Omniscience+Intuition+Emrakul - posted on reddit

[Julian23]

Hey there,

last night someone posted a question about the interaction between Omniscience, Intuition and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn on reddit. Their question was what happens if they keep playing Intuition for:

- Intuition
- Emrakul
- Cunning Wish

Giving them Cunning Wish or Emrakul kills the opponent, so they're constantly given Intuition (with the other one being shuffled back in by Emrakul). The question was whether this would eventually be considered Slow Play by the Omniscience player or whether 719.3. applies:

"Sometimes a loop can be fragmented, meaning that each player involved in the loop performs an independent action that results in the same game state being reached multiple times. If that happens, the active player (or, if the active player is not involved in the loop, the first player in turn order who is involved) must then make a different game choice so the loop does not continue."

A couple of judges weighed in and even though I was originally convinced it would be Slow Play, I was surprised to learn that a couple of judges in that thread thought it might be a possible application of rule 719.3. One even agreed that 719.3 might apply but called it a "failure of the rules" if 719.3 really applied and because of that, he'd still rule it as Slow Play.

The situation is especially interesting since in case rule 719.3 actually does apply this means that it makes a difference whether you cast Intuition on your or the opponent's turn. Since you're the non-active player on your opponent's turn, your opponent would be the one forced to break the constant cycle of Intuitions by giving you either Emrakul or Cunning Wish. I'm calling it a "cycle" instead of a loop since I'm quite hesitant to actually call this a loop.

Would love to hear other judges' opinion on this.

/Edit: Bonus question: in case rule 719.3 applies, what if one player has [CARDSLantern of Insight[/CARDS] in play? I'm mentioning it because that makes it so that you don't always wind up in the same scenario aka a completly random library.

[Lemnear]

I encountered that situation, so I would like to know as well

[Zllig]

Hey there,

last night someone posted a question about the interaction between Omniscience, Intuition and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn on reddit. Their question was what happens if they keep playing Intuition for:

- Intuition
- Emrakul
- Cunning Wish

Giving them Cunning Wish or Emrakul kills the opponent, so they're constantly given Intuition (with the other one being shuffled back in by Emrakul). The question was whether this would eventually be considered Slow Play by the Omniscience player or whether 719.3. applies:

"Sometimes a loop can be fragmented, meaning that each player involved in the loop performs an independent action that results in the same game state being reached multiple times. If that happens, the active player (or, if the active player is not involved in the loop, the first player in turn order who is involved) must then make a different game choice so the loop does not continue."

A couple of judges weighed in and even though I was originally convinced it would be Slow Play, I was surprised to learn that a couple of judges in that thread thought it might be a possible application of rule 719.3. One even agreed that 719.3 might apply but called it a "failure of the rules" if 719.3 really applied and because of that, he'd still rule it as Slow Play.

The situation is especially interesting since in case rule 719.3 actually does apply this means that it makes a difference whether you cast Intuition on your or the opponent's turn. Since you're the non-active player on your opponent's turn, your opponent would be the one forced to break the constant cycle of Intuitions by giving you either Emrakul or Cunning Wish. I'm calling it a "cycle" instead of a loop since I'm quite hesitant to actually call this a loop.

Would love to hear other judges' opinion on this.

/Edit: Bonus question: in case rule 719.3 applies, what if one player has [CARDSLantern of Insight[/CARDS] in play? I'm mentioning it because that makes it so that you don't always wind up in the same scenario aka a completly random library.

I'm curious if the player casting Intuition would just be required to Intuition for some other combination of three cards, instead of the opponent having to make a different choice.

[Julian23]

I asked around a lot and still get conflicting answers from qualified peole.

[Beatusnox]

I think the return clause to 719.3 applies. In the example given in the comp rules for 719.3 it explicitly states that after actions from both players are completed the active player is not allowed to make the same choice as earlier. Based solely on this, your secondary question would mean that casting on your opponents turn would force them to choose not Intuition after the first cycle.

Following this same thought cycle, you wouldn't be able to actually cast the intuition the second time as active player due to the "same state" limitation they give.

"Example: In a two-player game, the active player controls a creature with the ability "{0}: [This creature] gains flying," the nonactive player controls a permanent with the ability "{0}: Target creature loses flying," and nothing in the game cares how many times an ability has been activated. Say the active player activates his creature's ability, it resolves, then the nonactive player activates her permanent's ability targeting that creature, and it resolves. This returns the game to a game state it was at before. The active player must make a different game choice (in other words, anything other than activating that creature's ability again). The creature doesn't have flying. Note that the nonactive player could have prevented the fragmented loop simply by not activating her permanent's ability, in which case the creature would have had flying. The nonactive player always has the final choice and is therefore able to determine whether the creature has flying."

Sent from my ASUS_Z00TD using Tapatalk

[cdr]

It looks like a fragmented loop to me.

Whoever is the AP is the one that has to make a different choice to prevent it from looping, yep.

[d00mwake]

This feels very similar to the Four Horsemen issue from a while ago. From an SCG article in September of 2012:

"During Round 3 of the tournament, I was made aware of a Four Horsemen player on the feature match table. I went over to watch the match, knowing that I was likely to see a problematic line of play according to the IPG. When the player started to flip cards from the Basalt Monolith/Mesmeric Orb combination, he quickly ran into Emrakul, and was forced to shuffle his library. After doing this again, he was left in an identical game state: An empty graveyard and no other change to the game state. By performing the same loop of actions without changing the game, he was violating the shortcut policy outlined in the Magic Tournament Rules and the Slow Play policy in the Infraction Procedure Guide. These state:

MTR 4.2 – Tournament Shortcuts

'A tournament shortcut is an action taken by players to skip parts of the technical play sequence without explicitly announcing them. Tournament shortcuts are essential for the smooth play of a game, as they allow players to play in a clear fashion without getting bogged down in the minutia of the rules. Most tournament shortcuts involve skipping one or more priority passes to the mutual understanding of all players; if a player wishes to demonstrate or use a new tournament shortcut entailing any number of priority passes, he or she must be clear where the game state will end up as part of the request.'

The shortcut to loop Monolith/Orb until you reach a game state with a specific graveyard composition does not qualify as a being 'clear where the game state will end up as part of the request.' You are looking for a random configuration of cards that includes three specific cards in any order: Dread Return, Sharuum, and Blasting Station.

IPG 4.3 – Tournament Error – Slow Play

'It is also slow play if a player continues to execute a loop without being able to provide an exact number of iterations and the expected resulting game state.'

This is where we run into a problem. The player is executing a loop (Monolith/Orb until Emrakul flips, shuffle, repeat, any unknown number of times until the magic graveyard exists). To attempt to repeat this loop constitutes Slow Play, and that upgrades from a warning to a game loss on the second infraction.

In the end, I instructed the player to make a different game choice to advance the game state. Manually tapping/untapping instead of shortcutting doesn’t fit the bill.

The game ended shortly after I made this ruling, and I was not called to any of his other matches.

Josh Stansfield
Los Angeles Legacy Open Head Judge"

[Lemnear]

That was not the question d00mwake, but WHICH player is actually forced to break the loop

[d00mwake]

Well if the person demonstrating the loop keeps presenting the same pile and the game state is not changing, my assumption would be that it is up to that person to provide an alternative. The opponent who is presented this pile cannot change the cards that are being offered to him/her. Now obviously the other side of the argument is that person is also not progressing the game state due to the card they are selecting off of the Intuition, however it is not their responsibility to provide a pile with an alternative choice.

[PirateKing]

Slow play rules clearly spell out it is the active player's imperative to make a different choice or be subject to penalty.
So if your reading is that slow play is applicable here, then the only questions is on who's turn was Intuition cast?

[Jack Miton]

Hell man, if they can't figure out how to kill you with omniscience in play and an intuition in hand they that is just regarded as stupidity.

[Lemnear]

Hell man, if they can't figure out how to kill you with omniscience in play and an intuition in hand they that is just regarded as stupidity.

Wish-less build, 1 emrakul, intuition in hand, omniscience in play. Show me how to win in that situation with intuition.

[d00mwake]

People actually play Omni-Tell without Cunning Wish? Don't think I've ever seen that before.

[Jack Miton]

Wish-less build, 1 emrakul, intuition in hand, omniscience in play. Show me how to win in that situation with intuition.

- get 3 tops
- spin top a bit
- ???
- win the game