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Rules Q&A » Post: Urza, Lord High Artificer

Urza, Lord High Artificer

Aug. 14, 2019 02:59:52 PM [Original Post]

Bartosz Wojciechowski
Judge (Level 2 (International Judge Program))

Europe - Central

Urza, Lord High Artificer

Hello!

Today, I've been wondering about a tournament shortcut and whether if it would be fine on any REL.

Let's say a player controls Urza, Lord High Artificer and has a million blue mana in his mana pool. Urza's ability reads: 5: Shuffle your library, then exile the top card. Until end of turn, you may play that card without paying its mana cost. Can the player propose a shortcut, in which the deck will not be shuffled, but the top card will be exiled each time he wishes to activate the ability? After the first shuffle, the deck is already random, and the only thing that changes is the top card, which gets exiled. Assuming no other effects revealed any information about the position of cards in the deck (e.g. Lantern of Insight or Mystic Forge), would skipping the shuffling be legal?

Would love to hear your opinions and rulings!

Aug. 16, 2019 12:56:06 PM [Marked as Accepted Answer]

Scott Marshall
Forum Moderator
Judge (Level 4 (Judge Foundry)), Hall of Fame

USA - Southwest

Urza, Lord High Artificer

This also happened back when Mind's Desire was the combo of choice. And, just like back then, we allowed the shortcut to skip irrelevant shuffles - which is basically what you're asking, Bartosz.

As you noted, there may be the occasional action that requires a shuffle (Scrying, for example) before the next activation - but if nothing is ordering any part of the library, nor putting cards in it - go ahead and save time.

d:^D