Re: Four Horseman Legality
You can propose a loop as such:
Tap Basalt Monolith
Mill for Mesmeric Orb
Untap Basalt Monolith
With a condition to stop for when you hit graveyard trigger.
However, this is not a loop:
Same actions above
Ordered such a way that leaves Dread Return and Sharuum, but not Emrakul.
Since this relies on random events (g/y shuffles with Emrakul) it cannot be repeatable and declared a loop. Attempting to do so may lead to Slow Play warnings for the appropriate rules enforcement level.
Re: Four Horseman Legality
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Koby
You can propose a loop as such:
Tap Basalt Monolith
Mill for Mesmeric Orb
Untap Basalt Monolith
With a condition to stop for when you hit graveyard trigger.
No, that's not a loop - a loop has to have both a precise number of iterations and and a precise end state. You can shortcut milling a card at a time off the top, but that's not a loop.
Quote:
Same actions above
Ordered such a way that leaves Dread Return and Sharuum, but not Emrakul.
Since this relies on random events (g/y shuffles with Emrakul) it cannot be repeatable and declared a loop. Attempting to do so may lead to Slow Play warnings for the appropriate rules enforcement level.
That's neither an acceptable loop nor an acceptable shortcut.
tl;dr Four Horsemen is essentially unplayable in tournaments because it requires non-determinate iterations to hit a complicated game state - you'll be in Slow Play penalty territory 99% of the time before you hit the state you want.
Re: Four Horseman Legality
This reminds me of the brief period where people actually tried pulling this combo off on Magic Online. Easiest pax I ever won, just F6-ing for 25 minutes :cool: .
From everything I know, the December change had no substantial impact on the playability of this deck.
Re: Four Horseman Legality
Ah yes, shortcut is what I was thinking. Thanks for correcting me. (I've proposed shortcuts with Elves before, so just mixed up my terminology)
Re: Four Horseman Legality
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Julian23
From everything I know, the December change had no substantial impact on the playability of this deck.
The December change made it crystal clear that it was Slow Play to attempt invalid loops - before it was a little ill-defined. You're right though, the correct ruling for years has been that combos like Four Horsemen don't work in tournaments.