Four Horseman Legality

[Arew]

I know that back in December they were going to make it so that loops had to have a number to be legal and that made Four Horseman basically unplayable in tournaments. Was this ruling reversed when they reversed the other rules with that or is it still unplayable.

Thanks.

[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.

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.

[cdr]

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.

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.

[Julian23]

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 .

From everything I know, the December change had no substantial impact on the playability of this deck.

[Koby]

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)

[cdr]

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.