Clear Communications

[Jacob]

Someone pointed out to me that I never posted a conclusion to this (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?27369-Cavern-of-Souls) thread about Cavern of Souls.

This is the summary of the Judge discussion is here (http://blogs.magicjudges.org/rheinmain/2014/01/28/rhein-main-judges-january/).

Simple recap:

Ahmed plays a Cavern of Souls and names "fish."

He then attempts to tap that Cavern of Souls to cast a Cursecatcher.

He is allowed to do that if he does so immediately after playing the Cavern. The more actions (passing of priority) take place between Ahmed playing the Caverns and tapping it to play a merfolk, the less likely that a judge will allow him to change from the legal choice he made to the legal choice he intended to make. As with all things communication, context is incredibly important.

The rule is that if both players know exactly what is going on, it doesn't matter if someone said the wrong thing by accident.

[Esper3k]

Couldn't the opponent just argue that he thought he actually meant what he said?

I mean, "Fish" is a legal creature type in MTG, isn't it?

[Quasim0ff]

Couldn't the opponent just argue that he thought he actually meant what he said?

I mean, "Fish" is a legal creature type in MTG, isn't it?
I'd suggest you to read the entire thread, as that road has been walked before, and it's infested with walkers, just trying to eat your brains ^^

Also, those situations was hilarious! I liked the Stifle-TNN especially! :D

[Jacob]

I did not mean to reignite what is a closed discussion both on this forum and in the Judge forum. Please feel free to read the lengthy discussions as to the reasoning.

What is clear is that "catching" your opponent by "fishing" for mistakes is not "kosher" for either player.

As I teach in my classes on judging, there are 3.5 statements that capture the philosophy of judging:

1) We would prefer that every game finish without any judge involvement at all.
2) Magic is not a game of "Gotcha."
3) Magic is not a computer program. You don't click through or miss on sequences by the order you do them.

The unwritten rule is phrased differently by different people. The mildest formulation I have heard is "don't be a jerk to your opponent."

[Meekrab]

Today I learned: Giant Shark was errata'd into a Fish, for basically no reason other than to make it less cool. It's not like there's some Fish tribal deck lurking out there that desperately needed a 4/4 for six.

[cdr]

Thanks for the followup Jacob.