The New Docs IPG | MTR



It’s a small update this time around, so I’m going to use this space to talk about a few additional things at the bottom that aren’t policy changes, but are useful guidance. In the meantime, updates!

We’ve Been Here Before

By far the biggest change in terms of text volume is a new Communication section in the Magic Tournament Rules dedicated to loops. They’d come up again because of Teferi, and I was talking to Magic Rules Manager Eli Shiffrin about how we could make them better.

“It’s really easy. We just want to do this, and this, and this.”

“That all makes sense, but it’s not formal logic, so it won’t work in the Comprehensive Rules.”

“It’d work in the MTR. Loops are just a kind of shortcut, and we don’t have to be so strict there.”

“Go for it.”

It turns out that expressing how to handle loops is much harder to do in formal Magic rules than it is if you can wave your hands and use plain English. So there’s a new section in the MTR that supersedes the simpler ones in the CR when there’s a tournament.

From a game perspective, not a lot changes. Loops that span multiple turns are addressed, and judges have flexibility to identify that there’s a loop even if there’s irrelevant things changing. Everything is expressed in terms of asking the players questions and then applying the results, and hopefully it’s much easier to follow.

We’ve Been Here Before

By far the biggest change in terms of text volume is a new Communication section in the Magic Tournament Rules dedicated to loops. They’d come up again because of Teferi, and I was talking to Magic Rules Manager Eli Shiffrin about how we could make them better.

“It’s really easy. We just want to do this, and this, and this.”

“That all makes sense, but it’s not formal logic, so it won’t work in the Comprehensive Rules.”

“It’d work in the MTR. Loops are just a kind of shortcut, and we don’t have to be so strict there.”

“Go for it.”

It turns out that expressing how to handle loops is much harder to do in formal Magic rules than it is if you can wave your hands and use plain English. So there’s a new section in the MTR that supersedes the simpler ones in the CR when there’s a tournament.

From a game perspective, not a lot changes. Loops that span multiple turns are addressed, and judges have flexibility to identify that there’s a loop even if there’s irrelevant things changing. Everything is expressed in terms of asking the players questions and then applying the results, and hopefully it’s much easier to follow.

We’ve Been Here Be M19 Draft

Normally, we tell players to take out the token and the land from booster packs. But M19 introduces a wrinkle where there’s a mix of basic and draftable non-basic lands (and a checklist card) in the same slot! So we’ve called out that slot as being special; for most sets you still remove the basics, but if draftable cards appear in the basic land slot, keep it all in. That way, everyone will have the same number of cards to draft.

This does have the downside of making the checklist draftable, even though it isn’t playable. Plus, there’s only one card listed on it, so make sure to remind new players that drafting the checklist doesn’t mean that they have a Nicol Bolas in their draft pool and they should just pass it along until the end.

Upkeep, Draw, Untap

We’ve all seen it: a player draws a card for the turn, then untaps, or casts a spell with a stack of land that’s still tapped from the previous turn. It’s all obvious, and usually handled through Out-of-Order-Sequencing or a bit of handwaving. Now the IPG provides a stronger endorsement that this is OK in the form of a partial fix that untaps the things that were supposed to be untapped this turn. We don’t expect judges to need this much as OoOS is a better option in general, but it’s here when you need it.

Quick Hits

We’d established that penalties reset at the Day 1 cut even with a round to go last update, but what REL was that “not really Day 2” round being played at? This update addresses that (Professional).

Any time you change a decklist after the tournament has begun, a Game Loss should be issued. That includes when you can’t find replacement cards for marked ones. That’s explicitly called out as an upgrade now.

Normally, if you have too many copies of a card that’s in both your deck and sideboard, it gets upgraded. But, if you discover it while all the copies (both deck and sideboard) are in the library, it’s not upgraded.

CPV previously looked for an opponent to take an action before it could be called. Clearly choosing to not take an action also qualifies (though I think the threshold there is a little higher).

We cleaned up the language about issuing Game Losses in both the introduction and Decklist sections. This is mostly nonfunctional, though it does emphasize that it’s pretty rare to wait on a Decklist penalty nowadays. It used to be a lot more relevant when we counted lists more aggressively.

Triggers

One thing that’s come up a bit recently is a debate about Detrimental Triggers and defining them, and I want try to give a little insight into the philosophy here. In particular, I want to address the idea that self-mill triggers are always detrimental, even though some cards – when evaluated in full card context – use them for beneficial reasons.



There isn’t an iron-clad edict from Wizards that self-mill must always be considered detrimental. It has the same weight as anything else that’s regarded that way. It’s like “When this enters the battlefield, sacrifice a creature”. That’s a detrimental ability, but I think we’d all agree that “When you sacrifice a creature, you win the game” on the same card would make it not a detrimental trigger.

However, when the trigger changes happened, we had Innistrad, and we got a lot more pushback on self-mill than all the other mechanics, since it was often a bonus in that format. That meant there was a lot more “no seriously, self-mill is detrimental” posts than on most other mechanics, and a lot more pushback on arguable cases. That has led to a perception that milling was more stringent than the others. It does default to detrimental, but it’s no different from other triggers. You need to look at the overall context of the card (*not* the game state) to make that determination, and this is true for all abilities, not just self-mill.

Slow Play

Finally, a nudge.

Slow Play is one of the toughest calls a judge has to make. It’s a pure judgment call, and the player affected will almost always argue, talking about how they have lots of time on the clock, or this is a crucial turn, or that they didn’t take that long. This is partly because the perception of time when you’re tanking is different, and what may seem like not a lot of time to think is a huge amount of clock time.



How aggressive judges have been about calling slow play has ebbed and flowed over the years. We’ll make an effort to be more aggressive, that’ll happen for a bit, and then we’ll all collectively slide back a bit. It’s time for another one of those efforts. I’m here to tell you today that you (and I include myself here) aren’t calling slow play enough and need to make a conscious effort to do so.

I can’t give you a neat trick that will make your slow play calling game better; what works for one person won’t work at all for someone else. I personally find that if I’m watching a game and start to get bored, that’s a big warning sign, but that’ll vary a lot depending how much you play Magic and how good you are at analyzing options. Whatever your personal heuristic, it takes effort and practice to make it part of your judging repertoire, and a willingness to interrupt a player’s train of thought to get the game moving again. It’s not easy, but we’re not doing it enough right now, and everyone should make a conscious effort over the next few months to be aware of the clock and how long players are taking.

Thanks

Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions this time around. In particular, a shout-out to Isaac King, who’s been providing great suggestions for improved wordings. If you see a sentence change that you think is much clearer, you probably have him to thank for it.

Enjoy M19!