Hello friends, and welcome to You Make the Ruling! This is the first installment of what I hope will be a regular feature here on Bearz Repeating. The idea is to drop you right into a number of real-life rulings that test your knowledge of rules and policy, as well as your application of the relevant philosophy.

The following are all real scenarios from Legacy Championships at Eternal Weekend. If it matters, you can assume that you’re directly responding as the Head Judge. In actuality, most of these rulings came to me on appeal or as a consultation, but it would be tedious to write that out every time.

With that said, let’s get right down to it!

Alistar and Nami are resolving mulligans. Alistar is playing first and has declared he’s keeping his opening seven. Nami decides to mulligan. Before she draws a new hand, their table is announced as a feature match. Alistar absentmindedly puts his cards back into his library, and Nami calls a judge. How do you proceed?

Reveal Discussion!

Of the scenarios presented here, this has the least applicabile philosophy for guidance. Fortunately, it is also the least likely to occur again. I do not believe there is a single best answer to this. What’s important for this ruling, like most others, is to understand what both players want. In this specific case, Alistar wanted to avoid going down to six cards, whereas Nami wanted Alistar’s absent-mindedness to be treated like a mulligan to six. Effectively, each player’s happiness can only come at the expense of the other. I ultimately answered this ruling by pondering what I would do if this situation occurred outside of a feature match. Even though Alistar hasn’t drawn any new cards yet, I feel that shuffling your hand into your deck simply has to be treated like taking a mulligan when you weren’t supposed to. As such, I ruled that Alistar would draw six cards, and make mulligan decisions from there. When discussing this with Alex Mullins later, Alex suggested an alternate ruling: tell Alistar that the ruling would normally be that he draws six cards, but in this case, the game will be restarted due to moving to the feature match. In the actual situation, the players ultimately did do this, but I did not impose it as part of my ruling; rather, I reminded them that they always have the option to draw a game and move on to the next. I like Alex’s solution because you can present it as both players getting a little something, which makes the mistake easier for Alistar to swallow. As an aside, when giving this ruling, I initially told the players I felt Alistar should be allowed to re-draw seven new cards. When Nami asked for my explanation, I started thinking about the reasoning I mention in the second paragraph, and actually ended up reversing myself in the middle of talking to the players! While this was suboptimal, I would rather address Alistar’s frustration that I changed my mind than stick to a bad ruling.

Ahri is playing Nasus. Ahri has a Young Pyromancer in play. At the end of Ahri’s turn, Nasus cracks a fetch. In response, Ahri casts Dig Through Time. As Ahri is exiling cards for the Dig, Nasus presents their deck and Ahri quickly cuts it. Ahri picks up 7 cards from their library and looks at them, then points to their Young Pyromancer. Is the trigger missed?

Reveal Discussion!

I ruled that this trigger was not missed. I believe that Out-of-Order Sequencing applies here: Ahri is simply resolving items on the stack in the wrong order. Since the Pyromancer trigger contains no options, it’s impossible for Ahri to be gaining any information that could impact her decision.

Azir controls Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek. Azir sacrifices the Sword to create a Thopter, which triggers the Sword’s ability. In response to the Sword trigger, Nidalee Punishes the Thopter. What happens to the Sword?

Reveal the Answer!

The Sword will still return to the battlefield. Sword of the Meek’s trigger isn’t targeted (or dependent on that creature at all, once it’s triggered), so it will resolve as normal. As the Sword’s wording spells out, returning the Sword to the battlefield and attaching it to the triggering creature are completely independent actions. Since resolving abilities do as much as possible, the Sword will still return to the battlefield even though it can no longer attach.

Zyra controls the Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale; Heimerdinger controls a Phyrexian Revoker. Zyra passes at the end of their turn, then Heimerdinger draws a card. Now what?

Reveal Discussion!

This is certainly a missed trigger…but whose trigger? In this case, it’s Heimerdinger’s! The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale does not have a triggered ability itself; rather, it grants a triggered ability to all creatures. This means it’s each creature’s controller to resolve the trigger properly, not the controller of the Tabernacle. Moreover, the Tabernacle trigger has a default action associated it with. So we assume that Heimerdinger has chosen not to pay {1}, and we resolve the default option of destroying his Phyrexian Revoker. At least, that’s how we would normally handle it. In this specific case, Zyra was willing to let Heimerdinger pay for the missed trigger, and I saw no reason to disallow this. In fact, I believe this is a great example of sporting behavior. The IPG tells us that “If a minor violation is quickly handled by the players to their mutual satisfaction, a judge does not need to intervene,” and I believe a similar philosophy applies here.

Later in the match, Zyra combos off: she uses Thespian’s Stage to copy Dark Depths, then bins the original Dark Depths to the legend rule, and puts the Stage-Depths’ trigger on the stack. In response to this trigger, Heimerdinger Wastelands the Stage-Depths. Zyra thinks the Stage-Depth’s trigger should go onto the stack again, on top of the Wasteland trigger. Is she right? Does Zyra get a 20/20 eldritch monstrosity?

Reveal the Answer!

Sadly, Zyra is not correct. Dark Depths has what’s called a state trigger (CR 603.8), which constantly checks to see if its condition has been met. Zyra knows enough of the rules to realize that these abilities will constantly check, but she doesn’t realize that the ability can’t trigger again while one instance is still on the stack. As such, Wasteland will resolve first, so Zyra will be unable to sacrifice her Stage-Depths to her trigger (since it’s in her graveyard). Marit Lage will continue to slumber…for now.

In round three, you take a call from Rek’Sai, who has great difficulty communicating in English; her girlfriend helps translate a few things for you. While you’re writing the time extension on her match slip, you notice Rek’Sai take out a piece of paper with a list of cards in Chinese and their English names. When you ask her about it, she explains she made it so she can tell her opponents what card she’s naming with Pithing Needle. Is she allowed to use this list? What do you do?

Reveal Discussion!

Of all the rulings from this post, I believe this is the most complex one. Several commenters felt that this is Outside Assistance, as the sheet only contains relevant choices for Pithing Needle, so it is providing strategic advice; however, no one really believed it was a slam dunk. Looking at the definition and philosophy of Outside Assistance in the IPG, I personally felt this scenario is much closer to an “Oracle page” than “external advice or directions.” When writing up this explanation, I decided to phone-a-friend and consult Toby for his opinion. He stated, Rek’sai “seems to be making efforts to make her opponent more comfortable. Doesn’t sound like outside assistance to me. Besides, she’s been nerfed enough.” So, there you have it.

Ashe casts Gitaxian Probe, looks at her opponent’s hand, and draws a card. Her hand of cards is face-down on the table. Ashe then absent-mindedly draws another card and sets it sideways on top of her other cards. What’s the appropriate infraction, penalty, and fix?

Reveal Discussion!

In the past, I have held that the line between Drawing Extra Cards and Looking Extra Cards does not occur simply when cards touch, but when the player loses control of the new card and it becomes indistinguishable from the rest. This was a reasonable line to draw when Drawing Extra Cards carried a Game Loss penalty, but less so today, when the penalty is a Warning. Moreover, having a clear and consistent line is broadly beneficial for the judge program and players in general. For that reason, I feel that this should be treated as Drawing Extra Cards, with a Warning and the Perish the Thought fix (reveal all and shuffle one) applied. (If sleight of hand were impossible, I would be perfectly comfortable saying “that card, there, is the extra one — put it back.” But, unfortunately, our policies have to be written with this in mind.)

Ariel has a Chalice of the Void on 1 and a Cavern of Souls on Merfolk. She casts a Cursecatcher using an Island, which both players let resolve. Ariel then casts a Lord of Atlantis, at which point Nunu points out that the Cursecatcher should have been countered. How do you rule?

Reveal Discussion!

Ariel has missed her Chalice of the Void trigger. However, we’re now beyond the point of the erorr. Although we could ask Nunu if he’d like to put the trigger on the stack, this won’t do anything, as he has already let Cursecatcher resolve. There’s no provision in the Missed Trigger policy to additionally back up to the point of the error. As such, Cursecatcher will remain on the battlefield. Ariel will receive a Warning for missing a generally detrimental trigger: as a trigger with a symmetric effect, the Chalice is detrimental when applied to Ariel’s spells, but not when it applies to Nunu’s. As an additional note, the presence of the Cavern of Souls makes it unlikely that Ariel is cheating: her play would have been completely legal if she had cast the Cursecatcher with her Cavern. It’s always worth probing a little further in these situations, though!

And that’s it for this edition of You Make the Ruling! Since this is a new feature, I haven’t decided how to handle presenting my “answers” to these scenarios. Would you prefer that I include how I handled in the original article (behind a spoiler tag)? Or does it make more sense to save the follow-up for its own article — maybe published on a day other than Wednesday?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!