“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 re-read the Cabal Therapy.
To be clear announcing a name of card is expected upon resolution before revealing hand. Correct?
Whatever player say when the spell is being cast is then irrelevant unless the spell will start to resolve. Really nice mind trick...
But what if player casts it announcing a card, i answer that I dont do anything. Spell then start to resolve. Can he change his mind at this point before the hand is revealed?
For cards that ask a player to name a card upon resolution will only be chosen upon resolution. Oftentimes you can shortcut this by stating the card immediately. The opponent still has a chance to respond regardless of the chosen card; but if both players pass priority and have no responses the shortcut is locked in.
The situation is different if the opponent has responses; in which case the card is chosen upon final resolution of the spell; whether it is the same card or differently.
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I remember Clique used to cause problems, when people didn't know about the card as much as they do now--you say "Clique, does it resolve?" and they say "yes, please look at my hand" and you write down the cards in their hand and then say "I choose to target myself". I've been told this used to be legal, albeit unsportsmanlike, and that it isn't any more. Is that the case?
Also, say I cast Therapy targeting them and immediately name FoW. They brainstorm, ostensibly hiding their force of will, and then show me their hand before I have a chance to ask if it resolves so I can name something else.
I guess in general, what do you do in a situation where an opponent takes a shortcut for you (possibly because of something you said)? The sportsmanlike move is to say "hold on, I'm not looking at your hand, I'm actually going to name Show and Tell", but is it legal to look at their hand and then name something you see?
In my opinion there nothing wrong with the Lightning Bolt play.
I don't see how not using a shortcut to do something could be an illegal play.
I could see a problem if he pointed the second bolt at Jace and then after it resolved said: "3 to you, I choose if it'll be redirected only upon resolution". But actually not using a shortcut and doing things the long way is completely fine for me.
Sorry, Jace play just was outplayed. I support that kind of play 100%. I knowing the rules is a huge part of the game, and testing your opponent for it is a valid way of gaining advantage.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably delicious.
Team ADHD-To resist is to piss in the wind. Anyone who does will end up smelling.
Way to gain my lifetime animosity with one line.
Is naming the card with Cabal Therapy upon casting similar to this scenario? Because I believe that after you pointed at Jace with the Bolt you can't make it damage the player instead. You're basically giving away free information and locking yourself to a choice.
Wouldn't playing a Therapy and instantly naming Force of Will and then playing another one normally be "breaking" the rules?
Last edited by cdr; 01-06-2012 at 02:37 PM. Reason: Flaming removed. Watch it.
The player could receive warnings for misplaying or mis-representing what the card does (in the case of Cabal Therapy). Especially if they change their choice. There is even an example of this in the Level 1 judge test with Oblivion Ring.
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This is incorrect. Naming things on announcement that should be named on resolution (eg with Cabal Therapy) is entirely legal and supported by the tournament rules.
You can't misrepresent cards or rules, but that is not misrepresentation - that's a shortcut. It's only misrepresentation if the player knows he's doing something incorrect and does it with the intent to mislead his opponent about how things actually work.
It's exactly the same as eg naming a card with Cabal Therapy. You're locked into redirecting to the planeswalker unless the opponent repsonds.
That's actually a pretty sharp observation.Wouldn't playing a Therapy and instantly naming Force of Will and then playing another one normally be "breaking" the rules?
“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 can see the rule previously mentioned being appliable when it strips away from a player options or understanding of what's going on in the game. At all times the opponent knew what was going on and had full information of the situation.
The first Bolt was implied to be targetting him and locked to be redirected to Jace.
The second Bolt was clearly targeted at him, but it is implied that he had the choice to redirect it to Jace. Nothing that happened previously in the game indicated otherwise.
It is surely possible that he did the whole Bolt action just to confuse his opponent and test his knowledge of the rules. But he didn't use any shady actions to do so, and for that reason I see no problem at all.
If you simply learn the rules and know how cards work, then it's impossible to be taken advantage of. At a constructed tournament, everyone has to come with a deck already made. You should also come with full knowledge of the game rules, which are freely available online. You have unlimited opportunity to learn how to play the game before you show up to a tournament. If you're using planeswalkers in your deck then you should know how they interact with lightning bolt. If you plan to use brainstorm to hide things from cabal therapy then you should find out how this interaction works ahead of time.
It's wrong for the opponent to cheat by abusing your lack of rules knowledge, but this is difficult to prove, and it's much much easier to avoid the problem entirely by learning the rules ahead of time. The fact is that in each of these cases, if both players knew the rules, then no one would have been taken advantage of.
I like the discussion re: Cabal Therapy, since it seems like being able to declare the card in advance makes Therapy much better than it already is. That card has always functionally said, "Name a card that wrecks you. Target player doesn't have it in their hand." Being able to name a card you don't want them to have, only to have them respond by Brainstorming it away and then naming something else, seems like a really good way to make sure target opponent doesn't have their best TWO cards in hand.
Don't get me wrong, I don't pass priority through untap-upkeep-draw or declare combat with no creatures, but there's a difference in my mind between "shortcutting through doing nothing" and "shortcutting through game actions". I don't see a reason to ever NOT play in a way where you get to *explicitly* say, "I'm going to do this," and then have the opponent say, "Oh well, then I'm going to respond like THIS," and then you get to say, "Actually ah, no. I actually wanted to do THIS."
This isn't the place for strategy (read: if you disagree, probably best to discuss in a different thread), but it seems like if your opponent knows what you're doing they can just let it resolve with the locked-in choice and let you take whatever not-best card you named. Or they can respond and know that you can change your selection now and act accordingly. Basically, it would only "work" against someone not familiar with shortcut rules and probably only once.
“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
The way he played it may have been correct by the rules but it's fairly obvious that his intent was to mislead his opponent as to what he was doing. To my mind, that's a douchebag move. It reminds me of a match I saw about 12 years ago where this guy named Kenneth said, "Well, I think that's probably game." Then when his opponent started picking his cards up, he bullied the kid into a loss telling the opponent that he (the opponent) had just scooped. Kenneth said he hadn't conceded, merely commented on the game state, and therefore his opponent conceded to him by picking up his cards. That's what I think of when I read this. You're not "outplaying" your opponent in this situation. You're rules lawyering them.
I don't like that comparison at all. In your example one player made the other believe something had happened when it hadn't (game concession). On the Bolt example nothing of that sort happened, all the players knew what was going on at all times. No one said "When I want to Bolt your Jace I will always point my Bolt at it". It was more like "This Bolt that I'm playing is targetting you, but I will redirect it to Jace if it resolves".
I can see, for example, the "don't change your shortcuts" rule being applied on this example: Everytime I want to pass the turn I just wave my hand towards my opponent in a very expressive manner. I do that for 2 games in a row and then on game 3 I do it again, and when my opponent draws I say "What are you doing? I didn't pass the turn".
But forcing me to take the same shortcut everytime because I used it once doesn't make sense. In the example instead of waving I could just say "I pass all priorities of all my steps until the end of my turn" or the infamous "Go".
I think what I'm trying to say is, if you created a shortcut you can't make it mean something else. But you can do the same thing in a different way.
Last edited by alderon666; 01-07-2012 at 06:28 AM. Reason: Grammar
You're still rules lawyering. It's pretty clear what the *intent* is there. The intent was to mislead the opponent into thinking that the first bolt was going to Jace and the second bolt was going to his face. Had he done it correctly both times, without the shortcut, the second Bolt would not have resolved. He knew this and mislead his opponent into believing that the second bolt was going to the dome. While he didn't do anything wrong from a procedural standpoint, it was still shady.
I have one last thing to say about this.
I just remembered the infamous Profane Command play by Patrick Chapin. He had Profane Command in hand and some creatures in play, including a Chameleon Colossus. But to win he needed all his creatures to get through, but for obvious reasons you can't give fear to Chameleon Colossus. So he just said: "You lose X life and I give fear to all my creatures that are valid targets." (or something like it). His opponent scooped even tough if blocked the Colossus he wouldn't lose.
Article for reference
Patrick there clearly intended to mislead his opponent into thinking that his Changeling had gained Fear, but as he worded it according to the rules the judges stood by him. Isn't this the same?
The difference here to me is that I feel even a less than vigilant opponent would be able to understand through Chapin's choice of words that he had at least one illegal target. In the scenario highlighted in this thread, I feel like you would need to be downright paranoid to have the foresight required to assume your opponent would attempt to deceive you by announcing one play with a shortcut, and then immediately deviating from that shortcut.
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