Subject: [MAGAUS] [Report] Sydney LA PTQ Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 20:05:49 +1100 From: Grant A Mitchell To: magaus@magic.net.au This is a tournament report for the Sydney LA PTQ Tournament. I will mostly be writing this from a judging point of view, with many rules questions included (the answers given out are quoted near the end of the report). This tournament was conducted on Sunday January 11th 1998 at Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club, West Ryde. I, Grant Mitchell, was the Head Judge, and my judging staff was Skeeve Stevens, J J Bommer, and Ben Isaacs. We started registering people outside the club from 9.30am, and once we had moved inside after 10am we had 75 registered players! This is the best turn out to a tournament I have helped organise! Thanks to everyone for attending. Unfortunately we started a little late (10.50am) due to technical errors; but with the help of the microphone and speaker system (the first in Sydney and possibly Australia at a Magic tournament?), people were well aware of what was going on and how to proceed. Thanks go to Croftminster for their sponsorship, and to Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club for the fantastic venue - plenty of room in the air-conditioned auditorium with drinks on tap! The only complaint we received all day was concerning the length of the rounds (45 minutes), and I assure you that in all future tournaments this issue will be considered carefully. --------- Now on to the rulings and interesting parts: During round 1: Andrew Pirie managed a 4th turn kill with an Enduring Bomb ("Fruity Pebbles") deck. This was to be the first of a few fast wins from this deck for a few people. 1) Player A casts an Earthquake. Player B Forks the spell. Player B asks "Since Fork talks about choosing new targets, can I choose a specific target for the damage that the Forked Earthquake deals?" 2) Is it legal for Player A to choose a land as a card to choose when casting Mystical Tutor? 3) Player A has to pay the upkeep cost for a Suq'Ata Firewalker due to Pendrell Mists. Can Player B respond to the payment by dealing damage to the Suq'Ata Firewalker with Stormbind (thus preventing the player from using his ability)? This was the beginning of explaining the "new" rules that have been cropping up, namely announcing all targets for Cursed Scroll, and the reasoning behind why counters do not affect things like Assembly Workers. 4) A Nature's Revolt is in play. A land placed into play cannot be tapped for mana due to summoning sickness. If the Nature's Revolt is destroyed, can that land then be tapped for mana? 5) Can a player Stormbind with a single Fireblast in hand, and then in response cast the Fireblast before the card is discarded? I also noted that one of the players was using one the best "old" cards - namely the Fat Moti! During round 2: We gave away our first guessing competition prize this round - a box of Tempest boosters. Congratulations to William Lee. The Contagion counters on a Mishra's Factory question came up this round. 6) A player casts Sengir Autocrat when there is a Humility in play. Does the player receive the Serf tokens? 7) The same situation - what happens to the Serf tokens when the Sengir Autocrat leaves play with the Humility still in play? Two Buried Alive decks faced each other - James Pirie against Warren Keedle. Very amusing to watch, since they both knew exactly how the other person's deck worked. 8) A match has finished, with Player A winning 2-1. Player B then asks "Player A attacked with a Wildfire, pumping it to 4. There was a Furnace of Rath in play, so it dealt 8 damage to me. I cast Honorable Passage to redirect that damage back to Player A. How much does it deal?" I answered "16", Player B says "We thought 8 at the time. If we had known it dealt 16, I would have won the duel and then the match. What happens to the result of the match now?" We broke for lunch at this point (love that bistro food at the Leagues Club!). During round 3: We gave away the lucky door prize at the beginning of this round - a Weatherlight set. Congratulations to Perlon Leung. 9) Bosium Strip has been activated this turn by Player A. Player A casts the Lightning Bolt on the top of their graveyard. Can Player A then cast the Fireblast that is now on the top of their graveyard this turn without activating Bosium Strip again? During round 4: We gave away another box of Tempest boosters in our second guessing competition this round - congratulations to Michael Mercer. 10) There is a 2/2 creature with a -1/-1 counter in play. One of the players casts Humility. What is the power/toughness of the creature now? 11) Can I Capsize my Fog Elemental and still have it deal damage in combat? During round 5: In this round a player with a heavy black deck cast an early Hymn, grabbing a Maro as on the two cards, and then proceeded to beat up the opponent with their own Maro controlled with a Necromancy! 12) Player A has only Prot:Black creatures in play. Player B has a Dystopia in play. Does Dystopia affect these creatures? 13) A Nature's Revolt and a Humility are in play. Can the land be tapped for mana? What is the power/toughness of lands? During round 6: I noted in this round that there were many Red-White-and-Blue decks around, starring the infamous Frenetic Efreet! A combo that I noticed being used by one deck was Nature's Revolt and Pendrell Mists - both players (usually) end up with no land! I didn't take any notes during round 7. At the end of Swiss the standings were: (1) Collins, Lenny -- 18 58.50 68.75 54.51 (2) Taylor, Ian -- 17 64.63 70.59 58.90 (3) Champion, Mark -- 17 63.95 70.59 57.57 (4) Dickonson, Matt -- 16 63.49 62.50 60.25 (5) Chan, Dylan -- 16 59.18 70.59 53.19 (6) Kemp, Adam -- 16 53.20 63.16 45.99 (7) Ho, Rod -- 15 69.39 52.94 61.56 (8) Morgan, Daniel -- 15 58.50 75.00 49.75 The finals proceeded as follows: Lenny Collins -. > Lenny Collins -. Daniel Morgan -' \ > Lenny Collins -. Matt Dickonson . / \ > Matt Dickonson ' \ Dylan Chan ----' \ > Lenny Collins Mark Champion -. / > Adam Kemp -----. / Adam Kemp -----' \ / > Adam Kemp -----' Ian Taylor ----. / > Ian Taylor ----' Rod Ho --------' The day had been long, so during the Grand Final a number of amusing things occurred: Adam Kemp animates his Mishra's Factory, "Any response?", Lenny says "No", Adam attacks with his Assembly Worker, "Any response?", "No", Adam pumps his Assembly Worker with another Mishra's Factory, "Any response?", "No", Adam then replys "Why do I feel ripped off?". A couple of Serrated Arrows were cast during the match. The $400 and $200 in prize money were on the table next to the competitors, so they used the $100 notes as counters on the Arrows and creatures! At one stage Adam had a Spectral Bears with 2 tokens ($200) and a Serrated Arrows with 3 tokens ($300), so Adam remarked, "I might just concede now!". Adam Kemp was desperate for a top-decking card after casting Tithe. Adam asked Lenny, "What card shall I have?" and Lenny stated, "Land", and lo and behold Adam drew - a land! The tournament finished at 10.10pm. Congratulations to Lenny for winning, and also to Adam Kemp for qualifying for LA. I look forward to seeing most of the tournaments' players at our future tournaments at the Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club throughout the year! --- Here are the rulings that were given on the day: 1) Earthquake has no targets. Thus the forked copy has no targets, despite any confusions with the wording of Fork. 2) No - a land is not a Mana Source - its ability is played as a mana source. 3) The first thing to realise is that a Suq'Ata Firewalker cannot be the target of Stormbind. Now if it was a Prodigal Sorceror, you can respond to the payment of the upkeep cost and kill the Sorceror before he may be used, since phase costs are played as instants in batches. 4) Certainly. The land still has summoning sickness (as would all permanents), but since the land is no longer a creature it is no longer subject to the inhibitions of creatures with summoning sickness. 5) No - the discarding the card is part of the cost of the Stormbind (since it is worded "Do A to do B", where A is discard a card at random). Under the new templating, the "discard a card at random" would appear before the colon ":". 6) Yes. A zone change ability is "announced" in the old zone - namely limbo when casting creatures with "comes into play" effects. The ability is resolved in the new zone, and despite the fact that the Autocrat no longer has the "comes into play" effect, it has already been announced, and thus will resolve. 7) The Serf tokens remain. The Sengir Autocrat no longer has the ability that affects the tokens, and thus will not trigger when it leaves play. 8) The result stands. Unless a player is suspected of cheating, or a match result is misentered (and confirmed by both players), the result of a previous match cannot change, despite any mistakes. It is the responsibility of both players to check any rules problems with a judge when the confusion occurs. 9) Certainly, since Bosium strip reads "if at any time the top card in your graveyard", which does not refer to any specific card, but any card that appears on the top of your graveyard that turn. 10) 1/1. Apply the token first, making it 1/1, then apply the Humility, making it 1/1. 11) No. There is no chance to cast non-damage prevention/redirection spells after combat damage is dealt and before the end of combat. If it is capsized after blockers are declared then it will not deal damage. 12) Certainly. Dystopia reads "sacrifice a white or green permanent", and sacrificing is non-targetting. 13) No - the ability is removed due to the Humility (it is not that Humility is preventing the mana source ability, it is removing the ability altogether). The power/toughness depends on which enchantment comes into play first. If Nature's Revolt came into play last lands are 2/2 creatures; otherwise they are 1/1. Have fun judging. ------- name://grant.a.mitchell/ mtg://the next eastwood mtg tournament email://grant@magic.net.au/ mtg://is on sun 18th january and is t2te http://www.myinternet.net/grant/ phone://+61.412.167.234/ irc://scrixer/ judge://dci.level.3/ msg://merry christmas and a happy new year ------------------------------------------------------------------------- __ Come to the Montly Eastwood Tournament this weekend |\/| _. _ /\ | |(_ Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club, Sunday 9.30am, the 18th. | |(_|(_|/--\|_|__) of Jan. 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