Madness does not trigger...
Anyways, can't you just state that whenever a madness card would be discarded you are not paying the cost? It makes sense that when your opponent does have an option on their turn it can interrupt the loop, but until/unless they do you can repeat it. The only way they can get the Scryb Ranger + Mana out is if both were in play before the lock, and if they were, you'd play it out until they cannot do anything on your turn. Then it's a loop.
Originally Posted by Mr Wiggl3s
Read the rule again. It triggers if you choose to remove the card from the game - it doesn't trigger otherwise.
“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 sorry, I actually remembered Madness wrong.
That does not change the content of my post however. It just is not a trigger, but a choice to not remove the madness-card which still can't be part of a loop.
If you're going to argue that, you might as well argue that since you have to choose a card to discard every turn it can't be a loop.
I don't agree, obviously.
“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
So if it's in turns and the Slaver lock won't kill him it's considered a draw?What about a slaver lock established with only a few minutes left it seems like theres a good chance that the slaver player won't be able to kill the other person through whatever means before time is called, but he has established a lock and technically he has time for infinite turns. Those turns would have to be really short is that considered a game loss for the locked player or a draw since it will take the slaver player more time to deck or kill them then time and turns permits?
As noted before, in the case of extra turns, you only have X turns to work with. You can loop for as many turns as you wish, but no more than the number you have left. If the Slaver player can win in those turns great, otherwise too bad for him.
Other than that case, the situation is always the same. Time is irrelevant.
It's not "considered a game loss", the locked player loses because his opponent loops Slaver and kills him, most likely through being decked.
“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 wrote an e-mail about this to askthejudge@SCG and got the following reply:
There actually was an earlier reply, where Chris Richter thought, that the slaver-lock could be looped, but two days later after some thought he sent me the above e-mail.I've given some more thought to my initial response a few days ago, and I have changed my opinion somewhat. There are a few, albeit very few, ways for the
Player B to break this lock. And there are a few ways that the Player A can goof it up. Each iteration of the loop is not the exact same. So I do not think that this is a loop in the traditional sense that you can choose a number and perform that many times.
Having said that, I do not think that the non-Mindslaver player has that many options and I woudl not allow them to play slowly at all. In all of the cases I've seen this interaction the non-Mindslaver player has chosen to concede when this combo was achieved. However if he or she did not concede, I'd watch the match for slow play. The non-mindslaver player does not get the chance to play slowly in purpose to run out the clock. In fact as his options are really limited, he can't use up the clock much at all.
-Chris
--------------------------------------------
On Jun 6, 2007, at 4:14 PM, Ritzkadon@aol.com wrote:
Hi,
I have a question about the rules regarding "infinite loops". The following thread on mtgthesource.com caused me to write this e-mail: http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5849
If you don't want to read through the whole thread, the discussion is essentially about the question if the Mindslaver-Lock can be considered a loop. Consider the following situation:
Player A has a Mindslaver, Academy Ruins and at least 12 other permanent manasources (enough to support the slaver-lock).
Player B has seven cards in hand and he has no chance to do anything about the slaver-lock in hand, play or graveyard.
Can player A initiate an "infinite loop" consisting of the following actions:
a) his upkeep: return Mindslaver via Ruins
b) his drawstep: draw Mindslaver
c) his mainphase: Play and activate Minslaver targeting player B.
d) end his turn
e) player B's turn: draw a card, tap player B out, discard the drawn card
until player B dies from decking.
Could you please not only give me a ruling, but also a short reasoning behind that?
Thanks in advance
Simon
------------------
Christopher Richter
aka kriz_riktr
DCI Level III Judge
Ask the Judge - Starcitygames.com
Moderator MTGNews.com
I think the most important part of this answer is the sentence "Each iteration of the loop is not the exact same."
You sure have to watch out for slowplay in such a situation, as the slavered players options are very limited, but the lock can't actually be looped.
PS: Isn't there an IRC-Channel #mtgjudge or something like that, where you can ask for official rulings? I have no IRC, so I can't go there, but if anyone of you guys could do so, ask for an official ruling and then quote that here, the whole discussion could be ended very fast.
The discussion (you call this a discussion?) isn't going to be "ended". This is not a black-and-white area - judgement is required. I gave my position on it. As I noted, other judges may disagree.
“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
At GenCon in 2005 I was playing Rabid Wombat against mono white Life.dec.
Game 1 went as such: I played 3 plains, he gained infinite life, I scooped.
Game 2 was: Me drop turn 4 Humility, he does irrelevant things like trying to kill me with a bunch of 1/1 dorks while I wrath and eventually cycle decree for the W.
Game 3: He comboes out early, gaining something like ten million life. I drop Exalted Angel and say go. He draws, discards, and says go. I attack during my turn. This goes on for about 4 turns until he calls the judge. He tries to declare an infinite loop. The judge rules against him, and he appeals to the head judge. Since this was GenCon there was a level 4 wandering around.
The judge asked me if I was able to do anything other than attack, and I said that "I wasn't sure" if I had anything else, with enough sarcasm that the level 4 laughed. He then told my opponent that as long as there was time in the round I would not lose the game unless I decked myself. Our decks were counted and I did have less cards than him due to plainscycling once and cycling a renewed faith.
This isn't the same as the slaver lock, but I just thought I would throw it out there.
PS: This was round 4 of a 5 round side event, and I only had 1 loss, so I wasn't going to scoop myself out of a a prize. I hate life.dec, and will never scoop a game to it. This guy was also pretty rude to me before the whole fiasco began.
That's a completely different situation, yes.
“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
/me casts Necromancy on this thread.
The Mindslaver issue has appeared at Pro Tour: Valencia, where it was brought to the attention of the judging team (which included at least two Level 5 judges). Nate Price gave a detailed account of the ruling in his feature match coverage:
On Quentin's next turn, he transmuted the Tolaria West in his hand to get an Academy Ruins, which returned his previously Duressed Mindslaver. He activated it and then called for a judge. This is where things get interesting. A few turns earlier, Quentin had asked the judge watching their match if he could step aside for a little conference. He took a short break and asked the judge a question I couldn't get close enough to hear. Apparently unsatisfied with the answer he received, Q waited until now to appeal to Jaap Brouwer. When Melissa asked what it was about, Quentin responded, channeling his inner Steven Hawking: "It's a matter of infinite turns. It's a time issue." Deep.
Let me break it down for you. Quentin had gotten to the point where he had Melissa locked in an infinite loop. He would recur Mindslaver and activate it every turn from here out. He was going to leave Melissa with no untapped lands and no way of producing mana. Knowing that she had no free spells in her deck, Quentin was planning to disallow her priority for the rest of the game. Effectively, there was nothing she could do while Quentin built up his mana and waited to draw a threat.
To clarify how this works, I had a conversation with Jaap after the match had finished about shortening turns. Shortening turns is accomplished by means of shortcuts. I know, it's kinda simple. A shortcut in Magic is coming to an agreement with an opponent that an action is going to take place every time a certain trigger happens. In this case, Quentin was going to recur, pay for, and activate his Mindslaver on every one of his turns. Shortcuts like this still have to take into account windows for opponents to respond. And most importantly, shortcuts can only be used if the opponent agrees.
This situation is the perfect example of when a shortcut could be useful in speeding up what otherwise might be a lengthy process. Q was going to take that action every turn in order to maintain his lock, and Melissa was never going to have priority unless he chose to let her. Since she agreed to the shortcut, Quentin was free to avoid having to go through the motions of regrowing, playing, and activating his Mindslaver every turn. He simply paid the mana and put his Mindslaver on top of his graveyard and it was assumed to have been done.
There are a few rules associated with shortcuts on the level Quentin was trying to take them. Jaap was brought in the make sure that Quentin followed all of the rules necessary and approved everything Quentin had told Melissa, on the condition that he still move cards from zone to zone. If he, or Melissa with her turn under control, was supposed to draw cards, he had to draw them. If he had to discard to get to the maximum hand size, it had to be done. This means that he couldn't simply say "I'm going to take every turn until these following conditions have been met." He had to go through the most rudimentary steps.
Magic players use shortcuts all the time, taking for granted what they are. If you've ever left a mana source tapped through your untap to pay for a cards upkeep, you've used a shortcut. This is just the same principle on a larger scale. Bear in mind that to use a shortcut, you have to have your opponent's consent (and it doesn't hurt to have a judge present either). Melissa was very sporting to understand that Quentin was going to be making all of her decisions for the rest of the game and to let him do it. She could have said no, but recognized that if he had infinite time, there was no way she could ever again participate in the game, let alone win. Very few players would be classy enough to let him use these shortcuts to try and legitimately get his win before the time limit expired, so hats off to Melissa for showing some real style.
YOU'RE GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE IN ORDER TO TREAT MY SLEEP DISORDER.
He doesn't, that's what Akki said. Forgive me if I'm interpereting this wrong, but I think the gist of it is:
If the Slaver/Ruins lock is established before the game goes to 5 turns, then the player with the lock doesn't have a finite number of turns in which to complete the loop, and can simply say 'X+1 times, where X is the number of cards in your library' as a shortcut to deck his opponent.
If the lock is established after the game has gone to turns, then the player with the lock only has a finite number of turns in which to continue the loop, and can only continue it for as many turns as is left in the game. If they win in that many turns, great, but it will most likely be a draw.
So, in general, lock before you go to 5 turns = win, lock after you go to 5 turns = draw.
This is because, as long as time hasn't been called, there is no rule in effect limiting the number of turns a game can have. Because the number of turns that will be in the game is indefinite, a player can claim any number of turns when handling a loop that spans multiple turns. If the number of turns is defined, however, they can only declare up to as many turns as are left in the game.
edit: Didn't notice that there were multiple pages. Either way.
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Originally Posted by Slay
I'd like to point out that what Nihil quoted above is now the most "official" way of handling it.
This is the first time this interaction has come up in a high-level event, and so the first time a definitive answer has been given. Also, since I posted last, policies on shortcuts and communication have changed.
I don't know all the details about how it was handled, but it was probably close to the best way to handle it given current policy.
“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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