"Must-draw" situations?

[arhar]

Has anybody seen any of those happen? I did just a couple of days ago. It was pretty funny. During a draft, two of the people playing had both NO cards in the library or in hand, but one of them had two Sunscape Apprentices and the other one had two Nightscape Apprentices and both had access to blue mana. They had a lot of creatures out, but nothing either of them couldn't block. Obviously, they had to draw

 

[Ransac]

Technically, that's not a must draw situation. The next person that needed to draw a card would lose.


I have however, been in a situation where the match ended in a draw because we chose it before the match started. My friend and I both won a game and on the 3rd game, he earthquaked for 20.


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Istanbul]

Actually, Ransac, you're wrong in both situations.
All each player had to do was put an Apprentice on top of his library each turn, then replay it. There would always be an Apprentice available without summoning sickness, and since neither player would opt to attack if they were smart, the game had to be a draw.
On the other hand, if I Earthquake for 500, you lose. As the active player, I choose the order in which damage resolves. I'll let the 500 to you resolve first, and allow you to lose. Same reason Prosperity makes such a good kill card.

 

[TomB]

I thought they fixed that Isty. Don't both players lose now?

 

[Chaos Turtle]

1- The game could either be drawn or continue until time ran out (in sanctioned play) in which case it would be counted as incomplete (basically a draw but no credit for the game having been played).

2- State-based effects (of which, a player losing the game due to having zero or less life, is one) are not checked during the resolution of spells. Once Earthquake resolves, both players have zero (or less) life and lose the game immediately thereafter.

 

[rakso]

Originally posted by Istanbul
On the other hand, if I Earthquake for 500, you lose. As the active player, I choose the order in which damage resolves. I'll let the 500 to you resolve first, and allow you to lose. Same reason Prosperity makes such a good kill card.

I don't think it works this way. This IS a draw situation.

 

[Istanbul]

Curious. Well, that'd always been a subject of much contention in our playing group. Oh well.

 

[Ransac]

*Ransac kicks his own buttocks.*

I forgot what those apprentices did. Sorry.

However, my draw stipulation was correct.



Ransac

 

[Zadok001]

The Earthquake thing IS a draw situation. I think I like Isty's way better (more cool interactions), but as a rule, all damage is dealt at the same time, regardless of active/inactive player status. Everyone takes 500, everyone is reduced to some number FAR less than 0, everyone is put into the graveyard as a state based effect after Earthquake resolves.

Well, maybe not the graveyard, but that would sure be funny...

 

[fuzzy510]

This is turning into a "Rules Questions" thread.

I've never seen one of these, but I'm questioning if there truly are any "Must-Draw" situations. There's usually always that small chance.

 

[Zadok001]

Grindstone someone with only two Serra Avatars left in their library. Draw game.

 

[Gizmo]

really?
you sure about that? think there is probably a loophole ot avoid that ahppening as that sounds like one of those 'potentially infinite' involuntary situations that Beth said was theoretically possible but did not actually occur in any known card interactions.

 

[Thallid Ice Cream Man]

Would the ability of the Serra Avatar trigger in the middle of the Grindstone ability? I don't know enough about how those interactions work to decide.

 

[Zadok001]

It's a replacement effect, so instead of one part of Grindstone's resolution (put into graveyard), they are replaced into the library. The problem is, the final condition of the library is impossible to determine - If both end up in the deck, then Grindstone should have acted again. If both end up in the graveyard, how could they have gotten there? Etc... Not 100% sure based on most recent rulings, but I know that was the case not to far in the past.

 

[Chaos Turtle]

Unless there has been some special ruling that I'm unaware of...(*1)

When Grindstone is activated and the target player's library contains nothing except two Serra Avatars(*2), the game enters an uncontrolled loop and ends in a draw.

Here's why:

We'll assume that there is nothing in play that can interfere with the process, such as another effect that replaces cards going to the graveyard.

When Grindstone's ability resolves, you put the top 2 cards of your opponent's library into the graveyard. If those cards are both Serra Avatar, the event "Put these two cards into their owner's graveyard," becomes "shuffle these two cards into their owner's library."(*3)

So when you reach the final part of Grindstone's instructions ("If both cards share a color...") you must repeat the process. Every time, you will be shuffling the two Serra Avatar cards back into the library, and repeating the process. Since no player will ever gain priority, no one can stop it, and the game ends in a draw.

Notes:

*1 - It's remotely possible that it's been rules that the cards must actually go to the graveyard for the second instruction to apply. You can make a very good case for this. Since the library is a "secret info" zone, the colors of the cards is unknown to Grindstone until they go to the graveyard (a "public info" zone). Although the Serra Avatars are revealed as part of their replacement effect, you could say that since Grindstone will be looking to see what color the cards it put into the graveyard are, it doesn't find them there and won't know that they shared a color.

This is a bit shaky, but it could fall under the same reasoning that dictates that Memory Lapse must actually counter it's target in order to put it on top of it's owner's library.

Any confirmation/denial of this would be appreciated, although I don't expect it to keep me up at night.

*2 - The same result can be achieved with exactly two Legacy Weapons in the target player's library and Celestial Dawn under that player's control.

*3 - This is simplified, but I'm not even sure how you'd word the actual events, and the result is exactly the same anyhow. So, nitpickers begone!

[Corrected an error where CT put "graveyard" instead of "library." --Zadok001]