Hello everyone,

During a pre-release, I got an interesting question from some players: should we add some ways in the IPG to handle the City's Blessing?
My understanding of the current documents is that you do not have to tell your opponent that you got the Blessing. Your opponent needs to be aware of it by theirself. This can lead to situations where a player with less that 10 permanents will say “Remember, 3 turns ago I had the Blessing, even if I did not tell you,” leading sometimes to impossible analysis of the board state to answer the question “did the player got or not the Blessing.”
I know that it is not usual to put specific to cards elements in the IPG. With this topic, I am wondering if we could and should add something in the documents stating that players need to tell that they reached the Blessing. For example, not doing so is a CPV that can allow some back up.

Let's put it simply:
which kind of information is “I have the city blessing”? Free, derived, private?

Once we establish this, I would say the response is already in the IPG.

Edited Francesco Scialpi (Jan. 14, 2018 12:43:01 AM)

It sounds like it's a free informations :

• Details of current game actions and past game actions that still affect the game state.

What about derived? “may require some skill or calculation to determine.”.
Getting the blessing is not an “action”, but the result of an ability that
does not require actions.

Originally posted by Francesco Scialpi:

which kind of information is “I have the city blessing”? Free, derived, private?

It is Free information; this will be confirmed in the next Policy update.

d:^D

Edited Scott Marshall (Jan. 14, 2018 07:21:38 AM)

Scott: Does this mean you do not have to mention when you get it and we
will be left with the situations OP mentioned :)?

Den 14 jan. 2018 15:59 skrev “Johannes Wagner” <

Even with it being Free information, neither player needs to really acknowledge it before the Blessing becomes relevant or either player asks. It just happens. However, neither player may hide the fact that they have the Blessing either. Incorrectly representing having the City's Blessing (or not) is a CPV.
We might find ourselves in situations where something has been resolved incorrectly. Then it is a GRV, as per normal with anything incorrectly resolved.

The Ascend mechanic probably won't see much play in other constructed formats than Standard. I think that we can urge players to be as clear as possible when playing with Ascend, and help them figure out if they had the Blessing or not as the need arrises. Right now, there is no drawback in having the Blessing, so there is no reason for players NOT to just acknowledge the Blessing as they get it.

There is actually a strategic reason not to acknowledge the Blessing: your
opponent might take actions not noticing that you have it. It actually
happened in the Pre Release where a player attacked not knowing that a
potential blocker got +2/+2 thanks to the Blessing.

2018-01-14 21:20 GMT+02:00 John Eriksson <

There is - you opponent thinking you do not have it, thereby making it less likely to counter/block/destroy something that is better while you have the blessing if you dropped below 10 permanents again.


That said, it is (mostly) standard, so gamestates are easier to retrace and you are less likely to gain and loose a high number of permanents in a short time than you would be in older formats.

I'm going to close this thread until the policy update is released.

I've received reopened this topic. Before posting, make sure you read Toby's blog post: https://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2018/01/15/policy-changes-for-rivals-of-ixalan/

Shouldn't experience counters also be included in the list of life totals, poison counters and energy? It doesn't matter that much, I believe only Meren is run in some sort of competitive setting (legacy). But it would be good for consistency's sake.

If having the City's Blessing is free information, does it needs to have any kind of visual representation?

When I read about free information in the MTR, I think “that's obvious, everyone that's playing that match should know about this things” but getting the City's Blessing isn't something THAT obvious

Getting the City's Blessing should be something like getting an emblem from a PW and should be announced or be represented in a way to avoid a lot of unnecessary judge calls on tournaments.

Free information includes past actions that still affect the game, which won't necessarily have a visual representation so this won't be much different to that

I just worry that we can run into situation where AP has implicitly ascended (acquired the city's blessing) let's say by playing a 10th permanent with let's say a Spire Winder already in play. Opponent on his turn clears the board with a boardwipe. A few turns later AP casts secrets of the golden city, stating Draw 3. Opponents says you never acquired the city's blessing and they call us over. How hard is it going to be for us to re-construct the board state in the face of conflicting story and how can we rule this correctly?