. Or if they ask where it is/if it's tapped/to see it and you lie about it. As long as they're fully aware of your Dryad Arbor when it enters the battlefield, it's their job to remember it and keep track It's on the far end of 'respectable/fair' angle shooting for me, but still a fundamentally different type from the 'pretending to misunderstand your intent and then catching you on semantics' type of angle shooting. To me it's the difference between the two legendary Pithing Needle stories: calling the judge to ask if you can name Dark Confidant with needle so your opponent lets it resolve thinking you're about to misplay, and then naming something else; and Borborymos vs Borborygmos Enraged. The first example is a clever bluff, if your opponent only paid attention to the board state and not your bluffing, they'd counter the needle. You're trying to bait them into making a suboptimal play by feeding them false information which they could have ignored. The second one is just bad sportsmanship, both players know exactly what the intent was and one is just pretending to be ignorant and using semantics to cheese out their opponent for their own advantage just because he used verbal shorthand that isn't actually ambiguous at all and anyone watching would understand exactly what he meant. I would be mad if I lost to that, or to any of those other type two angle shoots. If I lost to Dryad Arbor out of nowhere or any of the other type one angle shooting tactics I wouldn't be upset in the same way, I'd just find it funny or impressive and it would be a good story about a clever opponent.
Question. What happens if the number of counters on chalice get changed before the effect resolves? Does it remember what the value was when spell was cast? OR us the value when the effect resolves?
While it is a player’s responsability to put his triggers on the stack, I also believe chalice checking is at least worth a warning. Those rules exist because players need to trigger imaginary mechanisms and sometimes you’ll forget. The intent behind these cards though is that they work accordingly to how it’s written on the cards. To this extent, both players should be responsible of making sure the game’s mechanics are running smoothly. If someone continuously cast spells through chalice, they’re breaching that part of the mental contract established to make a game of mtg work.
The tournament rules used to require you to point out your opponents' missed triggers. It was much worse than the current situation, you would end up having to spend mental energy on playing your opponents' decks because they were not doing them properly
Yeah, this is what I mention when I heard about the Sheoldred shenanigans from last year. The only other change we can make to triggers is to make then unable to be missed and we already did that.
Wait...I do this anyway, but in 4-6 player Commander games. Surely keeping track of one opponent's boardstate with usually well-known decklists is much easier.
@aldenkahl8703 I think most people agree with the principle, the problem is that it's pretty much impossible to enforce, and even if you think it's easy when using tournament lists the pressure and stakes make it a much more mentally taxing experience. Not to mention you don't know that you SUCCESSFULLY kept track of your 4-6 pod board states and triggers. If you missed some you'd have no clue, no matter how confident or thorough you think you were.
Less corner shoot more 'mind games' but if my buddy or I are playing blue, will occasionally replace saying 'cards in hand?' with 'counters in hand?' to get a tell out of each other.
The one thing I’d say is calling out on decks is fine. That’s the only way to confirm cheaters is to call judges if you think something’s not on the level
I have some FBB german Forests in my Hardened Scales deck that look like Plains due to a misprint, I make sure to announce very clearly that they're forests, but I should probably take them out because it might be seen as angle shooting. Also there's speeding through Urza's Saga search triggers to grab a needle before an opponent can react!
As far as the whole trample situation. Whatever judge called the rule is just wrong, unless the policies have changed since then. Generally speaking you are technically required to assign either some or no damage to all possible targets and declare how you are assigning damage. However it is effectively shortcut’ed (not in the way of a proper tournament shortcut, but just as something that doesn’t happen to save time) because having to actually announce it every time is dumb. In a situation with two blockers you technically have to say how much damage you assign to each, and could technically assign all damage to the first one even if there is extra. Which is just like the trample situation. In these situations the default is assumed that excess damage is dealt to the second blocker and the same goes for trample and a player/planeswalker. Not only is it just the default action that happens, but judges are taught that a player generally speaking always intends to do the generally beneficial play. You don’t have to say my counterspell is targeting your counterspell not my own spell if you counter a counter.
Ah Dryad Arbor--the young man's Cheatyface. I think the rules solution provided was bad only because it is there to "solve" the Secret Lair Dryad Arbor. Because it literally just looks like a forest. It doesn't solve any shenanigans with other lands that could become creatures that could generally be hidden in the same ways. I think it's a slippery slope to make the argument that DA is an exception, personally.
Now, I do have a tendency to buy damaged cards that are wildly bent out of shape and flattening them out because it's better paying 3$ for a seedborn muse than full price sometimes 😅 but I don't do it to get ahead in a game.
So, I stopped playing about a decade ago and got the bug to try out Commander again recently as I was overhearing some neat stuff happening in games near where the free paint night at a FLGS is held. Queue me looking back into the game, tinkering on Moxfield to see what I can build up, and the spiders throwing MTG related vids and shorts at me. I'm kinda feeling like MTG has gotten to the point where it just needs a standing ref. The technical aspects of how the stack and priorities work with all of the interactions that have been added in paper games gives me a headache (a pox on the person who turned Exiled into yet ANOTHER resource to track and exploit, goddamn). There are enough things going on that more interactions are starting to feel like, "how does banding work again?" writ large.
GRAMMAR POLICE -- (As in, nothing to see here. Move along): "Cue", not "Queue". In this context, you are recalibrating the point of entry for your narrative, not establishing a lineup of objects or people.
@@jasonrhome710 Hey, thanks for replying. I almost didn't write that. I don't like looking like a pedantic jerk or hurting anyone's feelings, but if no one points out errors, how will we get better? I'm glad to know that at least in this instance I may have helped improve someone's life.
that FTV dryad arbor crap was the absolute worst - someone tried to pull that crap on me and they got to hear me rant at them for the rest of the match. futuresight version looks way better (not that that mattered to those running it)
I am of the thought that if you are playing a casual event and the trigger is a must ability and you missed it, we will do the trigger if it is or isnt good for me, wanna get people in the mindset that triggers are there for a reason and that they should remember what their cards do
So, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think with how Comp REL rules have been worded nowadays, you can't "miss" a trigger. Like, with the rest in peace example, if the board state hasn't changed then it's considered not missed. My citation is the Sheoldred vs. Consider + Opt drama that happened...last year, I think? time flies... Like, if time passes yeah the trigger is missed, but I don't think if the game state hasn't changed (or, more specifically, if nothing has been done that would interfere with the game state (delving after a missed RIP for instance))
I did once get into it with someone at an open who was playing chinese chronicles urzatron lands and suspiciously all 4 of his mines were the one that looks like a tower.
Personal favorite of mine... Buddy of mine was playing jeskai ascendancy combo vs goblins in modern when tarkir was still new (😢)... He has milled his altar of the brood and only had his sylvian caryatid in play.... My buddy knows the game is done but says... Meh... And proceeds to combo off... "Presenting a loop where I buff my creature giving it +100/+100 and protection from red"... Looks at his opponent... And the guy just goes... "Hmmm... Yep, u got it... GG" Me-.... Doesn't it have defender tho?
Question for those opposed to a "chalice check": if you control the chalice and opponet forgets and cast into it, would you let them take it back? If not, why is the opponent more responsible for remembering your triggers than you?
Personally if I miss my own triggers I don't allow things to be reset especially if they benefit me. If I make a mistake I let it happen, and I let that be a lesson to myself.
Double sleeves really helps with the foil thing cause it's really hard to tell even when you know your deck. Like I had 4 prerelease foil hydroide krasis and played them in standard till they rotated but I double sleaved and it was impossible to notice the curl.
FNM modeern, I was trying to draw in my opponent's upkeep from Mishra's bauble. Opponent immediately went to draw, grabbed his card and said that I "missed the trigger". I thought he was joking and went to draw and he actually seemed upset about it, saying that if I don't announce that I want to hold priority in upkeep then I've missed the phase (very untrue). I told this fella "Mate, there's so much wrong with that idea that I'm not even sure where to start, but if those are the rules you want to play by then you missed your untap step. Also, I'm gonna hold priority at my upkeep and skip to your end step since we don't care about priority permissions." Apparently this was what he needed to hear as well. Good guy, found me before I went home that night to apologise as well. I still missed the bauble trigger.
I was sitting next to a player in Mono G, in Pioneer. When adding mana through Nykthos, he was asked: "What's with Polukranos on the flipside?". His answer: "Its mana value is still 3".
I agree with you, @@DEV-Plays. That must be the case for a vast number of cases. Knowing the parties, it was not in this case, I assure you. I found it quite smart from his part to be honest. Even the apologies were very well crafted. A master of deceit, I give him that haha
Was it just a general rules update or did a situation cause "lands in front" to no longer be a thing? When i was at a LGS and someone told me i was not allowed to have lands in front of my creatures I was genuinely sad. I still to this day play my lands at the top of my mat until I have other permanents and have to establish clear zones.
As part of Profane Command, you have to declare targets. You can't target Chameleon Colossus with the spell, as it has protection from black. Pretty sure if a judge got called on this, it'd be a rules violation and you'd have to change the target list to not include the Colossus
In the scenario described the player doesn't target the Colossus. The player says something like "all legal targets" which doesn't include Colossus, it just implies to the opponent that it could
This seems the same as the previous example of chalice checking; would MtGO allow the player to target the protection from black creature? I'd presume not.
I’m not fully aware of how the rules address this but intuitively I agree. If a card says x targets you should have declare x targets. Using generalized language to resolve a specific event serves no purpose other than to intentionally create ambiguity in the game state.
@@Max-rc6pq And to shortcut. In different scenarios it's much clearer and easier to say, target my whole team than t point and announce like thirteen creatures.
The real magic of competetive magic is how aware you are of your state, and theirs. I've met people who can't keep track of their life total, and I've met people who learn my entire deck after 1 infinite mill state and predict the exact sideboard. The human element is what makes it a skill based game with heavy emphasis of luck, not just solely luck based drafting into a turing match. Attention is finite, and using this to your advantage is colloquially scummy, but it's why MtG is so damn entrancing. Once you lose to one of these, you never will again.
Competitive magic is mostly angle-shooting & there are many instances cheaters trying their luck, such as activating artifact ability while oppoenents have a Karn in play. I've encountered this many times, once with a judge beside me. I asked him "r u going to allow that?" & Opponent never gets a warning. This guy is known in my LGS to "try his luck", but since there's no penalty / punishment it continues.
My view on angle shooting: If you’re trying to do something that gives you information you shouldn’t have access to, or can allow you to manipulate your deck, then that is bad. Full stop, true in all situations. However, playing in a way that takes advantage of your opponent’s missed triggers, or their lack of knowledge of rules or mechanics, that’s more grey. If it’s an FNM draft or prerelease at your local shop then it’s more on the scummy side. But if it’s a more competitive setting, you’re there to play better than your opponents. You are competing to see who is more skilled at the game. I equate it to racing, maybe an opponent takes a bad line around a corner and you see an opportunity to pass them. Does that make you bad? Or playing baseball and an opponent doesn’t understand, or forgets how an infield fly works, and this allows you to score, or get an easy out. That doesn’t make you a scummy player.
Also, trying to intentionally confuse an opponent on how a rule or mechanic works is shitty. But bluffing about what cards you have, what your intentions are, etc, especially in competitive play is ok. The Colossus example is a grey case. Scummy at a casual event, but ok in a competitive event.
I heard Eaper Charm only has one mode that targets, which is discard. But most everyone casts it as a draw 2. So when your opponent casts an Esper Charm against you, you should always ask who it's targeting and hope they say themselves. Then call a judge and force them to discard 😅
Rule sharking and angle shooting makes the game deeply unpleasant to play, often causing interactions between players to be deeply hostile. I much prefer the yugioh system of keeping gameplay fair and friendly.
@@JelloPiranhaAll players are responsible for all parts of the game state. So you would be required to remind your opponents of their Dark Confidant triggers, for example. Which I just don't think is good, logistically. YGO in particular takes it too far and prohibits even just bluffing. You can't tell your opponent you have Force of Will in hand if you don't. They took a decent idea that's hard to implement and went overboard with it.
Huh. Yeah, that's interesting. I think bluffing should absolutely be a part of every card game. But as a much more casual and often Commander player, I do like the idea of everyone being responsible for enforcing the rules, especially when it isn't a "may" ability. Either way, really appreciate the detailed answer.
@@RibusPQR You very much can. You're allowed to lie about private information like that, the MTR explicitly says you can. Your opponent could even Thoughtseize you, then ask later in the turn what cards you had because they forgot to write it down, and you're free to lie.
I heavily disagree with the "each person is resposible for their own mandatory triggers to smooth gameplay" debate. It is not hard for two high level players to both work to maintain game state. Especially with how much more attentive and invested people would be in maintaining it with potential rewinding or resolving of missed trigger being more of a hassle to resolve than it currently is. Small sacrifice for honest Magic and less angle shooting in my opinion. Not to mention players should strive for games to be played as intended with all mandatory triggers like chalice occuring, rather than being able to "gotcha" your opponent with a rules technicality to "smooth gameplay". A rules technicality you cant even exploit in online formats proving it is not intended to be a core component of the game. Also misleading your opponent isn't equal to a bluff. A bluff is based of using partial information, not obsfucating your visible board state. Should not be allowed. You also flew close to the answer to all of this. All angle shooting is "winning with legalese rather than your magics cards and your skill as a player", not just the one circumstance you called that. ALL angle shooting is this, and as to why all angle shooting shouldn't be allowed in the game.
"All legal targets" is so good. 99% of the time, such precise wording would immediately make me suspicious and double check the spell and board, but at a high-stakes comp REL situation, I would assume the opponent is covering all bases and being precise so I'M the one who can't angle or rules lawyer over the game winning play.
This could be flipped around in the example from the video. "All legal targets" okay so 6 of my blue creatures have fear I'll block all your stuff. The non-profane player could also write down that the command drained the caster for 6. There's no way I'd ever be comfortable changing anything about a game state when "all legal targets" is the only communication of targets for a spell that has a definite number of targets. Magic isn't so hard you can't make a small cluster of 6 target creatures and say, "profane command, choosing to target you for life loss and these creatures for fear."
I feel like a lot of people who dislike chalice checking miss at least some of the reasons for why wizards changed the rules to allow it. If my opponent is playing a deck with many triggers, me being penalized just as much as they are for missing the occasional one is not fun. Chalice is an example that's fairly easy to remember and is played a lot, but I had a deck playing both altar of the brood and soul Warden at one point as combo pieces and I would not want to force my opponent to have just as much responsibility to handle those as I did. This way, you just treat benificial must triggers as may triggers and everyone is encouraged to remember their own triggers while not having to be responsible for their opponents. This has also allowed for more consistent card design. Most triggers that are generally beneficial are must triggers these days to allow for less clicks on Arena but if this rule wasn't the case, that interest would be competing with wanting them to be may triggers to make them missable to encourage people to keep track of their own board state. I also don't totally buy the argument about making things closer to digital. There are lots of differences other than this that apply depending on your platform and rules enforcement level. Mtgo has a chess clock which paper formats don't for one example. While we should strive to synchronize what we can, there are some differences that exist due to the limits of the players or the technology.
I think the chameleon colossus if you said I'm gonna pick all I can or all legal targets. And if you opponent doesn't ask about it during block step saying like so what has fear? Or what does chameleon say? Then you tell them but otherwise that's on them to realize
Looks like the back has curved over the top on that commander foil. Unlike most people with warped cards who need to add some humidity to make the cardboard side bigger, it seems you need to dry yours out a bit. Would you be willing to try an experiment with some of your foils? That is, once you have them flat, put them in a box so they're held tightly then freeze & thaw them a few times. I've been experimenting with simple ways to "temper" foils to reduce or eliminate their warping without visible damage, and thus far freeze/thaw cycles to cause weakening of the cellulose walls to provide some spring between the cardboard and glue interface has had the most promising results for a simple and nondamaging means to make foils less humidity-sensitive. Other ideas involved cycling between a high humidity and low humidity box and ironing the cards, both of which seem more damaging than taking advantage of water expanding when it freezes.
Just have to tell one of the worst stories I have. Brought my little brother to play modern for the first time pre-pandemic; he was on a budget mono red prowess deck. He was 1-1 going into the third round. Paired again a 30-something year old man playing UW stoneforge. Guy was unpleasant the whole time, swearing and cursing about luck, made my brother very uncomfortable. Game 3 he stabilized against my brother with 2 life; he proceeded to path 3 bonecrushers in a row, with my brother missing the 2 damage triggers as he was new. After those, he topdecked a batterskull, smugly slammed it and asked how he was going to beat it, then closed out the game. I went and told the store owner who chewed him out a bit, but it left an awful taste in my mouth. It's one thing to chalice check a guy at a 10k. It's another to do it to a kid half your age while swearing about how lucky he is and how his draws are unfair.
Reminds me of when I first started playing magic. I was barely a teen and most of the other players were much older. They shared a book of printed errata to double check all the cards played against them to see if the card was changed in their favor, but never shared the book since it was "our responsibility" to be updated on the rules. This was like... 1996-97
The thirty-something year olds who play magic are either the nicest dudes you’ll ever meet or just actual douchebags.
I remember when i was about 12 i was playing at a draft tournament and went up against this dude in his thirties who looked like the stereotypical unwashed neckbeard. Like just a gross dude. Then he whipped out this anime titties porn playmat and used it against me. Again, I was 12. Why would you play that against a 12 year old. It made me very uncomfortable. Fuck that guy
So he cheated
This is definitely a big part of my opinion. Angle shooting is always going to be a bit of a dick move but there's a time and place for it, FNMs or any low stakes table isn't it.
cry?
This comments section is exactly perfect: a porn bot, someone saying first, someone attacking the video for being negative about angle shooting, and someone attacking the video for being positive about angle shooting
Also some guy summarising all of the different types of comments observed for us. Thank you!
For me, Borborygmos / Bobby Enraged is a classic example of angle shooting that also resulted in a rules change
Because there r 2 different borborygmos' and it was a tournament its not like it was an FNM smh... Magic has became so fisher prices its ridiculous i miss when this game had to do with skill... Like does it suck of course but that's life.. Also its not like he was a new player if u don't kno there's 2 different borborygmos' then u need to study modern more (at that time) lol. I've lost many games from "dumb" and misplays but i didn't cry about it i shook my opponents hand told them GGs and GL in the rest of ur matches.
People hate that scenario and example, but I have to say - Huang basically knew the rule, knew as a result that his opponent technically misplayed (and confirmed with a judge so he could lean on that as a strategy), and rode that through for the win. I'd argue that it wasn't an angle shoot - it was some top tier rules lawyering. You could argue it was unsporting, but in this situation all the fault lay with Wizards for basically having the rules set up where this could happen (as well as reprinting characters multiple times so just their name wasn't enough in a case like this, even if it was obvious which version was intended).
I don't think Huang did anything wrong there, but I do think Wizards was correct to update the rule afterwards.
@@subzero308 Man, you said yourself that it sucks, so why not remove the sucky bit and make the game better for it? The game can still be skill intensive, if you want it to be, and I don't see how forcing the players to remember the name of every card ever printed would make it any better.
@@jaxsonbatemantotally agree, don't see anything wrong with what Huang did and actually think it was kind of brilliant. Obviously doing that to a kid at FNM would be incredibly lame, but this was the top of the professional game. I also think it made sense for WotC to change the rule afterwards but at the time those were the rules and Huang did nothing deserving of the criticism he received.
@@subzero308if I misplay, I take it in stride, but the guy playing pithing needle didn't missplay.
I live in the USA, according to your logic, I can go to a country that uses km instead of miles, find a road where the speed limit sign only has a number(lets say 60), and when I get pulled over say "I wasn't speeding, the sign says 60 and I was friving 60mph"
My least favorite angle shoot of all time is when "combat" was a shortcut to "declare attackers". A player where english was their second language declared "combat", intending to go to start of combat. He attempted to crew a vehicle, and his opponent called a judge. This particular interaction was insane to me; the implication here is that it is entirely legal to skip a phase of the game as though it didn't happen. If at that time i had a card that said "at the begining of your opponents combat phase, do x", then just by my opponent declaring "combat", if I didn't decline that and tell them to specifically go to start of combat, in theory my effect would just be missed entirely, because even though they are allowed to declare attackers still, they never had a start of combat phase. On top of that, you have a guy who had to learn the language using it in an entirely natural way taking a game loss because "combat" used to mean "go to declare attackers". Smh.
Unrelated, I hadn't heard about the rest in peace angle shoot before, man that one is pretty messed up.
I think most people agree that was just a wrong judge ruling these days. It was just so utterly bizarre otherwise ("Hmm yes, combat doesn't mean go to combat, it means declare attackers!", plus the fact that it's pretty much saying that everyone needs to be familiar with non-rules codified slang-terms to be able to play, and like, whilst the rules do now say slang terms are allowed it's only if it's making it clear what you meant; given the person meant something else that argument doesn't apply here)
They changed the rules a s a result of this interaction means the judge was correc5 in his ruling
I was going to comment this exact situation. I've seen a lot of scummy cheats things in magic, but this is the one that always sticks in my head. The double whammy of abusing a language barrier, and the judges going along with it just pisses me off.
L2 judge here. The second one doesn't work anymore.
It's not a default action (see MTR 4.2 for a complete list). Therefore, we usually go with how a reasonable player would interpret the events.
If a player declares "ok, so your dork's dead, pass." I believe the intention is quite clear: deal 2 to the dork and 3 to the walker. Hence the opponent will face a rather stiff investigation, resulting in potential cheating, if they were aware this is against the rules; or at the very least warning for IPG 3.7 (Communication Policy Violation) or IPG 2.5 (Game Rule Violation).
Don't a couple of these not function amymore? I was under the impression chalice checking works at present is that missed triggers are put on the stack when it is noticed the trigger is missed, and the spell has already resolved so the chalice has nothing to counter. That means the RIP example would just exile all graveyards a few phases later as well.
And I've been told that the chameleon colossus example is now considered a failure to maintain game state and therefore also not legal.
@@joshdedrick6162 see IPG 2.1 (you can find it on wizard page) if you want details, but generally the opponent of player who missed the trigger gets to choose if the trigger is put on the stack.
There was a change when it comes to chalice triggers, as we are now allowed to do simple backups when fixing missed trigger, but all that really means we can return the permanent onto the stack if nothing happened in between.
This is important when a player forgets their own chalice trigger. Cause we used to have to leave the permanent on the field if the trigger was deemed missed (you can't counter permanent, you can only counter spells), now we can put it back onto the stack and let it be countered.
@@joshdedrick6162 Also, failure to maintain gamestate means something completely different. It is when: "A player allows another player in the game to commit a Game play error and does not point it out immediately." (Game play error is really anything that breaks comprehensive rules i.e. the rules of magic as such, not tournament rules).
We might be talking about 3.7 (Communication Policy Violation), but that would require the player to violate section 4 of Tournament Magic Rules.
In a major modern tournament my opponent, while facing a lethal attack, tried to tell me that they weren't actually dead because I didn't announce my prowess triggers (it was a burn mirror) I was really insulted by how blatantly stupid and desperate such a remark was. but I had a deflecting palm in hand and actually welcomed the opportunity to slap them over the head with that card when they attacked back. After the game I told them to have fun shooting angles in losers bracket. they felt really bad and broke down under the pressure. we met later and talked about it and apologized to eachother so it was all good, but I leaned from a judge after that you don't have to announce prowess triggers. so good to know.
I mean with 15 prowess creatures it gets a little bit nutty to say on every noncreature spell 15+ times "trigger", also do to those actually mattering for gamestate they cant be missed.
I haven't been a judge in a couple of years, but back then the ruling was that you didn't need to acknowledge triggers such as prowess until it affected the game state, i.e. change your opponents life total in this case.
Also - always call judges for missed triggers!!! (I am saying this as an L2 myself)
There are some stupid cases where a missed triggers are put on the stack!
@@WallsEryx This is still the case. A trigger isn't considered "missed" until a time passed where it was relevant
In poker, the disdain for angle shooting comes from a deontological concern for the health of the game overall. The only issue with the Chameleon Colossus example it encourages people toward a paranoid and obsessive rereading of your upside down cards whenever they go to do anything. If you believe that managing your time limit, keeping track of the board state, and general knowledge of the card pool (i.e. remembering and having in mind the prot. black), then I think this kind of play is cool. I agree that it is the most cuspy case you discuss.
I was in a legacy tournament playing 8cast against delver. We are in game 3 i have a chalice on 1 and he casts ponder . We were bantering the whole game so i say "lol your not gonna chalice check me" he says "you had a chalice on one all 3 games and i played 6 one drops into your chalices and you let them resolve" 😂 i still won but damn he knew my only weakness, i cant talk and concentrate lmao
That's a bamboozle
I once “chaliced checked” a guy with summoners pact and he was like you all most got me with the chalice check. I was completely focused on summoners pact costing “4” and how I was going to pay for it. I ran it right into the chalice on 0. I was like I completely forgot there was a chalice in play I’m just bad 😂
Still cheating even if you won
@domri4203 I mean it's legal, in a competitive tournament keeping track of triggers that benefit you is your responsibility. It would be illegal if I for example, tried to cast one drops into my own chalice on one but since it's my own chalice I can miss the triggers and it's my own fault
Hey at least he was polite
My roommate lost finals of a modern rcq when his opponent cast a hammer, triggering sigardas aid to equip it for free. Opp had 2 ornithopters and placed the hammer "on top" of one of the ornithopters without announcing his trigger. My roommate obviously tried to remove the thopter the guy had indicated towards with the hammer, only to of course be told that the hammer was still on the stack because he didnt announce the etb trigger. Judge sided with opponent and said my roommates removal spell was cast with the hammer on the stack and that the opponent could then equip the hammer to the other thopter. Super angle shooty as the opponent had clearly indicated which thopter he was going to equip
In this case, timing and honesty/wording in the investigation is important. If the investigation played out exactly as you have said, then the judge call is correct as the Aid trigger can still target the other thopter when it triggers and is put on the stack. If your roommate had in fact allowed the Hammer to resolve, AND then let the Aid trigger target a thopter, THEN responded by removing the thopter, AND THEN TOLD THE INVESTIGATING JUDGE THIS SEQUENCE OF PLAYS, then the judge should have ruled in your roommate's favor.
Note there are many intricacies surrounding this ruling. If your roommate did indeed try to respond with the hammer on the stack, AND THEN during the investigation change his story and say he was responding to the AID trigger, that would be a lie and he might get some kind of GRV or Cheating penalty. Also, I'm a little unsure about the complete sequence of "backing up the gamestate" that a judge needs to adhere to (I assume this has more to do with the result of the investigation).
Without knowing what words were said during the plays (did your roommate state to the opponent that he was allowing the hammer to resolve and responding to the Aid trigger that was OBVIOUSLY targeting that thopter? Did he tell the judge this during the investigation?), it's hard to say how the judge should rule. I agree it was an angle shoot, but one that could have been avoided with clear communication. Magic is a complex game and timing and priority needs to be understood and agreed upon by both players at every step.
@@Xanlau it was definitely a miscommunication on timing that my roommate could have avoided by asking for clarification on timing and triggers. He accepts responsibility for how it played out, but he also feels it was an angle shoot because of how clearly the opp "indicated" the one thopter. He's a skilled player and knew how to respond to the situation, even if he didn't announce it as clearly as he could have. It was pretty feels bad
It's so wild to me that people can miss ETB or cast triggers, but maybe that's because I basically muscle memory say "trigger" pointing at the card whenever it has one of those triggers. It's like part of playing the card to me. Totally understand missing other kinds of triggers, even though I'm one to call out opponents' triggers too, but damn for real as soon as money is on the line, people just change.
The thing about missed triggers is that that's the only part of the rules that works that way. You're not allowed to check if an opponent will forget about their Teferi, Time Raveler by casting a spell on their turn the way you can Chalice-check. Which makes me more convinced that it's the wrong rule, but the fact that it's specifically allowed by the rules makes it hard to condemn people taking advantage of it.
It's largely because triggers are reactive whereas Teferi type effects are proactive. The Chalice responds to you playing a card while the Teferi doesn't allow you to do it at all.
I'm the former, you're not taking an illegal action. You can cast spells and let Chalice counter them. In the latter, you're taking an illegal game action.
@@RedOphiuchus Teferi is just an example. It doesn't have to be you taking an action at all: if your opponent controls a Dragon's Rage Channeler and doesn't attack because they didn't notice they have Delirium, you're required to call that out. Whenever your opponent makes any Game Play Error other than a missed trigger, and you don't correct it, that's Failure to Maintain Game State.
nah, it's very easy actually
@@gregconen if they don't attack because they forgot they had delerium that's legal and on them they just decided to not attack but if you blocked and they assumed their DRC died for instance because they forgot delerium then it would be an illegal game state
@@fatch3353in this instance, if DRC has delirium it MUST attack.
The PT Aether Revolt "Beginning of Combat" debacle due to shortcuts, a language barrier, and a player who angle shot the crew mechanic of Toolcraft Exemplar. This incident was so egregious that it actually caused ME to amend my phase announcements. I specifically say, "Begining of Combat", instead moving to combat because those two phrase could be misconstrued as having two different meanings. Also, shortly after this happened, I had a scummy person at a local event try this tactic against me and two other people before being ejected from the event.
There's a Tron player near me who fancies himself a bit of a celebrity. I was playing mono green devotion vs his rakdos midrange, a hard matchup for him indeed. I slammed absolutely ridiculous threats from a turn 3 storm the festival, namely a skysovereign and a cavalier of thorns, and from there the angle shooting began. "Why are those cards in a separate pile there?" That's my hand and I'm resolving a storm. "Why are you drawing twice off kiora triggers when you need to legend rule one of them?" And worst of all, he ate the win from me by saying I couldn't crew the skysovereign after moving to combat -- even though I could and I remember doing that on arena. I didn't wanna argue with him because again -- he's a magic microceleb, and there wasn't a judge at the store to give unbiased advice. This was after he tried to insist my brother played extra lands during a turn when he himself had missed a drop. From then on, I audibly tell my opponents I'm auditing our matches because really there's no game if you don't follow the rules. We're grown now. Let people enjoy the game the way it's meant to be played.
For additional context, this was a weekly event where all entry goes towards the prize pool in store credit, so while it wasn't comp REL therefore explaining the lack of a judge, it was definitely for money and very scummy of my opponent to cheat me out of 60$ then NEVER show up to the game store again lol
Yeah, "Move to Combat" is a stupid (and poorly worded) shortcut because it disallows the DEFENDING player the chance to do anything either. I can cope with, "you passed priority, so you don't get to do anything", but you shouldn't be able to pass multiple priorities because the other person needs to be able to do stuff. At that point, knowing that the opponent wants to take a step back and do something -- anything -- is information you wouldn't have had. (I hope that made sense. Backstepping after a player has made physical movements -- like picking up one's graveyard in the video example -- taints/colors subsequent decision-making.)
@@jdonvance For me it's always been "move to combat?" as a question, as in "I want to go to the beginning of combat step, do you want to do anything while you still have priority?"
FWIW this shortcut has changed in early 2017 to be far more reasonable. Additionally, your use of the term "beginning of combat" never worked as you expected it to, or shouldn't have. While you're technically correct, as in you're precise about what the step you want to proceed to is called, it's too close to the many similar phrases that would shortcut into Declare Attackers, making it a language issue again.
Foreign cards are another angle shoot. I was in eternal weekend some years back and playing legacy. My opponent had a full Japanese deck and I asked if one of his cards had deathtouch (a dredger that had found its way into play, but couldn’t remember which creatures did what in play). He said no, I attacked into it with a much larger creature. He snap blocks and announced that the ability was “when this creature does combat damage to a creature, destroy that creature”. Which is not deathtouch. Part of me respected it, but it didn’t cost me the game, so that played a part.
I had a similar experience asking for wording on a foreign card and I just asked the judge for the English version instead.
Found it way easier to waste my opponent's time with a judge call than to have to dance around accidentally asking a loaded question that they can obfuscate the truth over.
The best one I've ever seen in person was in modern someone played V-clique and their opponent revealed their hand assuming they would be targeted then the guy who cast it wrote down all the cards in the person's hand and then targeted themselves
Wow, that’s awesome. I’d actually say that this is okay, at least if Player A said nothing besides ‘cast V Clique’. Targeting yourself with V Clique is common enough for this to look normal and the opponent shouldn’t make assumptions before revealing information
@@deansilvers9088
The way it happened, it actually crossed a lot of boundaries at the time. The point being, it could be argued that when player B started to write the content of player A's hand, this implied he was the target all along.
I played faeries for 6 years. Three common rules calls were- bitterblossom does count as a faerie, spellstutter sprite is not a hard counter spell ( people would assume it was even if I didn’t have enough faeries and I’d have to remind them they don’t lose their spell), and I would say cast vendilian clique- let it resolve and they would drop their hand, I write down and then take a second to decide if any of those cards are worth taking but usually targeted myself after that happened. That mistake only happens once to the same player so use it carefully. Most good opponents would ask who I am targeting with the clique or I would say “etb trigger” and declare my target after seeing them not immediately show their hand
"All legal targets" in this situation also includes the opponent's creatures, which potentially turns on certain counterspells such as Rebuff the Wicked. This is a strictly worse play than just targeting their own creatures, the only reason anyone would do this is if they didn't want to point to specific targets cuz they knew they couldn't target the Chameleon Colossus. Pretty scummy imo.
but at the same time it is on the person for not "rtfc" for the pro black creature or better yet just clarifying by asking which targets because as you said their creatures are also technically legal.
Yes, it's strictly worse, but I wouldn't be so quick to attribute to malice what could be attributed to stupidity. Now even without knowing what format this interaction is from, I'm still confident players are more likely to take disadvantageous shortcuts than to consider this type of effect in their plays.
But even so, given more context on the boardstate it probably becomes obvious quite quickly when they're angle shooting.
@@Krunschy "all my guys" is a shortcut. "all legal targets" is avoiding saying what the targets are.
@@alicepbg2042 "All legal targets" couldn't be more clearly defined. "All my guys" on the other hand is quite confusing, when you have an illegal target on your side of the board.
@@Krunschy they are avoiding saying the targets. they know they are angle shooting and that it's scummy.
don't defend that.
like I said, "all my guys" is a shortcut. an actual one. "all legal targets" is avoiding saying the targets because saying them would be bad for you.
A recent local RCQ has a problem amulet titan player who always forgets his pact triggers and does not pay.......... "You missed the window to point out pact" :L
I was playing in a Vintage tournament, and was at the "feature tables" for round 3. Currently 2-0 with UW Mentor Control against Shops. I lose game one, got game 2 fairly quickly. Game 3 is kinda grindy, and my opponent asks for a judge. They ask if the top card of my library was a Flip Jace, and I asked if I could look at the card to confirm, and it was. I asked how they knew that, and they mentioned that because my deck was directly under the lights, they could vaguely see that it was A FLIP card, with Smoke Dragon Shield inner sleeves, and just used reasoning to determine what it was. I mentioned that, from my angle, I honestly couldn't tell, and that it took being directly under a light to even. I offered the judge to sit in my seat so that he could varify, but he said no and gave me a game loss. He mentioned that I could buy darker sleeves for future rounds, but I circled "drop" on our slip and just silently went home. It sucked
you might be able to move your head and you will be in the correct angle to see the card.
you might sit in a different place and there it will be obvious to you without moving your head.
I think they were correct. intentional or not on your part, the end result is marked cards. blame the sleeves.
If people do it accidentally that's one thing. If someone is constantly trying to cast in my challice, that is blatant attempt at cheating as he is aware of the chalice and trying to miss it's trigger.
If chalice said 'players can't cast' then yes, it is cheating.
You may not like it, but it literally isn't cheating.
You can't call a judge for it and if you did your opponent wouldn't get DQ'd.
@@sammilner1780it is cheating, the rules are dogshit and don’t prevent all cheating
That person is trying to get something to happen that does not happen if you are doing what the cards say they do.
@@turgid4391 So then how about if you're playing a prowess deck and just want your prowess triggers ? Is casting your spells into chalice expecting them to be countered still cheating ? Or in a storm deck when all you want is to up your storm count ? Then I guess that means the rules change depending on what you're playing.. See why this isn't cheating yet ?
@turgid4391 Again I fully accept you don't like it, but you don't get to call it cheating just because you don't like it.
It literally isn't cheating.
Chalice doesn't say 'you can't cast spells' so casting spells with a chalice in play is a game action, plenty of reasons you could do this without expecting your spell to resolve.
@@alilhard that isn't what the op is saying. I can cast a spell into a chalice and say that it is countered and both my opponent and I know what is going on in the above cases. It is just good communication. Otherwise, it appears you are trying to shoot an angle and be a turd.
The RIP example I would say wasn't missed...he picked his GY up and put it in exile, which happened to be the same place...so it was exiled.
The Chameleon Colossus is definitely angle shooting imo. Nobody normally says "all legal targets", you just say what you're targeting. Pretty slimy
110%
I count this one as "deliberately obfuscating the game state", which has been a punishable offense for many years in Magic but wasn't when this occured. This is also why you can't shuffle your creature into your lands and hide your combo pieces under your tokens in any tournament (at least not anymore).
Also, it's not a correct statement.
You could target the same creature more than once, so you have to indicate the targets separately elsewise the "all legal targets" is not definitive.
If you're going to use language to angle shoot then you can't use language that doesn't meet the requirements of the card.
@@benjaminh7548 you're not allowed to target a creature more then once(rule 114.3).
eh, I dunno, I'd probably shortcut to the words "all the stuff I can," especially if there's a lot of things on the board... but I'd also make a distinction with how I lay things out visually. like, I'd put the guys with fear in one grouping and the guys without in another. and I'd also summarize when finalizing attacks ("these guys have x, these guys have y..."[edit: well, the wording I'd end up using would be "x creature and y creature with fear, z creature without evasion"])
I would totally shortcut at the time of casting, but that isn't ALL I would do. i'd make the distinction in other ways too.
My first GP ever as a baby Magic player, first round, first game. My opponent and I are each leaning over looking at the boardstate, and I make a misplay. Now normally to call a judge, you do something like lean back, raise your hand, and make the call. This guy instantly just _screams_ *"JUDGE!"* at full volume _right_ in my face. Technically legal, but a dick move, and it threw me off what little game I had.
A later GP, it's day 1, round 2. I sit down and my opponent is being nice and personable, I pull out my deckbox, and he calls for a deck check.
It was a larger box, because I had double-sided cards and a whole bunch of tokens taking up extra room, but it checked fine. Immediately, this guy becomes a walking salt mine, just surly the entire match. I didn't realize until after he was just trying to find a free win, presumably hoping I'd had some chaff or something with the deck. (Thankfully I won that round.)
Bonus experience at another GP, I overheard a woman talking about how her opponent used a (completely made-up) rule where when you were deciding your attackers, if you tapped them, that was it, they were attacking. That's more "cheating" than "angle-shooting", because actively declaring your attacks and passing priority is a thing, but still.
I've heard something about attackers and tapping before. That someone got rules lawyered in a tourney because the rule is declare all attackers, then tap them. So the guy did what we all do. Say I'm attacking with this guy and tap it then go to tap his next guy then the opponent calls a judge over. Judge rules that yeah, first guy can only attack with 1 creature cuz you tap all guys after. Pretty scummy imo.
I hope for every video from now on, whenever Patrick Chapin comes up, you refer to him as "Player A" with no explanation.
Some years ago I got an opponent trying the "all legal targets" on me. I just asked which the targets were. He lied. I called a judge to try to shark on a win for calling their lie. The only thing we both got was a cold stare and a "for fucks sake, this is a LGS tournament, not the Pro tour" from the judge. I still think he was on the wrong and what I did was justified.
you can simply just say "can't do that" and not call a judge for this
@@alexanderficken9354 what's the worst scenario for me there though? He angle shot, then lied, I called a judge to raise awareness of the situation. Did I do it with "not completely pure intentions"? Yeah. But fuck their lying ass. If more people had done as I did they would have stopped angle shooting a long time ago.
@@DoctorMckay101 What do you mean by "lying" ? Like saying an hexproof creature was a legal target ?
def feels like a question of intent; if they just stuck with the "allow opp to sometimes misinterpret on their own" instead of "deliberately lying when opp asks for clarification," it would be fine - still sweaty - but not scummy. i've got no respect for lying. sorry the judge didn't correct the opp at all; really just ended up letting opp go on to scambag other innocent players.
@@lequinow basically, yeah. I remember it was a Finale of eternity and I had a protection from black apostle of purifying light I had boarded in for game 2.
Hey Vince, completely agree with the Chalice one. I'm a former legacy MUD player and when I missed my chalices triggers I would be furious. Not at my opponents, but at myself. If you can't remember your own triggers, you probably don't deserve to win anyway.
I also disagree with the chameleon colossus one, because I think it's clear in magic rules that you have to announce clearly what you targets are when you play a spell or ability, so "all legal targets" when you have a mix of legal and non legal targets on board is cheating imo.
Good video :)
Yeah, although on this one I would be like "So you're trying to give fear to 8 creatures when you paid 6 ?" since it's not limited to your own creatures.
I think the difference here is the intent. I think you should lose for missing your triggers, but you don't deserve to win from chalice checking- by banking on the opponent missing their triggers. I'm personally more into integrity, so I will also reminder things you miss even when I didn't have to.
@@yargolocus4853 the rules treat may and must triggers the same in terms of whether you need to remember your opponents' so I don't see a reason for players to have to do otherwise.
@@yargolocus4853that's an interesting take your opponent should lose from missing their triggers. But you shouldn't win from them missing them. You're contradicting yourself.
The only angel I shoot on-sight is Avacyn, Angel of Hope. That angel ruins games
Yeah the RiP interaction would have been ruled differently as the Judge wasn’t aware of the player acknowledging the trigger. The player exiled the graveyard, realized there was no announcement so they put it back.
The Judge was unaware of the at the time of the ruling and would have ruled differently if they knew as the trigger at that point has been acknowledged and thus not missed.
Chameleon Colossus one is not ok. The game would be fucking exhausting if you need to interrogate every statement your opponent makes at all times, especially when cards now have more words on them than the Oxford Dictionary
I dunno, man...like read the cards. I just go "Yeah, except for your Chameleon.". In paper the game includes a social component, and being able to outwit your opponent (with a technically legal play) because they're not paying proper attention is valid to me.
@@greyaye8565 how many cards are currently legal and seeing play in any given format?
are we expected to know every interaction?
are we expected to stop and read every card to make sure nothing is missed every time?
the opponent was being scummy. specifcally not saying the targets.
don't defend that.
@@alicepbg2042 It was not scummy, the other player should have heard the weird wording of “all legal targets” and asked for clarification if they didn’t immediately see what was up
@@OceanicBacon you described scummy and blamed the victim...
@@alicepbg2042 They accurately communicated their targets, their opponent just didn’t know what their cards did. It’s no different than saying “I target all my white creatures” and the opponent assuming all of their creatures are white. I don’t think it’s scummy to take advantage of your opponent not paying attention, but I’m also a pretty competitive player so I acknowledge that in a casual setting people might react differently
I remember the Rest in Peace one, and yeah, from memory the main deciding factor for the judge was that they weren't aware that the graveyard had been picked up after RIP was played (I believe the "you missed the trigger" player may have even denied doing so, but can't say that with certainty). The issue with that whole situation is that the picking up of the graveyard implies that the other player is aware of the trigger, and as such - with both players being good players and sporting people - nothing more should need to be said. But yeah, the 'defending' player tried to rules lawyer it; you'd say it was successful, though I'd argue it was more about the judge's lack of information rather than their specific angle shoot.
Magic would go even slower than it sometimes already does if you had to announce literally everything and couldn't rely on obvious implications in order to avoid being rules lawyered.
So I have an example. Cavern of souls for the first month did not make the valid creature played from it uncounterable, unless its controller actively declared the second mode when paying for the spell. Because mana abilities defaulted to the first mode, the colorless mode.
They changed the rule quickly, but for that month, or if they never changed the rule, would it be an inappropriate angle shoot to counter a creature?
Yes, because that's not the intention of anybody playing cavern
This is a prime Pleasant Kenobi video. Great job, absolutely loved it.
I think the bigger issue with the paper/online disconnect is not that paper doesn't match online, but that online doesn't match paper. I don't use arena or magic online, I use an open source fan project called Xmage, and whenever you attack something with trample, the game asks you 'How much damage do you want to assign to the creature?', whenever something triggers, it asks you, 'Hey, you wanna activate this?' and whenever the turn player passes priority, it prompts you if you want to act, and there are buttons to skip to your turn or to the next main phase and such which will auto-pass priority. While it may be annoying at times, it teaches new players about the intricacies of magic! A new player might assume that trample *automatically* goes through, but when you play on xmage, you learn that you can assign more damage to a creature, which has been useful in a game of commander for me before, where my opponent had the worm that draws you cards equal to the damage you dealt to it when you kill it, so I assigned all my trample damage to it and drew an extra 5 cards rather than dealing 5 damage to my opponent. Magic Arena *smoothing over* the intricacies of magic only gives new players a false impression of how the game actually works. In paper, there is no magic engine that does everything for you, you have to keep track of everything going on or you will get screwed by players with superior rules knowledge.
Angle shooting and trigger checking are the weapons of people who don't want to win a game of magic, they just want to win.
Chalice checking is fine because the way chalice is worded playing cards countered by chalice is a legal game action, and players have a responsibility to remember their mandatory/non-optional triggers. Players failing to remember detrimental non-optional triggers like upkeep costs are necessarily penalized, missing beneficial non-optional triggers need no penalizing because missing them is intrinsically penalizing. Additionally, players implicitly have to be able to chalice check for edge cases where you want to play into it. If your opponent has a 2 counter chalice and you have a 2 cmc spell you want in the graveyard, playing it into chalice is a real fringe play. The chalice player is also making a gamble when they chalice check, because if the opponent does remember their triggers the person trying to chalice check gets blown out losing their spell.
If Chalice said that the opponent can't cast spells, not that their spells are automatically countered, the discussion might be different because then chalice checking in and of itself would be an illegal game action and "illegal game actions are fair game if your opponent doesnt catch that you took one" isn't a good precedent to set for your game's code of conduct.
Now, imho, the second you attempt to do any sort of social engineering like trying to use conversation or obfuscate your intentions to try and forcibly make your opponent miss the chalice window or trying to fast play past the window, is the second we're in scumbag who should be DQ'd for sportsmanship territory. Just like other similar social manipulations like "you didnt say combat" or "you said target so youre using the third mode on esper charm". There's a big difference between chalice checking and using trickery to try and force a failed chalice check.
While I completely agree with the point about Dryad Arbor from a gameplay perspective, you gotta admit the dryad hidden among the forests is a pretty good Lore Win !
With my group we remind each other of mandatory triggers, but when it comes to optional ones, if you miss it, you miss it. Sometimes we remind each other of optional triggers, and most times the game is still in a state where we allow the missed trigger to happen
That's because this is a game, and meant to be fun, and acting in the spirit of good sportsmanship
4:00 - the "calling a judge just to make you mess up" thing can be really annoying. I lost a tournament match to it once, first game of the day and I wasn't totally in it yet - tapped a mountain and an Ancient Tomb, went to take off two life, realized I have Magus of the Moon in play so just untapped instead (which is pretty trivial), opponent called a judge, nothing happened, but I forgot to swing with the magus as a result - which ultimately won them the game, though they might not have known it, because by the end they had me dead on board, but they were at 8 life while I had a Fiery Confluence in hand. Had they lost the two life from the magus I would have won that tediously annoying round against an obnoxious opponent (they were doing similar things for the rest of the matches too).
The thing that rubs me wrong with saying "its on you to track your triggers" is that this only negatively impacts new players. They are the ones that are going to struggle to remember triggers so its just like; what you need more of a handicap against someone who doesnt know what they're doing?
The Chapin incident was actually a double angle shoot because he didnt say all legal targets he said all MY legal targets. Whether you interpret "my" as "all i control" or "all that are possible" shapes whether the Command also targets Budde's guys, giving him a window to fizzle the spell by bouncing one of his own guys.
I've seen more senior players taking advantage of newbies lack of knowledge while naming mana abilities with pithing needle on multiple occasions. Naming Llanowar Elves or something similar, for instance.
Bit scummy to do that against a total newbie, but I see that as slightly better than chalice checking
It's a learning experience LOL. if you play needle you're gonna have to learn what a mana ability is at some point.
I am so paranoid about being accused of cheating via foils during competitive events I never buy foils unless its for EDH. Also play a lot less competitive because of behavior like described in this video.
I personally am quitting magic as a whole, but know this:
Foils are not cheating. Any capable judge also knows this. Its not illegal to have a tron deck with all tron lands being in foil. The problems arise only if they are visibly curved or somehow distinct from other cards (sleeves and such).
Imagine getting a foil promo booster and not getting to use the cards that you open from them.
You do not need to be afraid, as youre doing nothing wrong. If someone accuses you, call a judge.
Foils themselves are *not* cheating and shouldn't net you an accusation. Being able to distinguish cards in your deck from anything but their front side is. So if your foils are curled that could be an issue. That would be marked cards, which would result in you being asked to exchange the cards/sleeves for ones that can't be distinguished from the other ones. If there is a clear pattern - such as all tron pieces being curled foils - then you will get a harsher penalty.
The best way to evade any issues is to ask the head judge of the tournament you are attending to check your deck before the event. He will shuffle a bit and look at it and then either ask you to replace cards that he has an issue with (I would carry non-foil spares for secret lair cards and others that tend to curl heavily) or give you the green light to use the deck. If anything comes up mention that the head judge gave you a pass and the issue should be sorted out.
Completely agree that Magic is a very complex game, and with the best will in the world even the pros miss things. Deliberate angle shooting leaves a really sour taste in my mouth though: a few years ago I was playing against a Jeskai Prowess deck, and they put out two Monastery Mentors. At the end of their turn I said "I'm paying X mana to tick up the counters on my Blast Zone to three", tapped all relevant lands and moved to my turn. When I tried to pop it, however, my opponent smugly informed me he'd noticed I'd forgotten to actually tick the die up from two to three and therefore nothing in board would be destroyed. I should also note that nothing else had happened to change the board state in between. I let it go, took the loss and destroyed him in the third game just like I had in the first and was on track to do in the second but it was a real eye-opener. What still gets me is the obvious pleasure he took in pointing out my mistake - all he had to say was "well I'm really sorry but actually there are only two counters on it, maybe you forgot to put one on but sadly as it stands the Mentors will be fine".
Question, was there a judge at your event? Your opponent would (technically have a point) if you tapped XX mana, pointed to Blast Zone and only added X-1 counters as this is a legal play. If you pointed and said it was going to 3, this should be no different than accidentaly changing the face of the die.
All the poor Angels getting shot. Oh well, Angles, too close to miss.
So, i went to Game Day for Eldridge Moon with a friend. I played magic with this friend pretty often. One of his turns, he gestured to me the same way he's passed turn every single time. I was holding up a counter spell, i also had a creature to flash in. So thinking he was passing turn the way he always does, i flashed in my creature. He goes "no i was just passing to combat"
Nice ad read - I think I'll actually give it a shot I need low carbs options for ramen in my life
i love you vince, just listen your voice is refreshing
I was playing at a pre-release for All Will Be One, and my opponent had a Toxic deck with Staff of Compleation. He hit me early on for a few points of Poison and then cast the Staff. At the end of each turn he would tap the Staff, pay 3 life and say Proliferate, while gesturing towards the board. I didn't increase my Poison counters once when he did this, because he didn't specify that he was proliferating my Poison counters. I managed to win the game at 9 Poison, and he called a judge on me at the end of the match after asking how I managed to survive that long. I explained to the judge that he simply tapped the Staff and said "Proliferate" without announcing what he was Proliferating, and the judge sided with me.
My issue with missing triggers in a casual setting are the other players. More often than not, your opponents will let you get your trigger as long as it wasn't an unreasonable amount of time after the missed trigger. This to me shows a level of respect between players as they're going to want to play against your deck the way it was intended to play. But there is always that one player that absolutely refuses to let you get your trigger even if you remember the trigger moments after you've missed it. Meanwhile that same player will throw a fit when you call them out for a misplay.
It's everyone's job at the table to know the board state and play accordingly, not just the owner of the card. If there's a collector ouphe on board and someone uses a treasure for mana, even if the owner of the collector ouphe missed it, the other player who used the treasure is still effectively cheating because they couldn't use it according to the board state.
People need to remember that sometimes someone is playing a new deck and they're still unfamiliar with how it works and refusing to allow that player to resolve their trigger is encouraging them to continue playing that deck incorrectly.
I had a player refuse to let me draw a card from an end step trigger when the next player in the rotation hadn't even untapped yet. I remembered this and later in the game when they tapped their lands to cast a spell, said x mana was floating but realized they were 1 mana short so they untapped their lands, I asked "What piece on the board allows you to untap your lands?" Their response was "I was 1 mana short so I couldn't cast my commander"
I proceeded to tell them that "That's not my problem. You tapped your lands and announced mana floating. What are you playing?"
They threw a tantrum and packed up their cards and left. You can't have it both ways people.
If a full turn or something passes, a missed trigger is a missed trigger. But if it's literal seconds later, don't be that scumbag.
Great followup to the Yugioh video! Really interesting
Glad you enjoyed it!
The chameleon colossus example isn't an angle shooting that should be allowed. (Ref 13:40 of video)
That's because it's against the rules to put profane command on the stack targeting 6 creatures, one with protection from black, and then when it resolves, only 5 of the creatures are affected. That's because you can't put something on the stack without valid targets when it goes on the stack. Since you can't target chameleon colossus, you can't legally put profane command on the stack with it targeting chameleon colossus.
Things need to go on the stack with "all legal targets", and when it resolves it works on "all legal targets". You don't get to target whatever you want when you place it on the stack and then it only affects "all legal targets".
I saw this in action by a well respected Vintage player to a friend of mine, with my friend with a Chalice on 1 and the Vintage player casting a brainstorm into the chalice. Short story was instead of saying countered and pointing to the chalice, he said ok - brainstorm happened.
I feel like the "all legal targets" angle shoot depends entirely on the board: are there any other more obviously immune creatures, like a shroud creature. If so, that's a little rougher, since it makes it more ambiguous the targets at a glance, but if the changeling is the only illegal target, that phrase should at least open your mind to the idea that not all the opponent's creatures are legal targets.
I actually use "All legal targets" as a training tool with my son? Only a few dings at the kitchen table sharpened his play. Not just to pay attention to what his opponent was doing, but also his own plays, and was a starting point for his own sense of bluffing. Def a jerky dad thing to do, and not something i'd feel comfortable doing at my local store, but it has its place.
That 100gecs shirt, I see a man of culture
When it comes to angle shooting, I really like and respect the sort of meta-game type angle shoots, like putting random tokens in your deck box or the pen thing or the one you talked about recently with LSV bluffing by counting blockers and reaching for tokens when he had settle in hand. Even Dryad Arbor I think is kind of funny and clever. In that case you're misleading your opponent with bluffs using information outside the game state and if they just completely ignored you and made their plays it shouldn't affect their decision making. So they're basically trying to get an advantage using information outside the game and you're trying to give them false information so they make suboptimal plays. That's fundamentally the same as looking at your hand and pretending to think about countering in response to your opponent casting something when you don't have a counter in hand, which is the most basic type of bluff that I think everyone is ok with.
What I absolutely don't respect is angle shooting that's just semantics or rules lawyering within the game itself over things both players know what the intended outcome is. That "you didn't SAY you want to do trample damage" thing is the perfect example of bad sportmanship and just being a scumbag, because you and I and anyone watching both know that the assumption is it's going to deal trample damage and it doesn't need to be said unless the damage is going to be assigned *differently* from that default assumption because both players know. The type of game these players want would be a nightmare to play because you'd have to very explicitly verbally walk through every single step of the game to make sure your opponent doesn't find some minor angle where they can just pretend not to know what the obvious play is and catch you out and that's just miserable and slows the game so much. I put Chalice checking into the same bucket also. I get why its legal but it feels like ignoring the spirit of the law in favor of the letter of the law and I don't really respect that.
Dryad Arbor is such a dick move though, you cannot expect your opponent to keep track of your bajillion forests that you keep moving around
@@IAmebAdger It's definitely a bit of a dick move but I still think it's kind of a fair bluff as long as when you play the Dryad Arbor you properly announce it to your opponent. If they forget it's on the board and lose to it, that's on them, they knew it was there and should have been keeping up with the board state. Same logic as if you have a manland up and your opponent forgets and attacks into it (which I've lost to plenty myself), that's their fault. It only crosses into cheating imo if you were to like play it secretly when your opponent isn't paying attention and try to play it off as your land drop for the turn or something. Or if they ask where it is/if it's tapped/to see it and you lie about it. As long as they're fully aware of your Dryad Arbor when it enters the battlefield, it's their job to remember it and keep track
It's on the far end of 'respectable/fair' angle shooting for me, but still a fundamentally different type from the 'pretending to misunderstand your intent and then catching you on semantics' type of angle shooting. To me it's the difference between the two legendary Pithing Needle stories: calling the judge to ask if you can name Dark Confidant with needle so your opponent lets it resolve thinking you're about to misplay, and then naming something else; and Borborymos vs Borborygmos Enraged. The first example is a clever bluff, if your opponent only paid attention to the board state and not your bluffing, they'd counter the needle. You're trying to bait them into making a suboptimal play by feeding them false information which they could have ignored. The second one is just bad sportsmanship, both players know exactly what the intent was and one is just pretending to be ignorant and using semantics to cheese out their opponent for their own advantage just because he used verbal shorthand that isn't actually ambiguous at all and anyone watching would understand exactly what he meant. I would be mad if I lost to that, or to any of those other type two angle shoots. If I lost to Dryad Arbor out of nowhere or any of the other type one angle shooting tactics I wouldn't be upset in the same way, I'd just find it funny or impressive and it would be a good story about a clever opponent.
Angriest opponent ever was the one that Chalice checked me twice and got fried the 3rd time with a Brainstorm I ignored as I responded with a Bowman
Question. What happens if the number of counters on chalice get changed before the effect resolves? Does it remember what the value was when spell was cast? OR us the value when the effect resolves?
While it is a player’s responsability to put his triggers on the stack, I also believe chalice checking is at least worth a warning. Those rules exist because players need to trigger imaginary mechanisms and sometimes you’ll forget. The intent behind these cards though is that they work accordingly to how it’s written on the cards. To this extent, both players should be responsible of making sure the game’s mechanics are running smoothly. If someone continuously cast spells through chalice, they’re breaching that part of the mental contract established to make a game of mtg work.
The tournament rules used to require you to point out your opponents' missed triggers. It was much worse than the current situation, you would end up having to spend mental energy on playing your opponents' decks because they were not doing them properly
Yeah, this is what I mention when I heard about the Sheoldred shenanigans from last year. The only other change we can make to triggers is to make then unable to be missed and we already did that.
That sounds correct to me. Every player has an obligation to uphold the game state being accurate.
Wait...I do this anyway, but in 4-6 player Commander games. Surely keeping track of one opponent's boardstate with usually well-known decklists is much easier.
@greyaye8565 yea like, casual commander games already do this. It is definitely an expectation we can have of tournament play
@aldenkahl8703 I think most people agree with the principle, the problem is that it's pretty much impossible to enforce, and even if you think it's easy when using tournament lists the pressure and stakes make it a much more mentally taxing experience.
Not to mention you don't know that you SUCCESSFULLY kept track of your 4-6 pod board states and triggers. If you missed some you'd have no clue, no matter how confident or thorough you think you were.
Less corner shoot more 'mind games' but if my buddy or I are playing blue, will occasionally replace saying 'cards in hand?' with 'counters in hand?' to get a tell out of each other.
The one thing I’d say is calling out on decks is fine. That’s the only way to confirm cheaters is to call judges if you think something’s not on the level
I have some FBB german Forests in my Hardened Scales deck that look like Plains due to a misprint, I make sure to announce very clearly that they're forests, but I should probably take them out because it might be seen as angle shooting.
Also there's speeding through Urza's Saga search triggers to grab a needle before an opponent can react!
As far as the whole trample situation. Whatever judge called the rule is just wrong, unless the policies have changed since then. Generally speaking you are technically required to assign either some or no damage to all possible targets and declare how you are assigning damage. However it is effectively shortcut’ed (not in the way of a proper tournament shortcut, but just as something that doesn’t happen to save time) because having to actually announce it every time is dumb. In a situation with two blockers you technically have to say how much damage you assign to each, and could technically assign all damage to the first one even if there is extra. Which is just like the trample situation. In these situations the default is assumed that excess damage is dealt to the second blocker and the same goes for trample and a player/planeswalker. Not only is it just the default action that happens, but judges are taught that a player generally speaking always intends to do the generally beneficial play. You don’t have to say my counterspell is targeting your counterspell not my own spell if you counter a counter.
Ah Dryad Arbor--the young man's Cheatyface.
I think the rules solution provided was bad only because it is there to "solve" the Secret Lair Dryad Arbor. Because it literally just looks like a forest. It doesn't solve any shenanigans with other lands that could become creatures that could generally be hidden in the same ways. I think it's a slippery slope to make the argument that DA is an exception, personally.
Now, I do have a tendency to buy damaged cards that are wildly bent out of shape and flattening them out because it's better paying 3$ for a seedborn muse than full price sometimes 😅 but I don't do it to get ahead in a game.
So, I stopped playing about a decade ago and got the bug to try out Commander again recently as I was overhearing some neat stuff happening in games near where the free paint night at a FLGS is held. Queue me looking back into the game, tinkering on Moxfield to see what I can build up, and the spiders throwing MTG related vids and shorts at me. I'm kinda feeling like MTG has gotten to the point where it just needs a standing ref. The technical aspects of how the stack and priorities work with all of the interactions that have been added in paper games gives me a headache (a pox on the person who turned Exiled into yet ANOTHER resource to track and exploit, goddamn). There are enough things going on that more interactions are starting to feel like, "how does banding work again?" writ large.
GRAMMAR POLICE -- (As in, nothing to see here. Move along): "Cue", not "Queue". In this context, you are recalibrating the point of entry for your narrative, not establishing a lineup of objects or people.
@@jdonvance Thank you! I do get those mixed up on the reg.
@@jasonrhome710 Hey, thanks for replying. I almost didn't write that. I don't like looking like a pedantic jerk or hurting anyone's feelings, but if no one points out errors, how will we get better? I'm glad to know that at least in this instance I may have helped improve someone's life.
that FTV dryad arbor crap was the absolute worst - someone tried to pull that crap on me and they got to hear me rant at them for the rest of the match.
futuresight version looks way better (not that that mattered to those running it)
I am of the thought that if you are playing a casual event and the trigger is a must ability and you missed it, we will do the trigger if it is or isnt good for me, wanna get people in the mindset that triggers are there for a reason and that they should remember what their cards do
So, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think with how Comp REL rules have been worded nowadays, you can't "miss" a trigger. Like, with the rest in peace example, if the board state hasn't changed then it's considered not missed. My citation is the Sheoldred vs. Consider + Opt drama that happened...last year, I think? time flies...
Like, if time passes yeah the trigger is missed, but I don't think if the game state hasn't changed (or, more specifically, if nothing has been done that would interfere with the game state (delving after a missed RIP for instance))
The Chameleon Collosus example I think should be considered misrepresenting your board, myself.
YO VINCE IS THAT A 100 GECS SHIRT??????? LETS GO good taste
I did once get into it with someone at an open who was playing chinese chronicles urzatron lands and suspiciously all 4 of his mines were the one that looks like a tower.
Personal favorite of mine...
Buddy of mine was playing jeskai ascendancy combo vs goblins in modern when tarkir was still new (😢)... He has milled his altar of the brood and only had his sylvian caryatid in play.... My buddy knows the game is done but says... Meh... And proceeds to combo off... "Presenting a loop where I buff my creature giving it +100/+100 and protection from red"... Looks at his opponent... And the guy just goes... "Hmmm... Yep, u got it... GG"
Me-.... Doesn't it have defender tho?
Was there a tournament example of the cavern of souls change (having to announce mana from cavern to make things uncounterable vs it being assumed)?
Had a player angle shoot me over a lifegain trigger at magiccon over a difference of 1 pack. Never felt dirtier hearing him say "good game"
Angle shooting is why I sold my copies of chalice of the void. Was so tired of almost every single opponent at an FNM doing it
One thing I don’t like about Christmas? My fave contenters go away to open gifts. Have a good XMas, guy.
Question for those opposed to a "chalice check": if you control the chalice and opponet forgets and cast into it, would you let them take it back? If not, why is the opponent more responsible for remembering your triggers than you?
Back in the day we used to hide treetop village under other lands for the gotcha. I do not miss it
I’m surprised you didn’t cover the LSV settle the wreckage play
For half a second, I thought this was gonna be a Splatoon video
Personally if I miss my own triggers I don't allow things to be reset especially if they benefit me. If I make a mistake I let it happen, and I let that be a lesson to myself.
Nexus of fate is only foil and not in the main set. It was a box topper or something.
Double sleeves really helps with the foil thing cause it's really hard to tell even when you know your deck. Like I had 4 prerelease foil hydroide krasis and played them in standard till they rotated but I double sleaved and it was impossible to notice the curl.
FNM modeern, I was trying to draw in my opponent's upkeep from Mishra's bauble. Opponent immediately went to draw, grabbed his card and said that I "missed the trigger". I thought he was joking and went to draw and he actually seemed upset about it, saying that if I don't announce that I want to hold priority in upkeep then I've missed the phase (very untrue).
I told this fella "Mate, there's so much wrong with that idea that I'm not even sure where to start, but if those are the rules you want to play by then you missed your untap step. Also, I'm gonna hold priority at my upkeep and skip to your end step since we don't care about priority permissions."
Apparently this was what he needed to hear as well. Good guy, found me before I went home that night to apologise as well. I still missed the bauble trigger.
I was sitting next to a player in Mono G, in Pioneer. When adding mana through Nykthos, he was asked: "What's with Polukranos on the flipside?". His answer: "Its mana value is still 3".
This is potentially just a misunderstanding of the actual rules. It's mana value is 3 it does not have 3 green pips however.
I agree with you, @@DEV-Plays. That must be the case for a vast number of cases. Knowing the parties, it was not in this case, I assure you. I found it quite smart from his part to be honest. Even the apologies were very well crafted. A master of deceit, I give him that haha
Was it just a general rules update or did a situation cause "lands in front" to no longer be a thing? When i was at a LGS and someone told me i was not allowed to have lands in front of my creatures I was genuinely sad. I still to this day play my lands at the top of my mat until I have other permanents and have to establish clear zones.
As part of Profane Command, you have to declare targets. You can't target Chameleon Colossus with the spell, as it has protection from black. Pretty sure if a judge got called on this, it'd be a rules violation and you'd have to change the target list to not include the Colossus
In the scenario described the player doesn't target the Colossus. The player says something like "all legal targets" which doesn't include Colossus, it just implies to the opponent that it could
@@nickschmucker8836 Right. But he is saying you must declare each target, not use generalized speech to declare targets.
This seems the same as the previous example of chalice checking; would MtGO allow the player to target the protection from black creature? I'd presume not.
I’m not fully aware of how the rules address this but intuitively I agree. If a card says x targets you should have declare x targets. Using generalized language to resolve a specific event serves no purpose other than to intentionally create ambiguity in the game state.
@@Max-rc6pq And to shortcut. In different scenarios it's much clearer and easier to say, target my whole team than t point and announce like thirteen creatures.
The real magic of competetive magic is how aware you are of your state, and theirs. I've met people who can't keep track of their life total, and I've met people who learn my entire deck after 1 infinite mill state and predict the exact sideboard.
The human element is what makes it a skill based game with heavy emphasis of luck, not just solely luck based drafting into a turing match.
Attention is finite, and using this to your advantage is colloquially scummy, but it's why MtG is so damn entrancing. Once you lose to one of these, you never will again.
Competitive magic is mostly angle-shooting & there are many instances cheaters trying their luck, such as activating artifact ability while oppoenents have a Karn in play. I've encountered this many times, once with a judge beside me. I asked him "r u going to allow that?" & Opponent never gets a warning. This guy is known in my LGS to "try his luck", but since there's no penalty / punishment it continues.
My view on angle shooting:
If you’re trying to do something that gives you information you shouldn’t have access to, or can allow you to manipulate your deck, then that is bad. Full stop, true in all situations.
However, playing in a way that takes advantage of your opponent’s missed triggers, or their lack of knowledge of rules or mechanics, that’s more grey. If it’s an FNM draft or prerelease at your local shop then it’s more on the scummy side. But if it’s a more competitive setting, you’re there to play better than your opponents. You are competing to see who is more skilled at the game. I equate it to racing, maybe an opponent takes a bad line around a corner and you see an opportunity to pass them. Does that make you bad? Or playing baseball and an opponent doesn’t understand, or forgets how an infield fly works, and this allows you to score, or get an easy out. That doesn’t make you a scummy player.
Also, trying to intentionally confuse an opponent on how a rule or mechanic works is shitty. But bluffing about what cards you have, what your intentions are, etc, especially in competitive play is ok.
The Colossus example is a grey case. Scummy at a casual event, but ok in a competitive event.
I heard Eaper Charm only has one mode that targets, which is discard. But most everyone casts it as a draw 2. So when your opponent casts an Esper Charm against you, you should always ask who it's targeting and hope they say themselves. Then call a judge and force them to discard 😅
Rule sharking and angle shooting makes the game deeply unpleasant to play, often causing interactions between players to be deeply hostile. I much prefer the yugioh system of keeping gameplay fair and friendly.
How does it work in Yugioh?
@@JelloPiranhaAll players are responsible for all parts of the game state. So you would be required to remind your opponents of their Dark Confidant triggers, for example.
Which I just don't think is good, logistically. YGO in particular takes it too far and prohibits even just bluffing. You can't tell your opponent you have Force of Will in hand if you don't. They took a decent idea that's hard to implement and went overboard with it.
You can't tell your opponent you have Force of Will in hand if you don't in Magic, either.
Huh. Yeah, that's interesting. I think bluffing should absolutely be a part of every card game. But as a much more casual and often Commander player, I do like the idea of everyone being responsible for enforcing the rules, especially when it isn't a "may" ability. Either way, really appreciate the detailed answer.
@@RibusPQR You very much can. You're allowed to lie about private information like that, the MTR explicitly says you can. Your opponent could even Thoughtseize you, then ask later in the turn what cards you had because they forgot to write it down, and you're free to lie.
you could do a lot of stuff with lightning rift and cycling cards like decree of justice
I heavily disagree with the "each person is resposible for their own mandatory triggers to smooth gameplay" debate. It is not hard for two high level players to both work to maintain game state. Especially with how much more attentive and invested people would be in maintaining it with potential rewinding or resolving of missed trigger being more of a hassle to resolve than it currently is.
Small sacrifice for honest Magic and less angle shooting in my opinion. Not to mention players should strive for games to be played as intended with all mandatory triggers like chalice occuring, rather than being able to "gotcha" your opponent with a rules technicality to "smooth gameplay". A rules technicality you cant even exploit in online formats proving it is not intended to be a core component of the game.
Also misleading your opponent isn't equal to a bluff. A bluff is based of using partial information, not obsfucating your visible board state. Should not be allowed.
You also flew close to the answer to all of this. All angle shooting is "winning with legalese rather than your magics cards and your skill as a player", not just the one circumstance you called that. ALL angle shooting is this, and as to why all angle shooting shouldn't be allowed in the game.
Why audio sound muffled?
The current rules around Chalice are the best they can be. Chalice checks are a part of Legacy.
"All legal targets" is so good. 99% of the time, such precise wording would immediately make me suspicious and double check the spell and board, but at a high-stakes comp REL situation, I would assume the opponent is covering all bases and being precise so I'M the one who can't angle or rules lawyer over the game winning play.
This could be flipped around in the example from the video. "All legal targets" okay so 6 of my blue creatures have fear I'll block all your stuff. The non-profane player could also write down that the command drained the caster for 6. There's no way I'd ever be comfortable changing anything about a game state when "all legal targets" is the only communication of targets for a spell that has a definite number of targets.
Magic isn't so hard you can't make a small cluster of 6 target creatures and say, "profane command, choosing to target you for life loss and these creatures for fear."
I feel like a lot of people who dislike chalice checking miss at least some of the reasons for why wizards changed the rules to allow it. If my opponent is playing a deck with many triggers, me being penalized just as much as they are for missing the occasional one is not fun.
Chalice is an example that's fairly easy to remember and is played a lot, but I had a deck playing both altar of the brood and soul Warden at one point as combo pieces and I would not want to force my opponent to have just as much responsibility to handle those as I did.
This way, you just treat benificial must triggers as may triggers and everyone is encouraged to remember their own triggers while not having to be responsible for their opponents.
This has also allowed for more consistent card design. Most triggers that are generally beneficial are must triggers these days to allow for less clicks on Arena but if this rule wasn't the case, that interest would be competing with wanting them to be may triggers to make them missable to encourage people to keep track of their own board state.
I also don't totally buy the argument about making things closer to digital. There are lots of differences other than this that apply depending on your platform and rules enforcement level. Mtgo has a chess clock which paper formats don't for one example. While we should strive to synchronize what we can, there are some differences that exist due to the limits of the players or the technology.
I think the chameleon colossus if you said I'm gonna pick all I can or all legal targets. And if you opponent doesn't ask about it during block step saying like so what has fear? Or what does chameleon say? Then you tell them but otherwise that's on them to realize
Looks like the back has curved over the top on that commander foil. Unlike most people with warped cards who need to add some humidity to make the cardboard side bigger, it seems you need to dry yours out a bit. Would you be willing to try an experiment with some of your foils? That is, once you have them flat, put them in a box so they're held tightly then freeze & thaw them a few times. I've been experimenting with simple ways to "temper" foils to reduce or eliminate their warping without visible damage, and thus far freeze/thaw cycles to cause weakening of the cellulose walls to provide some spring between the cardboard and glue interface has had the most promising results for a simple and nondamaging means to make foils less humidity-sensitive. Other ideas involved cycling between a high humidity and low humidity box and ironing the cards, both of which seem more damaging than taking advantage of water expanding when it freezes.
Living in England, theyre definitely too damp 😂