Top 10 Ruling Nightmares in MTG

Comments · 1.2K

• BL

  @blucrustt_ · 4 years ago

  Didn't realize the morph flipping face up was a special action. I usually just look at rules to find goofy and funny rules like with Void Winnower's rules saying "Yes, we know. Your opponents can't even." referring to its effects

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• PH

  @Phoenixintern · 4 years ago

  One of my favorite weird rules interactions is in Commander, using a commander with mutate and the spell Leadership Vacuum. If your commander is mutated onto a creature, then Leadership Vacuum is cast on your commander, the creature your commander is mutated onto is brought into the Command Zone with your commander. Furthermore, you can't cast cards other than your commander from the command zone, so any other cards brought there are stuck permanently. Someone actually managed to figure out a combo using this and manifest to put their entire deck into the command zone.

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• FW

  @fwg1994 · 4 years ago

  The interaction that taught me about how casting spells actually works is Emry, Lurker of the Loch, and Lotus Petal. Emry is a creature that costs 2u, and costs 1 less for each artifact you control, while Lotus Petal is a 0 mana artifact that you can tap and sacrifice to make one mana of any color. So, on your first turn, you can play a land and the petal. With just that, you'd think that you wouldn't be able to cast Emry, as if you sacrifice the petal to make the second mana to cast her, she loses the cost reduction from having the petal in play. However, because you can activate mana abilities to pay for a spell after you declare intent to cast it, you are able to cast Emry this turn. You declare intent to cast Emry, apply cost reductions, and then activate mana abilities to pay for her. So it sees that you control 1 artifact, making her cost 1u, then tap the land to cover the generic cost, and the lotus petal to cover the blue mana in her cost, successfully casting her.

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• MA

  @matesafranka · 4 years ago

  For anyone interested in more "ruling nightmares", there's a channel called JudgingFTW, run by an actual MtG judge. Every day, he posts a video where he presents a judging scenario (including many of the ones listed here, or very similar ones), explains the exact rules, and solves the question.

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• VA

  @Vastuch · 4 years ago

  My personal favorite Blood Moon interaction is with Zoetic Cavern. If you have a Zoetic Cavern as a face-down 2/2 from its Morph ability and then attempt to flip it up face-up... you cannot. The first step of Morphing a card face-up is to turn it up and reveal its Morph cost so that it can be properly paid. However, when the Zoetic Cavern is turned up, the game sees it as a Mountain with no Morph ability to pay... so you go 'Oops, I guess this doesn't have morph after all' and turn it face-down again. This ruling is more intuitive, perhaps, with Humility and a regular morph creature (which works is precisely the same manner).

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• LT

  @ltjgambrose · 4 years ago

  Panglacial Wurm is one of the few cards that was probably just straight up a bad idea.<br>I love it, but if they banned it in all formats and instead released a fixed version that could exile itself after you search the library and then you could cast it later (or whatever would make it work) I&apos;d be all for it.

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• MR

  @MrZerodaim · 4 years ago

  Panglacial Wurm is truly a can of wurms you don&apos;t want to open, but I love theorycrafting BS with it. It&apos;s one of the few cards (if not the only one) that allows for nonsense scenarios, such as searching your library while searching your library (yo dawg), winning through an alternative win condition for which you don&apos;t meet the conditions, winning while having an illegal board, a half-cast spell and a game state that says you lose in like 3 different ways, casting a spell at a time no player receives priority... the setups for these can&apos;t be done by accident, so if you somehow manage to do that at an event and a judge is called, you shall get the bonk.<br>If anyone&apos;s interested in those setups, I can explain them in more details. Some are basic, but others are so ridiculous you could win multiple times with those resources.

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• KE

  @kennydarmawan13 · 4 years ago (edited)

  YGO Players: Pole Position is a nightmare to understand.<br>MtG Players: In MtG, we got Panglacial Wurm.

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• DE

  @denisskenderovic3707 · 4 years ago

  As a card game enthusiast, this channel is such a blessing.

  100

• JE

  @Jerhevon · 4 years ago

  The Cleanup Step itself has sub steps. So: If you turn your Mirage Mirror into a reliquary tower and have 9 cards in hand. The check for hand size occurs first. And then you remove all &quot;until end of turn effects.&quot; Leaving you with 9 cards in hand, and no Reliquary Tower. However, if something still triggered in the cleanup step, then a second full cleanup step will happen, and you&apos;ll need to discard.

  16

• TH

  @The1AndOnlyGoldenboy · 4 years ago

  A few others that I personally find hilarious: <br><br>Lich&apos;s Mirror (multiple rulings): (Effect: If you would lose the game, instead shuffle your hand, graveyard, and all permanents you own into your library, then draw 7 cards and your life becomes 20). <br>A: If a state-based action causes you to lose the game , unless the actions of Lich&apos;s Mirror removes that state you still lose the game. Some examples include... poison counters, if you have 10 or more of them you lose the game. LM doesn&apos;t remove poison counters, so you still lose. Another are life gain replacement effects, if you lose due to having 0 life, and either you cannot gain life or take damage instead of gaining life (i.e. Rain of Gore), you still lose the game.<br>B: If you control but do not own (as in it was originally your opponent&apos;s but took control of it) LM, Lich&apos;s Mirror will stay on the board and gain its effect each time you would lose the game until removed from the board. (Another quirk is that if the owner of LM surrenders, the controller would automatically lose)<br>C: If, during a check of state-based actions, you would lose in multiple conditions simultaneously (e.g. Drawing a card with an effect that also deals damage, and you both draw enough cards to deck out and go to 0 life), LM triggers as a replacement effect for all loss actions simultaneously. <br><br>Genju of the Fields: (Effect: Enchant Plains. 2: Until end of turn, enchanted Plains becomes a 2/5 white Spirit creature with &quot;Whenever this creature deals damage, its controller gains that much life.&quot; It is still a land. When enchanted Plains is put into a graveyard, you may return Genju of the Fields from your graveyard to your hand.)<br>Ruling: If activated ability is used multiple times, it will have the triggered ability multiple times. While this will not make the land multiple 2/5 creatures, it will have multiple instances of the damage trigger. <br><br>Chaos Orb (multiple rulings): (Effect: 1T: If Chaos Orb is on the battlefield, flip CO onto the battlefield from a height of at least one foot. If CO turns over completely at least once during the flip, destroy all nonland permanents it touches, then destroy CO)<br>A: You can arrange your cards in any order you choose before CO is placed onto the battlefield, but not after. You should not move your cards or arrange them in such a way that your opponent can&apos;t read their names or count them. <br>B: It must turn at least 360 degrees in the air to destroy cards. Turning in your hand does not count. <br>C: If you have sleeves or other protectors on your cards, they count as the cards themselves. <br>D: No player can physically interfere with the activation of this card (no swatting out of the air or blowing on it as it falls onto the table)<br><br>Last one, I promise...<br><br>Goblin Test Pilot: (Effect: T: GTP deals two damage to any target chosen at random)<br>Ruling: If a static ability causes its tap effect to gain a mana cost, the random target is chosen before costs are paid. <br>So, if you end up not liking the target (say its GTP itself, or something else you control, or even you end up as the target), you can choose to decline to pay the mana needed to tap GTP in the first place... meaning it untaps, and you&apos;d have the chance to do so again.

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• YU

  @yurisei6732 · 4 years ago

  Blood Moon is the worst for me, because its actual effect is defined in the rulebook, not on the card, even though there&apos;s <b>more</b> than enough space to define it. To know how blood moon works, you need to know at least two bits of specific, obscure rules text - that when lands &quot;become&quot; other land types, they lose their existing types and all other abilities, and second that gaining a basic land type also causes a card to gain that type&apos;s inherent mana ability. Neither of these things are intuitive, especially if you&apos;re coming from another game where card types don&apos;t have inherent meaning. Bare minimum, Blood Moon should say &quot;Non-basic lands are mountains with &apos;T: Add R&apos;, and lose all other land types and abilities&quot;.

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