Hello,

this is a situation that came up in a recent standard tournament I played in, and I wonders what judges would do in a competitive REL tournament.


Situation 1:
Player A has Evolutionary Leap and a bunch of token creatures. Player B has some high power creatures without trample, including Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet with some counters on it.. Player A won the first game, and now we're in the second game with only a few minutes left for this round.

Player A knows that it's very unlikely for him to win this game because he has no creatures left in his library and his opponent is at 42 life due to the big Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. He knows that the time is about to run out, so he decides to generate tokens and chump-block with them. He plays at a reasonable pace, he doesn't think for long, but clearly adjusts his plays so he'd eat up more time off the clock.

Do you consider this slow play or stalling? Or is this perfectly legal?

Situation 2:

Exactly like situation 1, but the player also activates Evolutionary Leap with the token that blocks Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, saying “I don't want you to gain more life.”, but he knows that he has no creature cards left in his library.

Do you consider this slow player or stalling? Do you think it's legal?

If it's legal, do you force the player to “shortcut” the resolution of the Evolutionary Leap activation by instantly shuffling the library or even letting the library stay the way it is for further activations since it's still randomized?


What do you think about this behavior? The general question is: Is it legal for a player to intentionally eat up time off the clock by making “silly” plays, if he still plays at a reasonable pace, meaning that he doesn't think for long?

Edited Jasper König (May 2, 2016 04:27:27 PM)

1) As long as he only adjusts his plays and not his pace, it's perfectly
legal. It's up to his opponent to kill him. AP does not need to assist him
with that in any way. So as long as he plays at a reasonable pace (i.e. not
Slow-playish, and not slower than he played when he still had a chance to
win), he can try and prevent his opponent from winning.

2) Sacrificing the token even with 0 cards in library is still a perfectly
valid play (exactly for the reason stated - even though he know he can't
win anymore, his opponent doesn't need to know it as well, and preventing
him from getting life is something any reasonable person would do.)

As far as the shortcutting the search, I'm all for it. If the player fails
to find a creature once, there is no way I'm letting him try to do it again
without receiving penalty (usually Slow Play Caution, in this case Stalling
DQ if the player knows it's against the rules.) Resolving that ability
completely fits both slow play and stalling infractions (depending on
intent), because the player is taking an unreasonable amount of time to
complete a game action. Reasonable amount of time would be no time (library
is already random and nothing can be found, so the result would be the
exactly same Game State), unless his opponent would insist on resolving the
ability fully because he wants to know which card the AP has drawn.

And concernig the “silly plays”: The prevailing opinion is that the player
needs to make plays that are advancing the Game State. So, he can't just
spent his whole turn reattaching the same equipment to different creatures
until he runs out of mana, he can't keep repeating infinite combos, he
can't keep countering his own spells with Tamyio's Emblem (this is actually
a real example), but he can keep foiling his opponents attempt to win. From
all the plays you mentioned, there is no play I would consider illegal
because of its silliness (all of them are valid and are advancing the game
state) with the exception of resolving Evolutionary Leap fully (although
activating it is perfectly fine).

2016-05-02 18:14 GMT+02:00 Jasper König <

I don't see an issue with situation 1, that seems fine and it's a very frequent situation when games go to time. It would be weird if we started worrying about this, because then we can consider every situation involving multiple chumpblockers and we would have to draw some sort of arbitrary line somewhere.

Situation 2 in the way you described it is fine as well for the first Leap activation. Whether the player knows there are 0 creatures left or not, the first activation of Leap is 100% a legal play and not stalling. From then on, since both players saw all cards revealed during the first activation, the outcome is already known. Then it's fine to offer a shortcut and then all the Leap activations will be done instantly. If the Leaping player declines this shortcut, then sure, I would interpret that as stalling, since the only benefit gained from it is time.

In general I don't really think anything about people making silly plays. Some decks are all about silly plays that use up a lot of time (Modern RW Norin/Genesis Chamber comes to mind, or UW Elixir from a few Standards ago) and it's perfectly fine that these exist.

Edited Kurt Vooys (May 2, 2016 12:14:31 PM)

Originally posted by Kurt Vooys:

If the Leaping player declines this shortcut, then sure, I would interpret that as stalling, since the only benefit gained from it is time.

A small word of caution here, to avoid overly hasted DQs. Ask the player why they refuse the shortcut; explain that wasting time for the sole purpose of wasting time is illegal, and ask them if they really expect anything from coming out of it. If the player insists on shuffling the library to make it random, for example, I would have no real issue with that. It's only Stalling if the player knows what they are doing is illegal, so please check/explain that first!

Otherwise: fully agree with everything said by David and Kurt.

Originally posted by David Záleský:

And concernig the “silly plays”: The prevailing opinion is that the player
needs to make plays that are advancing the Game State. So, he can't just
spent his whole turn reattaching the same equipment to different creatures
until he runs out of mana, he can't keep repeating infinite combos, he
can't keep countering his own spells with Tamyio's Emblem (this is actually
a real example), but he can keep foiling his opponents attempt to win. From
all the plays you mentioned, there is no play I would consider illegal
because of its silliness (all of them are valid and are advancing the game
state) with the exception of resolving Evolutionary Leap fully (although
activating it is perfectly fine).

2016-05-02 18:14 GMT+02:00 Jasper König <

Fully agree.
Judges shouln't be called to decide if a play is silly or not, and as far as I can tell, historically have never had this power and duty.

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 8:20 PM, Dustin De Leeuw <
forum-26813-5fd6@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

> It's only Stalling if the player knows what they are doing is illegal


​A small correction here, the clause for a player knowing what they're
doing is illegal​ is only required for USC - Cheating.

For USC - Stalling all that the IPG requires is that the player is playing
slowly intentionally and in order to take advantage of the time limit.


//DLI

There is information to be gained for N from additional activations of Leap, as well as a shuffle, which A may consider valuable. Unless their actual answer is “I'm doing this to waste time,” I'm not inclined to shortcut this much beyond revealing the entire library at once and then shuffling. We're not really in an area covered by policy, as players are allowed to make plays to simply stay alive and to deny their opponents resources (in this case life gain) even if they know they will fail to find. As long as they aren't taking an unwarranted amount of time to do so, everything they are doing is legal. As such, the shortcut I would enforce would be that which still yields the same information and only abbreviated the time needed to reveal it.

Sent from my iPad

Thanks for the input so far. What exactly would you tell the opponent to explain that while yes, player A is intentionally eating up time, it's legal nonetheless? Players usually use the term “stalling” differently than judges do.

Originally posted by Jasper König:

Thanks for the input so far. What exactly would you tell the opponent to explain that while yes, player A is intentionally eating up time, it's legal nonetheless? Players usually use the term “stalling” differently than judges do.

Playing with the clock in mind and playing intentionally slowly with the clock in mind are two different things. There's no requirement for a player to win or loose as efficiently as possible, just that they play at a reasonable pace.

In both situations I see no reason to step in. His plays may be silly and take additional time to process, but as long as he plays the at a normal pace then he is doing nothing wrong. This is the same as the player who wins game one win less then five minutes left on the clock and then choosing to mulligan down to one or even 0 cards.

While legal, it is close to crossing a line. It's the kind of thing where I would be inclined to watch the game to ensure A doesn't go from playing it out to playing slowly.

Originally posted by Jasper König:

What exactly would you tell the opponent to explain that while yes, player A is intentionally eating up time, it's legal nonetheless? Players usually use the term “stalling” differently than judges do.

“While he may not be gaining anything from what he's doing, he is still making plays and doing so in a timely fashion so there isn't anything that can be done about it as per the IPG. I can keep an eye on the game for slow-play though to make sure that isn't an issue.”

Or something along those lines, that way I explain that A isn't actually violating the rules, but make sure B feels like their concerns aren't weightless, this kind of thing IS definitely something worthy of calling a Judge for in my eyes as it is very close to a rough area.

EDIT: Bonus point, Just realized that a Judge was never called. With no call I'd let them proceed as it is. A is still in the legal zone and if B isn't concerned about any rules being violated, there's no real reason to step in.

Edited Gregory Titov (May 3, 2016 03:34:12 AM)

While he may not be gaining anything from what he's doing

Not losing a game is gaining something.

Edited Pascal Gemis (May 3, 2016 03:59:58 AM)

Originally posted by Pascal Gemis:

Not losing a game is gaining something.

Fair enough, how would you phrase it overall then?

Originally posted by Gregory Titov:

Pascal Gemis
Not losing a game is gaining something.

Fair enough, how would you phrase it overall then?

I would phrase it that they are using the clock as a resource.

It reminds me of overtime periods in competitive Go.

You have 1 minute per overtime period. If you make your move within that 1 minute, it resets. If you take longer than that 1 minute, you lose that period and move on to your next (usually 3) if you run out of all 3 you lose.

So if you've determined your move after 10 seconds, you can play it, but then it's their move and if they know what they want to do/have lots of time on their clock, they can play quickly and force it back to your 1 minute timer. So it's common when you've chosen your move in 10 seconds, to just use up right to the last 1 or 2 seconds to earn more time to think about the board state before playing.

Similar sort of thing here. Playing carefully and deliberately is not slow play, even if the belief of the opponent is that the player cannot possibly win in the time remaining. It does become a judgment call if a judge is called in to decide if it is slow play or not, but continuing to play with care and optimality even if player A likely can't win isn't an offense on its own at all, and in fact is what should be expected at Comp Rel.

David had it right, it is Player B's responsibility to beat Player A. Player A is under no obligation to concede or otherwise play poorly just to give B an easier time of it. If he's not actually stalling the game with obviously slow play, he deserves the game draw and match win if B can't kill him.

B got out of range of dying via lifelink. But that doesn't mean he gets a freebie into range of actually winning the game.