There was an interesting judge call during round 13 of the Pro Tour that was captured on coverage. It's possible that there are details of the call that were not apparent to people watching coverage, so my apologies if there are relevant aspects of the call that I'm not privy to.

The active player draws for his turn and casts a Hellraiser Goblin. It appears as if the Hellraiser Goblin resolves, and the active player at this point calls a judge and asks if, even though he didn't announce that it was his second main phase, whether he can decide that he has cast the Hellraiser Goblin in the second main phase. The judge appeared to have approved this request.

This seems like an incorrect ruling to me, but I think it's worth discussing. I think this call can be handled in one of two different ways. First, we can, after asking both players about the game state, decide that there was no communication about moving to second main phase and rule that the Hellraiser Goblin was cast in the first main phase, particularly since the players so far have been casting spells both pre and post combat and the distinction between the two has been based on actually attacking in combat. Alternatively we can decide that there is unclear communication between the players about what phase we were in, and therefore choose to rewind the game state to the last point where they were in agreement about the game state (i.e. before the Hellraiser Goblin is cast, with the stack empty in the first main phase). How should this call be handled?

The judges who can best respond to this are rather busy. <br/><br/><br/>Sent from Yahoo! Mail for iPhone

Sorry for the delay … I may have had “one or two” other things to attend to, since the Pro Tour. :)

Here's the thing: there's nothing illegal about playing the Hellraiser during your 2nd Main Phase, after skipping a “null” Combat Phase. If the opponent actually wanted to act during the 1st Main, or that non-existent Combat, then he or she would have said as much to the ruling judge … or, at the very least, appealed.

There was nothing wrong with the ruling, and the opponent accepted it as well. I was aware of it, and was ready for an appeal if necessary - it wasn't.