Yay, Magic!

So, busy Magic weekend! I did a whole heck of a lot of Judging, and I loved every minute of it.

I don't remember if I mentioned this in my last post, but I got a regular weekly gig, judging FNM at Mox Mania. I'm pretty excited about that. It'll be lots of experience, and lots of fun. I'm getting to know more of the Mox regulars, and they're pretty great folks. So this Friday was the first time for me running it, and it was pretty cool. I got a few questions, and got to chat with a few of the players, a couple of things I love doing.

Saturday was a small, yet important rung on my rhetorical "Judge Ladder." I was a member of a team working the TCGplayer 5K this weekend. I was on the Deck Checks team, but of course I didn't spend 10 hours just doing that (after mid-round deck checks, we're free to roam the floor and take calls). Then, about halfway through the event, I got relegated to Side Events duty. That basically meant babysitting the pair of 8-person events, one DGR Block Draft and one Win-A-Box Standard. That basically meant just watching people play and making random small talk. I think I answered one or two actual game-related rules questions between both events. But hey, somebody's gotta do it, might as well be the new guy, amirite? :)

It occured to me as I was leaving the event: at that point, over the last 24 hours, I had been on Judge Duty more than not. I'm okay with that. :) My feet .. maybe not so much. :/

But it was lots of fun. I got to meet some other judges, and everyone I met was pretty great. I took a few calls, and only stumbled on a couple of small-ish things. I did have to intervene in one match when I witnessed a borderline Improperly Determining the Winner of a Match situation. Mr. Head Judge investigated, and let them off with a very stern Caution.

So yeah, quick soapbox mode:

Do not improperly determine the winner of a match! This means either you play it out, or just concede or intentionally draw. You can't roll a die, flip a coin, play rock-paper-scissors, play Mario Kart, flip over the top card of your library, etc. And don't make any offer of a draw or concession based on any kind of incentive. Splitting prizes is fine, drawing/conceding is fine, but they CANNOT be contingent on each other. The two must be strictly separate. "Wanna split prizes?" "Okay." "Wanna ID?" "Cool." This is perfectly acceptable. "I'll ID with you if we can split prizes" is not okay. If you have questions, call a judge. That's what we're here for!

Okay, speaking of which, has everybody seen this crazy card?

What??

Copy a triggered ability! So what the heck is a triggered ability? It's basically anything that looks like this: "When [some event occurs], [do some game action]." Both abilities of Thragtusk are triggered abilities ("When Thragtusk enters the battlefield ..." and "When Thragtusk leaves the battlefield ..."). Doubling Season is actually not a triggered ability .. it's a static ability that generates a replacement effect ("If [something would happen], [do something else] instead."). Avacyn's Pilgrim's ability isn't a triggered ability .. it's an activated ability (written "[Cost(s)]: [effect]".).

The fact that I had to spend a paragraph describing what a triggered ability is shows that I'm probably going to get asked quite a few questions about this card. To which I say, cool! I love answered rules questions. If I don't know the answer, I love finding out the answer. For example, how does this thing affect Isochron Scepter?

Uh....

Honestly, I didn't know at first. It was pretty clear to me that you could exile two cards with the two different Imprint abilities. But what happens when you activate its second ability? It says "copy the imprinted card" ... singular.

Turns out, the singular-ness of that wording is a red herring. The word "card" in this case is shorthand for "card or cards." So, you get both of em! It's similar to what happens when you get two Angel tokens from Geist of Saint Traft via Doubling Season. You exile both of them. A more precise wording would be "exile all tokens created by this ability"), but that's too wordy for an already-wordy ability. It's also confusing when the plural version would almost never matter in actual games. So, just "exile that token." Likewise, "copy the imprinted card" is shorthand for "copy all imprinted cards." I'm not sure it's even possible to Imprint two cards onto Isochron Scepter right now ...

Oh, I got to play this weekend too. I didn't have much going on Sunday afternoon, so I dusted off my Modern Delver deck, added a few new toys (Vendilion Clique in the main, Electrolyze and Spell Snare in the side), and gave it a whirl. I had a lot of fun playing and hanging out and watching others play. We actually got a fully-sanctioned event to fire, even! I think we had 11 players. I ended up going 3-1, losing to a Goblins deck. I can deal with a few of the pests biting my kneecaps, but not a whole bunch of them coming every single turn. D: But anyway. I also beat a Junk deck that got bad draws, a casual Simic Merfolk/Wizard deck, and a Scapeshift deck. And I got to answer rules questions. :) I love answering rules questions! :D I'm a nerd, I know ... But yeah, I also got to watch someone win through a fully active Urzatron engine with multiple Eldrazi out. It looked like he had a combo of Eternal Witness and Cryptic Command going to tap down his monsters and bounce his Witness. Fun! Reminds me of that weird deck that a Japanese pro player played last year. It looked like a lot of fun, and I wanna try playing something like that.

Yay, Magic! :)