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Regular REL » Post: Chaos Orb

Chaos Orb

May 30, 2013 07:26:08 PM

David Záleský
Judge (Uncertified)

Europe - Central

Chaos Orb

Active player casts Chaos Orb. Is Non-active player allowed to change location of his or her permanents?

There are 2 rulings which can be applicable:

You can arrange your cards any time before the Orb is put onto the battlefield, but not after. In general, you should not stack cards or put them in places where your opponent can't read the names of all of them or count them. This is recommended good gaming practice.

and

You can't interfere in any physical way with the casting of this card.

The first one only applies when Chaos Orb is on the battlefield but its philosophy can be used while Chaos Orb is on the stack, while the second one explicitly mentions casting, but is not exact enough to make a conclusion about what are players allowed to do with their cards while Chaos Orb is on the stack.

What are your opinions?

May 30, 2013 07:43:05 PM

Jacob Faturechi
Judge (Uncertified)

USA - Southwest

Chaos Orb

This is part of the reason it is banned in every format.

The guiding ethic here is, “don't be a $#&%!”

If you are playing in an environment that allows Chaos Orb, then don't
rules lawyer the house rules.

May 30, 2013 07:44:24 PM

Josh McCurley
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Foundry)), Scorekeeper, Tournament Organizer

USA - Northeast

Chaos Orb

The way I've always played it is that once it is on the stack permanents
cannot move. I know that was a ruling given by a judge back in 94 at a
tourney I played in.
On May 30, 2013 7:22 PM, “David Zalesky” <

May 30, 2013 08:28:48 PM

John Carter
Judge (Level 3 (Judge Academy)), Tournament Organizer

USA - Northwest

Chaos Orb

From us old people here…
The rules for coping with casting Chaos Orb came in three parts:
1) Once Chaos Orb was announced or otherwise revealed (physically or otherwise), players could not move permanents other than to rotate them. You Regrowth Chaos Orb? Pin the permanents (even though it goes to hand). You tell your opponent you're Demonic Tutoring for Chaos Orb so he can take his turn, pin the permanents.
2) Rotating permanents means put a virtual pin in the center of each permanent, and then rotate around the central point. No rotating from one land's upper left corner and another's lower right corner to produce maximum spread.
3) New permanents could be put into play (that's right, there was no battlefield, so nyah!) wherever the player wanted provided a) they were on the table (no balancing creatures on deckboxes), b) they weren't on the opponent's side of the table (no putting your lands on their lands), and c) they took up reasonable amounts of space (no putting your enchantment three feet away).

The rules for resolving the Orb effect have details, too:
1) The card must flip from at least one foot. If a measuring device is not available, one foot or more should be agreed up by reasonable players.
2) The card must flip. The direction of the flip does not matter but must be at least 360 degrees. Shredding the card means you can't reliably determine that all portions have rotated 360 degrees. Thus, the entire card cannot be verified as flipped, and the effect fails.
3) When the card lands, treat it as though the card is made of acid and burns a hole straight down through the table. Any permanents that would be damaged in this virtual process (stacked lands, enchantments under permanents) are destroyed. This does not apply to the sleeves on any cards–of the Orb or the other permanents–just the cards.