With Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, we try to build a new version of Cephalid Breakfast (mill combo with Cephalid Illusionist and Nomads En-kor) including 4 Cabal Therapy, 1 Bridge from Below, 1 Narcomoeba, 1 Dread Return, 1 Sun Titan and 1 Blasting Station.
The idea is to mill yourself until finding Narco, then flashback Cabal with it and with BfB in the graveyard. Repeat this 1, 2 or 3 times. Then play Dread Return on Sun Titan to put into play Blasting Station. 2*Emrakul are here to shuffle again and again the graveyard and thus put into play Narcomoeba as many times in play as we want. The problem is that it is sometimes difficult to reach the interesting game state. We have only 1 chance on 10 to reveal DR+Sun Titan+Blasting Station before revealing one of the 2*Emrakul.
Is playing a combo like this is considered as slow play in tournament settings?
Last edited by Maveric78f; 08-20-2010 at 06:46 AM.
If you're not a) taking actions in a reasonable amount of time, b) advancing the gamestate - you will run afoul of Slow Play.
Repeatedly shuffling your deck and milling it is not advancing the gamestate. If you're not doing anything besides milling your deck and then shuffling it with Emrakul, you can certainly recieve Slow Play infractions.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
From which point is it considered "that I'm not doing anything besides milling/shuffling my deck". For each step in the combo, the objective is simple. I can do it in a reasonable time (something like 10 or 20 minutes for 10/20 hsuffles in worst cases).
Overall the combo lasts 45 minutes in average but a reasonable player will concede after seeing all my deck and the game state evolves while the combo resolves.
So who's it up to to decide whether an action "evolves the game state"? Are there any concrete definitions in the rules? If not, is it totally up to the judge's impression of the game? If that's the case it depends on the judge's ability to read/understand the game state which is always a bad thing.
The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
1. Discuss the unbanning ofLand TaxEarthcraft.
2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
4. Stifle Standstill.
5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).
If you have to shuffle your deck either way, couldn't you just show the win to the judge or the opponent and have them scoop? Or do you want to play a game of 45 minutes? In the end, it will happen either way (however long it might take).
A guideline is that if you're taking 30 seconds or more to do nothing but mill and shuffle (ie, not advancing the gamestate), you're in the realm of Slow Play.Originally Posted by Maveric78f
Yes, it's up to the judge. No, it does not depend on "the judge's ability to read/understand the game state". It depends on whether you are doing anything to move the game forward or not. Sitting there shuffling your deck over and over is very clearly not advancing the game.
Your opponent can certainly scoop if he wants to. The judge is not going to be very impressed, though.
This topic has been "discussed" ad nauseum in the past, so I'm going to link to an old thread: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...aea-s-Blessing
Please read that, as I'm not inclined to go over the same things again.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
Wow 30 seconds. RIP the combo then.
I'm still puzzled about the fact that milling and shuffling are not advancing the game state.
"Mill part of deck, shuffle it, repeat" is very clearly not moving the game forward. You're doing the same thing over and over with no guarantee of how many times you'll do it and only superficial variation.
People taking damage, permanents entering or leaving the battlefield (and not leaving/coming back over and over), phases changing, turns changing - that is the gamestate advancing.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
I'm slightly confused as to why this takes so long. are you saying that sometimes you get emrakul in your graveyard before you have what you need? Can't you respond to Emrakuls trigger by milling yourself again?
Cabal therapy is a sorcery. In order to have this work, you have to mill therapy and bridge before milling Emrakul three consecutive times. Then you have to mill Grinding station, Sun Titan, and Dread Return before Milling Emrakul once.
Honestly, I'm not convinced that there isn't a faster way to kill your opponent once you've got Emrakul+Breakfast.
Isnt't that why Top and Shahrazad got banned?
"Want all, lose all."
Actually, I'm the one who came up with the kill after a pretty looooong research.Honestly, I'm not convinced that there isn't a faster way to kill your opponent once you've got Emrakul+Breakfast.
The thing is, I didn't go for such a complicated one without a reason : it's the one that takes the fewest combo slots in the deck, a.k.a. possible dead cards in your hand. And even more important, it's naturally Tormod's/Relic/Ravenous Trap/Faerie Macabre/other grave-hate -resistant no matter how well your opponent plays, you just need 1 more Dread return in the sideboard. Cephalid Breakfast that passes through 75% of the grave-hate is kind of a dream, and it actually works.
Too bad it conflicts with loop and slow play rulings...
PS : Actually, you just need 2 Cabals to play your Dread return, the other 2 are bonuses or safety against grave-hate.
Is this following scenario also stalling and how should it be handled?
I Brain Freeze my opponent with infinite storm. I can make him draw a few cards with Stroke of Genuis but he plays 4 Emrakuls in his deck so getting to a point where I can kill him will basically take forever, but it will happen at some point in time.
Remember that's there's no infinite in Magic, only arbitrarily large.
That situation is covered in the old thread I linked. One player can conceed, or both players can agree to a draw. If no one wants to conceed, and one player doesn't agree to draw, that player would be subject to Slow Play penalties (ie, a game loss).
Also remember that Slow Play and Stalling are completely different - be very careful not to confuse them. Stalling is playing slowly to take advantage of time limits, and that is Cheating.
Last edited by cdr; 08-21-2010 at 10:05 AM.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
Really?!?!?!?!? I would 100% make my opponent play it out if I had 4 Emrakul in my maindeck as it's very unlikely that he will mill me down to "a few cards" without me hitting one of my four Emrakul. If his storm count is arbitrarily large he might have a somewhat high chance of actually killing me someday but with all respect, if you think you can get away by playing such combos and rely on your opponent scooping I think you gotta be punished once in a while by only drawing a game you might actually win if time wasn't a factor. /edit: ok, that's why you might want to draw in the first place in case this situation comes up.
Same thing with "infinite" life totals like in Idiot Life. If it's game 3 and my opponent is on like googolplex life with me having no way to otherwise kill him but reducing it to zero. He will win the game once I am out of cards in my library. Still, I see no reason to conceed (or even punish a player who doesn't conceed) in that place.
Last edited by cdr; 08-21-2010 at 10:05 AM.
The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
1. Discuss the unbanning ofLand TaxEarthcraft.
2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
4. Stifle Standstill.
5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).
Yes, "really?!?!?1". Neither player can make the other 'play it out'; if nothing but milling + shuffling is happening for more than half a minute or so, the judge is going to force the game to end one way or another since the game can not meaningfully proceed.
With arbitrarily high life totals, the gamestate can still advance. Phases are changing, turns are being taken, different things are being played. Eventually one player will run out of cards and lose.Same thing with "infinite" life totals like in Idiot Life. If it's game 3 and my opponent is on like googolplex life with me having no way to otherwise kill him but reducing it to zero. He will win the game once I am out of cards in my library. Still, I see no reason to concede (or even punish a player who doesn't concede) in that place.
If you got into a situation where, say, both players had arbitrarily high life and were just drawing and discarding Serra Avatar every turn with no other cards in deck, a judge should force a shortcut or otherwise force the game to end.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
I have a question about arbitrarily high life. If my opponent is at Graham's number of life or something ridiculous, can I concede my opponent has infinite life, so we no longer have to keep track of his life total? Obviously I'm not going to beat him with him going to 0 life, so we're just taking a shortcut by ignoring it if he fetches or casts Phyrexian Processor, paying 21,987 life...
End of turn...Morphling
Team OMRIAIGTWYFEWARTCAE
I apologize if piggy-backing on this thread is annoying, but what about 'infinite' mana, Petals of Insight, and a deck with a number of cards that isn't a multiple of 3? Does stacking your deck count as advancing the game state? Can I just take the short cut of manually stacking it?
Good question. It seems under cdr's explanation that you should be allowed to.
You are still technically required to track your life total. You could track it as G-d, where d is the damage you've taken after going up to G.
That's non-random, so it's at least less egregious than shuffling/milling.
I would say stacking your deck would be an acceptable shortcut, assuming you can explain what you're shortcutting to the judge and your opponent. I'd assume you'd probably have to write down the order, since I doubt you'd be able to remember it, so you'd likely have to reveal the deck to your opponent.
Petals-ing for a single card is probably ok; trying to stack your entire deck one resolution at a time is probably going to be Slow Play.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
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