Plays that Forced Magic: the Gathering Rules Changes (MTG)

The fact that a judge DQ'd a player for casting a match winning spell slightly wrong in the semi finals of a pro tour is still the craziest story from early magic I've ever heard

The fact that saying the word “combat” used to mean “I’d like to skip an entire step and go to the declare attackers step.” Is batshit insane

Gabriel literally shaking while holding the dryad arbor is so indicative of how frustrating that play is

The hilarious part of Ceasar's story is that there isn't even the word "Combat" in the Declare Attackers Step, whereas there is in the "Beginning of COMBAT" step

That language barrier issue in the "combat" clip never fails to infuriate me when I see it. Ignoring the fact that he couldn't legally skip the phase as others have pointed out, it's pretty scummy to penalize anyone (let alone an ESL player) for not using flawless terminology. With the Needle example, at least the person named a legal card by mistake. The "declare attackers" step isn't called the "combat" step. However, the phase itself is called combat. So why would saying "combat" not start the combat phase from the first step? In a game as needlessly pedantic as Magic, you'd think weird oversights like that wouldn't happen at a pro tour event.

Number 2 really stinks, such an absurd ruling from the judges. I feel bad for Cesar.

That "combat" one is even more dumb because the judge should've rewound the turn up to the triggered ability. There were legal targets for the ability, so he had to select a target. You can't just skip triggers and be forced to keep playing if you catch it before doing anything else. Edit: Apparently that's newer rulings than when this took place. Still an unreasonable response, especially with context.

The Combat ruling still gets my blood boiling. I've seen other judges try to defend this judge's call, but it was from the start a bad policy, and was enforced by a bad judge.

#2 was the scummiest thing, not just from the opponent but from the judges involved. Terrible ruling all around.

I lost an important local tournament to that stupid combat ruling. I tried to trigger an ability at beginning of combat and crew in response but the opponent called a judge saying I had missed combat. I specifically said "at the BEGINNING of combat, I'm going to trigger this ability and crew with it on the stack" with emphasis (we had all been talking about the combat ruling before the tournament and the judges made announcements regarding it). The judge ruled that I had missed the combat step and passed to declare attackers because the word "combat" was used. My opponent knew exactly what I was doing and I was very clear with how I was doing it, but the opponent decided to be scum and take advantage of this terrible shortcut policy. Thankfully it's since changed, but I still get mad thinking back on it.

the "combat" bit with Cesar got especially hair-pulling because I remember some judges at the time basically saying there was no way to declare that you were going to the START of the combat step, only the DECLARE ATTACKERS which means until the rule change there was officially no way to activate ANY "start of combat" triggers since any attempt to "go to combat" was understood by the rules to mean "go to declare attackers" you'd ALWAYS miss the trigger, but nobody knew that because literally everyone I had ever spoken to understood "go to combat" to mean "go to the START of combat" absolute madness

I think Magic could really learn a lot from Yugioh for scenarios like 9 and 2. In Yugioh, "Rule Sharking" - using rules and policy in an attempt to gain an advantage, instead of to ensure fair and consistent gameplay - is forbidden as unsportsmanlike conduct, and gives the player a minor warning (which can become a major warning with serious consequences if it happens mutliple times). The fact that Magic doesn't have a rule like this is frankly ridiculous.

The Cesar combat one is still hard to watch. Like Kai said no one has ever used "combat" as that shortcut. Even then Weldfast Engineer is not a "may" trigger so he could always crew in response to the trigger. Fucking shameful.

About the #2 entry: 1) If Cesar had said "attackers", I could see that possibly being interpreted as "Let's move straight to the Declare Attackers step", but he said "go to Combat", which is the name of the PHASE. It's not a shortcut. 2) Cesar had a triggered ability that goes on the stack at the Beginning of Combat. While it is true that the rules as I understand them at the time allowed for triggers -- even mandatory ones -- to be skipped entirely if both players failed to remember to add them to the stack. Not only was this not true, but there is another rule that allows the game to be reversed to a previous state/step/phase AS LONG AS nothing has happened that could not be reversed. For example, if I draw a card too quickly, my (beneficial) upkeep triggers won't go off; I can't unsee the card I drew. If Cesar had actually declared some attackers, it would have been too late for his Beginning of Combat step trigger. Since Cesar clearly believed himself to be in the BoC step with his trigger on the stack, that's where the judge should have adjudicated the game state to be in and possibly issue a first-offense warning. To do otherwise would be to unfairly catch a player in a "Gotcha" trap. 3) But most importantly, the one thing I haven't heard anyone address is: What was Cesar SUPPOSED to have said to advance the game from his first Main Phase to the Beginning of Combat step without saying the word 'Combat'??

#2 is like saying "untap" at the start of your turn skips your untap step and goes straight to the draw step. The fact that naming a phase does anything other than go into that phase is a piss in the face of game design.

I forgot how mad the combat made me, it felt so bad faith to say combat means a phase that doesn't contain combat in the name when English was clearly not primary language.

Cesar was robbed straight up. And no I don't feel bad for Nguyen afterwards. If someone had done this to him I would be just as upset. The whole thing was a mess and the judge not ruling in his favor was trash tier. I am glad they changed a lot of this stuff up.

The Kibler one isn’t that crazy to forget. He was so focused on Baneslayer itself that it slipped his mind that the trigger would still hit something else. Like, “I didn’t put Baneslayer down, so I’m safe.” and stop thinking.

Especially with the "combat" one, I think cheating is somehow actually less scummy than that level of rules lawyering. TIL you can rules lawyer to the point where you are essentially putting words in your opponents mouth, and some judge will happily endorse your degeneracy because sometimes judges just want to feel smart, not do the right thing.

That Wall of Roots thing is the wildest strategy I've heard about in a long time. lol