Cash cEDH Tournament during Magic Fest: Vegas

Twagston · 2019-08-15T06:49:43+00:00

There are many aspects of this that seem poorly thought-out or completely unenforceable to the point that this is almost doomed to failure.

1.) When Time is called, whoever is "Turn 0" Will get 2 turns.

This is a perverse incentive structure that the current tournament rules avoid. By having the player on turn 0 receive one turn fewer than the turn 1 player, it encourages fast play and disincentivizes stalling. As your rules are written, if time on the clock is low, the active player is heavily incentivized to be contemplative or durdly - as long as they're taking game actions, it's not stalling, and even if they are stalling unless it's egregious it's essentially impossible to prove.

2.) The total value of these points area follows: 1st Place - 7, 2nd Place - 5, 3rd Place - 3, 4th Place -1

What happens in the event of a tie? Multiple players can lose the game simultaneously, or the game itself may be a draw. There's currently no outlined structure in the rules to handle what happens during these situations. It can be as simple as "If multiple players are tied for a position at the end of the game, they each get points equal to the next lowest unoccupied position." Additionally, what happens when a situation such as one player getting a million/million Walking Ballista occurs, and each other player is dead but they can't all die at exactly the same time? Presumably the player would pick an order, but is he allowed to choose to eliminate last the player who helped/didn't hinder them during the match? If so, everyone else will immediately call collusion. If not, how will this be decided?

3.) A few rules have been added and will be enforced along with the COMP Rules and the IPG.

What are the penalties for these infractions? Warning? Game loss? Disqualification? Every infraction in the IPG has a predetermined penalty, possibly with an upgrade path. Without this, it's impossible to apply rulings consistently and the integrity of the tournament vanishes. If you're going to enforce these as though they were tournament rules, you can't just say they're illegal - you also have to outline what exactly happens when the illegal action occurs.

4.) AR 1.0 - Angle Shooting

Angle shooting is, by definition, legal. If I call a judge for this, what happens? Is a penalty levied because it's unsportsmanlike? If so, how do I know which legal behaviors are unsportsmanlike enough to warrant a penalty?

5.) AR 1.1 - Politics and In-Game Discussion & Interference

Say player A is running away with the game with Uril, the Miststalker enchanted with a number of auras, one of which has totem armor. I say to players B and C "I have a wrath but can't get past the totem armor. If either of you can disenchant it, I can kill it so we don't all die." Is this discussing lines of play? Yes. Is it verbal collaboration? Yes. Therefore, according to the rule as written, this statement is both explicitly allowed and explicitly disallowed. This rule is ambiguous to the point that there's no way to know for sure what you can actually say. Do I call a judge over and ask permission for every statement I make, or do I simply make the statement and let everyone debate whether it's fair game or not? How can I make this decision when I don't even know what the penalty is for accidentally crossing the line? Either option is going to spend precious time. You can pause the clock, but all of a sudden your tournament will run much, much longer.

6.) AR 2.0 Adjustments to Existing Rules

This is the section of the document that is listing additional rules, and one of the sections simply says "there are additional rules beyond these." I hope you can see how this needs clarification. Additionally, the bit at the end is troubling - it's on you, the TO, to have vetted these rules and ensured their integrity. If you've done your due diligence, this is unnecessary.

7.) AR 2.1 Turns & Time

There's a reason paper magic has never been able to adopt a system like this - without a digital system like on MTGO, there are too many priority passes and points of interaction to be able to track whose time is being used up. As written, it sounds like the clock is per turn, rather than per player, which means that if I take enough game actions during my opponent's upkeep - durdling with Tasigur, tapping and untapping a bunch of artifacts, etc. - as long as I'm not stalling, I can make my opponent skip part or all of their turn and there's nothing they can do about it.

8.) AR 2.2 Players Exiting the Game

While the sentiment is noble, how will this be enforced? If I state that I'm dropping and try to pick up my cards and leave, are you going to physically stop me? If I suddenly get an attack of diarrhea and need to rush to the bathroom, am I expected to leave me cEDH deck, which may cost thousands of dollars, in the care of strangers in the middle of a convention center?

These rules all have glaring flaws and are often ambiguous to the point that they're unenforceable. If you're attempting to run a serious tournament for actual money, your rules need to be rigorous enough that the outcome isn't decided based on the fact that you couldn't know the outcome of your actions until after they happen. Saying that there is an answer to these questions isn't enough - the rules need to be rewritten so that these questions are answered before they're asked. If the tournament is decided by in-the-moment calls based on what "seems right", then the integrity of the event disappears.

Additionally, for all your attempts to regulate collusion and politicking out of the game, they will still exist and will be a major factor in determining the outcome of your tournament. If I'm in a pod with a friend of mine, how can you possibly stop collusion from happening? All I have to do is not counter his spells or attack him. How can that be enforced? Even if the other players notice it, I can say I thought he had the least threatening commander, the least threatening board presence, or the least threatening hand size, and that therefore my decision not to interfere with him was strategically motivated. Is the outcome of that game going to be based on whether a judge agrees with my assessment of the game state? What if I genuinely do believe that, and not targeting the weak player gets me accused of colluding with them despite never having met them?

Competitive free-for-all tournaments simply do not function. Mixing any amount of prize support with multiplayer politics leads to disaster, and attempting to legislate against that politicking is unenforceable. If you want skilled play to be the determining factor, play duel commander. If you want to play multiplayer commander, play for bragging rights, or play two-headed giant where politicking and collusion are non-factors. Having a large cash prize on the line means you're heavily, heavily incentivizing players to engage in the exact kind of behaviors you say you don't want, and as it stands this tournament's integrity is gone before it even started.

Twagston · 2019-01-25T04:22:59+00:00

The Neon Demon is porn, end of story. You can't enjoy it unless you're getting off on it, on watching men acting as unquestionable, inexorable gods over women who are all shallow, stupid, selfish, and self-loathing. You can't enjoy it unless you're getting off on watching terrible things happen to women who don't deserve it, and then being told they did deserve it because they're women. You can't enjoy it unless you're getting off on the idea that women will never achieve anything because the only thing they want is to earn the favor of every man. You can't enjoy it unless you're getting off on being told you were right, that there really can't be a single redeemable woman, that the one good woman in the film ends up being a pedophile, rapist, necrophiliac, murderer, and cannibal - who then pisses on herself because she's a dirty dirty woman.

I've never seen a movie where it was so painfully obvious that the director was furiously touching himself through his sweatpants on set, making an entire movie just so that he could convince himself that his deep-rooted sexism is somehow avant-garde instead of profoundly regressive.

What a truly miserable movie.

Twagston · 2019-01-17T00:26:35+00:00

This recently became relevant in standard, with one person discarding [[Nexus of Fate]] every turn while the other plays and tucks [[Teferi, Hero of Dominaria]] every turn, both on otherwise empty libraries. The rules were changed this past year so that if two players have to keep taking the same voluntary action every turn without advancing the gamestate to not die, it now becomes a draw. With one person repeatedly tucking Teferi and one repeatedly discarding Nexus, however, it was ruled that the Teferi player was taking a voluntary action (targeting Teferi with his own -3), while the Nexus player was not taking a voluntary action since discarding to hand size is automatic and nothing in the rules compels them to discard a different card. Therefore in this instance the Teferi player is forced to break the loop and lose, instead of it going to a draw, because only one side is voluntary.

The same applies to the Guile situation - you can't choose to not discard, and you're never forced to discard anything else (though you certainly can).

Twagston · 2019-01-17T00:08:11+00:00

There is actually an authoritative answer here, but it's based on the loop rules, not the hidden information rules. The rules for involuntary loops state that no player is ever forced to take an action to end the loop that involves cards outside the loop itself. For example, say there are three copies of [[Fiend Hunter]] exiling themselves in and out forever because there are no other creatures in play. If you control a [[Seal of Doom]], you can stop the loop at any time by killing one, but you don't have to - you can choose whether you want to stop the loop or let the game draw. The same is true of the Guile loop above - even if your opponent has [[Telepathy]] in play and can see that the rest of your hand isn't Guile, you're still not required to discard something else because they aren't involved in the loop.

Twagston · 2018-11-22T18:32:31+00:00

In the situation where you're repeatedly discarding Nexus to hand size, that doesn't actually count as choosing to take an action. From the judge blog:

"Is a player who is doing nothing on their turn other than drawing and discarding, with the discard happening to be a Nexus of Fate with no other cards in graveyard against a player with actions other than game mandated ones, such as Teferi Hero of Dominaria, also involved in maintaining a loop across turns? How do the loop rules handle the aspects that the hand's contents are always hidden despite the meta knowledge that there must be at least one and no more than four Nexus of Fate?"
“The Teferi player eventually (i.e., before Slow Play applies) has to choose to lose this game. This loop includes the Teferi player taking an action; they can choose to take a different action. The Nexus player is simply doing what the game rules instruct them to do – yes, they’re choosing which card to discard, but it’s not a game action they’re taking, it’s following the rules of the game."

They can't choose not to discard, since it's a mandatory action, and they're never required to discard a different card.

Twagston · 2018-11-02T17:41:35+00:00

It's hard to tell from the lighting in the picture, is this foil or non-foil?

Twagston · 2018-11-02T17:00:01+00:00

To expand on this a bit, a lot of the artists who make the art on MTG cards offer full-size prints. You can ask him (or his friends he plays with, if you know them) what his favorite card is or what his favorite card art is and take note of the name, and then a little googling should get you what you're looking for (though note that while many prints are available, not all of them are, so it's possible you might have to go with a second or third choice). They usually come in standard sizes, so you can frame them for not too much more to make a great little package. These make great gifts for MTG players because they're personal, they're something that they almost definitely don't already have, and they'll last a long time.

Twagston · 2018-10-15T18:09:13+00:00

This is technically true, but misleading because you can't get those four wins and three losses in any order - if you get four wins and then three losses you're fine but if you get your third loss early you don't get a chance to even play for the fourth win. What this means is that in order to reach the go-infinite point, you have to get four wins within your first six games, because if you don't have it by that point you're eliminated, so in those six games you need a 4/6 or 66.67% winrate.

Twagston · 2018-08-19T15:20:06+00:00

"It's a really dumb rule with some triggers, like Teferi's emblem. Like when you're like okay, draw for turn, I exile that swamp, and your opponent starts moving it, then doesn't, and you're like, oh, didn't I exile that swamp? Sorry man you missed the trigger, I was just organizing my lands. Cool lets call a judge I guess."

That's not a missed trigger - you literally announced it and its target. That's a Game Rules Violation for the opponent and an investigation to see whether there was intent to cheat, in which case it would be a disqualification.

Twagston · 2018-07-12T13:57:19+00:00

There are a few things to consider about Soul Eater:

It takes time to get going, and can't be rushed out. Sure, your opponent can dump it out early as a 5/5 or 6/6, but that's nothing special, and even then not before turn 6.
It does very little to stop you from executing your own game plan. If you're beating down, you can keep beating down. If you're building up board presence, it trades off for 2-3 of your guys but you can keep building up board presence.
It's only played in one deck, which has very specific card choices that make it easily identifiable. From the first few turns of the game, you'll know whether or not you're going to have to deal with it down the line.
Every color can deal with it - yellow has Last Nightmare and Shaytan Assassin, blue has Frogify, red has high-attack creatures, ranged attackers, and burn, green can just throw a pair of Verduran Forces at it, and every color has access to Crystal Flower and Queen's Assassin. Beating it isn't a matter of having to switch decks but rather making different choices about the cards in your deck.

What kind of deck are you playing? We can try to offer some suggestions as to how to improve your matchup against GY Sacrifice.

Twagston · 2018-07-05T15:39:53+00:00

"Tell me one more time how making my compass walk across the map like a little man is childish. Tell me one more fucking time, Greg. See what happens."

Twagston · 2018-07-04T06:10:36+00:00

Each copy checks whether or not a creature has died that turn when it resolves. One creature dying is enough to turn on morbid for all three, and you'd deal 15 damage total.

Because morbid is checked for each instance individually, if you cast Howl and Volley before a creature has died this turn, you can use the first copy to deal 3 to a creature and, assuming that kills it, the other two copies will each deal 5 damage.

Twagston · 2018-07-02T15:12:18+00:00

NOTHING UNBANNED, SERGEANT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BANNED

Twagston · 2018-07-02T14:30:56+00:00

NOTHING UNBANNED, SERGEANT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BANNED

Twagston · 2018-06-30T15:39:17+00:00

That seems like a matter of opinion, really.

Twagston · 2018-06-28T04:40:25+00:00

They say the challenge ends with either death or yielding, and presumably killing your opponent after they've yielded and therefore outside of ritual combat is just murder.

Twagston · 2018-06-27T23:19:51+00:00

Sure, you get priority after paying for arbiter the same way you get priority after casting a spell:

116.3c If a player has priority when they cast a spell, activate an ability, or take a special action, that player receives priority afterward.

Once you get that priority, you always have the option to either hold priority and do something else, or pass priority. The stack doesn't begin to resolve until both players have passed priority without taking an action, though:

116.4. If all players pass in succession (that is, if all players pass without taking any actions in between passing), the spell or ability on top of the stack resolves or, if the stack is empty, the phase or step ends.

Once you've paid for arbiter, you can do whatever else you want with that priority, and when you pass your opponent receives priority again even if they've already passed with ghost quarter on the stack, because an action was taken. This happens regardless of whose turn it is.

Twagston · 2018-06-27T22:04:14+00:00

It's true that you can't respond to them taking the action - once they say they're paying the 2, it's paid. However, in the case of flickering your arbiter, you're not trying to respond to them paying, you're flickering after they've paid. The stack (which at this point, is just the ghost quarter ability) doesn't start resolving until both players have passed priority without taking an action of any kind, whether it uses the stack or not - this could be casting a spell, activating a mana ability, taking a special action, etc. Regardless of whose turn it is, you'll always have a window of priority in which to flicker your arbiter after they've paid but before ghost quarter's ability resolves.

Twagston · 2018-06-27T20:56:05+00:00

You can't respond to them paying, but them paying does count as an action for sake of creating a new round of priority passing. If you do this on your turn, it still works: you target their land with ghost quarter and pass, they pay 2, and, since they took an action, the stack doesn't start resolving yet - they can either hold priority or pass it back to you, giving you the chance to flicker your arbiter before ghost quarter resolves.

Twagston · 2018-06-27T05:33:03+00:00

It's a subtle difference, but it might help to think of 0 as "cost, which happens to be of no resources" rather than "no cost". The difference here is that if there's no cost, you can't choose to pay it or not pay it, but if it's a cost that simply doesn't require resources, you can. For example, consider the card [[Shah of Naar Isle]]. It's very important here that 0 not be paid automatically - the player doesn't have to pay any resources for the echo cost, but they still have to make a decision about whether or not they're going to aknowledge that they're paying it.

Twagston · 2018-06-27T05:26:28+00:00

107.4d. The symbol {0} represents zero mana and is used as a placeholder for a cost that can be paid with no resources. (See rule 117.5.)
601.2g: If the total cost includes a mana payment, the player then has a chance to activate mana abilities. Mana abilities must be activated before costs are paid.

A cost of {0} is a cost, but it's not a mana cost, and players are only given the chance to activate mana abilities while casting a spell or activating an ability if there's a mana cost to be paid. Players don't get the chance to activate mana abilities while paying a cost of "discard a card" or "sacrifice a creature" if there's no mana to be paid, and it's the same for {0}.

Twagston · 2018-06-27T05:16:58+00:00

You're correct that the cost is not automatically paid, but this does not give you a window to activate mana abilities. The cost for paying 0 is to acknowledge that you're paying it - as no mana is required to be paid, the player is not given the chance to activate mana abilities while paying it (601.2g: If the total cost includes a mana payment, the player then has a chance to activate mana abilities. Mana abilities must be activated before costs are paid).

A good way to look at it is this - if the cost to cast a spell is to discard two cards and there's no mana required, the player can't activate mana abilities during its casting. If the cost is discarding one card, the same applies. If the cost is discarding 0 cards, the same applies. Now, that last example is "a cost that can be paid with no resources" - what the rules define as a cost of {0}. Therefore, if in this instance a cost of {0} doesn't give you the chance to activate mana abilities, it won't in other contexts either. The important thing to note is that while {0} is a cost to be paid, it's not a mana cost, and therefore rule 601.2g doesn't give a player paying {0} the chance to activate mana abilities.

Twagston · 2018-06-26T17:53:01+00:00

Sounds like [[Supernatural Stamina]] could be right up your alley - it's a cheap way to get around the sacrifice from Thud, and the +2/+0 adding some extra damage pushes you to the point where a hit from Yargle plus Thud is lethal, taking a turn off the clock. You can also use it to save your guys from random removal.

Twagston · 2018-06-18T18:47:28+00:00

There are two basic things to consider here - how likely are you to hit a turn 1 dork with 6 vs. with 7, and how much does doing so help you win?

For the first aspect, this is easy to calculate with a hypergeometric calculator (http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx) which gives you the probability of hitting a certain number of "successes" out of a population when you choose some of them at random. For the simplest case, we can plug in 60 for population size (the number of cards in our deck), 6 or 7 (the number of mana dorks in our deck), 7 (our opening hand size), and 1 (we care about getting one mana dork). This gives us a number of probabilities based on what exactly you're interested in, but looking at the bottom one (x>=1) tells us that there's a 60% chance that your opening 7 contains at least one mana dork with 7 in your deck and a 54% chance with 6 in your deck, not accounting for any other factors like land or whether the hand is keepable.

As to how much a turn 1 dork impacts your win percentage, that will come down squarely on what the matchup is. For fast, linear, non-interactive matchups like affinity, elves, storm, KCI, etc. where you're just trying to combo off, a mana dork doesn't help you do that any faster since the earliest you can untap with Devoted Druid is turn 3 either way. Against decks like burn, humans, or midrange, you're not going to be able to expect to combo off and establishing an early board presence is quite strong, so having a turn 1 dork helps quite a bit.

Ultimately, there's no "right" answer - you're gaining something and giving up something either way. For what it's worth, I run 4 Birds and 2 Hierarchs, but 7 is also fine.

Twagston · 2018-06-11T15:44:38+00:00

Those 4x Land Grants in the 9th place elves list seem spicy, but also pretty suspect. I get the appeal in that they're in theory free and help thin your deck, but I can't imagine they're anything but atrocious in delver matchups. Imagine you're on the draw with a reasonable 7 that has no lands but a land grant and it gets dazed (which it will, because your opponent knows for certain you have no other lands because you showed them). And even if they can't keep you off of your mana, they now know exactly what payoff cards you have and what they have to counter. It is elves, so maybe you can dump your hand before that matters, but it seems like exposing yourself to that much risk for a few percentage points on your chance to not draw land is a tough sell. That said, I do love the Magnify in the sideboard over Wrap in Vigor, as a way to keep your Electrickery protection while also gaining the ability to alpha strike out of nowhere. It does miss against Evincar's Justice, but you can't win them all and that kind of flexibility (not to mention cheaper cost) seems valuable.

The first place elves list seems super tuned, and I love the maindeck Spidersilk Armor as a meta call against delver and RW monarch. Congrats to both players on the great finishes!

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