George casts Eureka, then put a Concordant Crossroads into play, Ana says “pass”, George puts a Nicol Bolas into play, and finally Ana puts The Abyss. George says both the World Enchantments go to the graveyard because he half-remembers something about steps from the resolution of a spell to be considered simultaneous for the purpose of the game, while Ana prefers to remember the Enchant World rule as saying that the last one played stays. So what would happen if they had a judge to settle the score ? There’s a wonderful tool to get in touch with magic judges : chat.magicjudges.org/mtgrules/. The judges there I’ve found to be very knowledgeable and while it’s possible for you to “end up” with only a level 2 judge, others of a higher rank could correct an eventual mistake. That’s where I submitted the above case. And this is what I got in response (in summary) :

Judge : Concordant Crossroads goes to the graveyard.

Judge : Wait. I don’t know. Let me have a look.

..

Judge : They both go to the graveyard, because they’re considered to have the same timestamp, as being part of the resolution of Eureka.

Me : But timestamps only apply to continuous effects.

..

Me : Is there any way to get in touch with WotC about that ? The rule is clearly unclear.

..

And that was it. I just tried once more today and the judge told me first that both go to the graveyard, only to retract later after my objection. I still don’t know how I could inform WotC of the problem, though I have an inkling they might not give a fuck, for it basically only concerns the unsanctioned 93/94 format. Why it is a matter for the format isn’t just the fact that that kind of interaction is possible, but that it is likely to have happened already and to happen again. This last fall at the European cup (search for Vincent Ruaut) not only someone did play Eureka with Concordant Crossroads, he also went to top 8. As for opponents playing world enchantments, abysses, Field of Dreams, Land’s Edge and Nether Voids aren’t that rare.

But let’s review the rule to see what could confuse even confirmed high-level mtg judges.

704.5m If two or more permanents have the supertype world, all except the one that has had the world supertype for the shortest amount of time are put into their owners’ graveyards. In the event of a tie for the shortest amount of time, all are put into their owners’ graveyards. This is called the “world rule.”

So we just need to address the question of the amount of time that those World Enchantments have been into play since there’s no way in our format to remove the World supertype. The oracle text for Eureka says :

Starting with you, each player may put a permanent card from his or her hand onto the battlefield. Repeat this process until no one puts a card onto the battlefield.

The words “starting”, “repeat” and “until” clearly seem to indicate that the events happening in the resolution of the spell don’t happen at the same time but are ordered in time. So it would seem Ana is right, at least that’s the way I’d rule the case if I were asked to. On the other hand, the instinct of a lot of judges would be that we actually consider choices done in sequence by players for the resolution of a spell to be simultaneously resolved :

<

p style=”text-align:justify;”> 101.4. If multiple players would make choices and/or take actions at the same time, the active player (the player whose turn it is) makes any choices required, then the next player in turn order (usually the player seated to the active player’s left) makes any choices required, followed by the remaining nonactive players in turn order. Then the actions happen simultaneously. This rule is often referred to as the “Active Player, Nonactive Player (APNAP) order” rule.

Example: A card reads “Each player sacrifices a creature.” First, the active player chooses a creature he or she controls. Then each of the nonactive players, in turn order, chooses a creature he or she controls. Then all creatures chosen this way are sacrificed simultaneously.

But, as you may have noticed, this is actually irrelevant to Eureka, since the card does specifically instructs us to make our choices and actions sequentially (although I’m not sure what happens if there are more than two players). Still, this is a possible source for players and judges’ confusion. Reading this one may very well get the feeling that while we of course operationally take time to resolve effects, those are to be considered instantaneously resolved. Perhaps realizing this, the judge I got in touch with thought he had to go deeper, and in fact into perhaps the deepest level of magic rules ; even beyond layers ! While I try to be on top of current rules, this is where I stop. Considering the extremely limited amount of times when one actually needs to use layers, and the complexity of the layers rule (you would, among other things, need to know by heart not only what are the 7 layers, but also their order), this doesn’t seem like a good deal to learn them. But timestamps ? Well you only use timestamps within layers : if ordering effects in layers isn’t enough then you use their timestamps. And how do you determine the timestamps ?

613.6c An object receives a timestamp at the time it enters a zone.

So.. even if the timestamp rule would apply, still, it would have to be considered that as Ana says The Abyss entered the battlefield later and therefore its timestamp makes it younger than Concordant Crossroads. That’s nice to know, but the thing is I got in touch with a proper judge on a chat with a lot of other judges including some of a much higher rank and I got several answers, including one “I don’t know”, and the wrong one being the final given. The point being not to spit on judges, but that you could encounter that kind of problem just any day now and have a judge (or not having one, which could be its own can of worms) who might not be sure how to deal with the situation, and who better be very convincing whatever decision they take if they don’t want to appear to favor a player. Now of course most people and most tournaments in 93/94 are quite friendly, but I’d like to keep it that way, and there’s nothing like an unclear rule decision to cast a shadow on that rainbow.

This send me on a strange tangent : suddenly I realized that what WotC is asking of us, is to have an understanding of what time is, or at any rate of what time is in Magic.

Neither of which are particularly clear. As for time “time”, timely time of physicists and philosophers, the case doesn’t seem to be all that settled, I even recently read an article from a physicist advising to devise a kind of time notion that would make sense for the general public ! A propos MtG time, it seems to be very malleable, with specific rules telling you that some abilities do some form of time travel :

603.10b Abilities that trigger when a permanent phases out look back in time.

603.10c Abilities that trigger specifically when an object becomes unattached look back in time.

603.10d Abilities that trigger when a player loses control of an object look back in time.

603.10e Abilities that trigger when a spell is countered look back in time.

603.10f Abilities that trigger when a player loses the game look back in time.

603.10g Abilities that trigger when a player planeswalks away from a plane look back in time.

If there were any ways to get the message to the higher-ups of the ruling department at Wizards of the Coast I’d ask the following : 1) to use the concept of time as least as they can, 2) to make it clear that the resolution of an effect isn’t necessarily considered instantaneous for the purpose of the rules, 3) to clarify the World rule.

I don’t know that any of those will ever happen, so I’d advise the 93/94 community to take note of the proper way to resolve such cases : cards put onto the battlefield by Eureka are NOT put there simultaneously.

With that said, I guess it’s as good a moment as any to wish you a happy new year.