Edmonton, Canada | Modern
Time: Saturday, September 10th 2022
Players: 132

Reconfigure this Ruling
AP and wants to equip The Reality Chip using Puresteel Paladin’s ability, can they? They can, however CR 702.151b says “Attaching an Equipment with reconfigure to another creature causes the Equipment to stop being a creature until it becomes unattached from that creature.” I read this to mean “attaching an equipment using reconfigure to another creature causes the equipment to stop being a creature until it becomes unattached from that creature.” I was a little uncertain and double checked with the HJ who agreed with my ruling. I ruled that they could equip it using Puresteel’s ability, but it wouldn’t attach, because it would still be a creature. Later on that player spoke with another judge and that other judge thought I was wrong and came to speak to me, they said that the rule meant "Attaching an Equipment that has the reconfigure ability to another creature causes the Equipment to stop being a creature until it becomes unattached from that creature.” I took a look at it, and quickly realized that this wording had two very different outcomes. We checked the gatherer rulings for reconfigure and found one that implied that the second reading of the rule was correct. I went over to the player and apologized for the mistake.

The Saga of the Missed Trigger
AP put the third lore counter on their Urza’s Saga and sacrificed it, but then forgot about the trigger. A little while later in the turn they said “oh wait, I should’ve searched my library for an artifact,” they picked up their library and began searching when NAP called for a judge. The judge on the call realized there was both a Missed Trigger and a Looking at Extra Cards infraction here, and ruled LEC – Warning, since multiple infractions from the same cause aren’t all applied, just the most severe one, which in this case is the LEC.

Pringles Everywhere
I had a player let me know that their opponent had some cards that were marked, I took a look, and sure enough, four Spike Feeders and a Viscera Seer were incredibly bent, I let the player know they would be getting a game loss for marked cards, since I felt like there was advantage to be gained from this. They said they would like to drop and get a refund, I was a little surprised at how aggressive this was, but shrugged and got the tournament organizer, and that was that. The TO circled back around to me later to let me know that they had actually given the refund. I asked if they were at all suspicious that the player might’ve been cheating, and they said that the foils were so incredibly curled that they didn’t think that anyone could possibly think they’d get away with something so obvious.

Hexing Tech
AP put the third lore counter on their Urza’s Saga and then asked if they could remove a lore counter with their Hex Parasite, and keep the saga around. I quickly double-checked the rules on sagas, confirmed that they’re only sacrificed after the third chapter ability resolves and only if they still have three lore counters on them. I agreed that they could, in fact, do this.

An Insightful Ruling
AP controls Lantern of Insight. The top card of NAP’s library is a Breeding Pool, they crack their fetchland, grab the Breeding Pool off the top and shuffle. Then AP says that NAP didn’t reveal the second from the top card while they were searching. This is very technically a GRV and I’d have NAP reveal a card at random from their library.

MPE Does Nothing!
AP took a mulligan but forgot to put a card on the bottom of their library, then they started the game. I had them reveal their hand to NAP and take a card from it to go on the bottom of AP’s library. The judge shadowing me wondered why the card wouldn’t go into AP’s library, and I let them know that when we HCE a card we return it to the location it should be (which often feels intuitive).

The “Intervening Judge” Clause
AP casts Traverse the Ulvenwald and starts looking through their GY, NAP says “resolves”, then AP says “oh wait, I don’t have Delirium, before it resolves I want to cast Unholy Heat” NAP shrugs and says “sure”. Technically, AP has done something illegal here, but both players seemed fine with it, I just left it alone. If the other player hadn’t been okay with it, and this had been a call I think I would’ve ruled that AP couldn’t cast Unholy Heat.

Death Assignment Step
AP attacks NAP who is at four life with a 5/5 trampler and also attacks NAP’s Gideon of the Trials who is at 3 loyalty with a 5/5 Trampler. AP controls a Gideon Emblem and blocks each Trampler with a 1/1 creature and puts those creatures in the GY. AP shrugs and says “pass turn”. NAP untaps and draws a card at which point AP says “wait, no you should be dead”. At first I agreed that nothing illegal had happened, because assigning a bunch of extra combat damage is totally legal, however after discussing it with another judge I think that perhaps this should be filed under reversing decisions.

...In Conclusion
Once again, this event was a little under-playered and over-staffed. I still had a good time mentoring the other judges around me. I got to shadow a lot of calls and discuss some neat policy questions. I do enjoy these events but they also make me miss the Grand Prixs of the before times.