The Phyrexian Arena is proud to welcome a new columnist to our line up. The Final Judgment column is written by Jonathan Holland, a level 2 judge out of Middle Tennessee. He will typically be writing about Judging, Commander, and whatever else crosses his mind.



Greetings! I just got back from Atlanta where I leveled up to L2 and I am very excited to get a chance to write for the Arena! Today I am going to talk about common judge calls and how to avoid them as a competitive player.

Missed Triggers

In Standard, the main culprit is Desecration Demon. The controller should announce the trigger at the beginning of both players’ beginning of combat steps. If a player doesn’t announce the trigger then they could receive a warning for missed trigger. This trigger is a detrimental trigger.

In Modern/Legacy, our good old friend Dark Confidant (aka: Bob) is the number one missed trigger. Once a player has drawn their card for turn, Dark Confidant’s trigger has been considered missed. If you call for a judge they will just ask the opponent if they would like Bob’s controller to have that trigger. I have yet to find an opponent who allows this….. No penalty is issued in this case because it is considered a beneficial trigger.

Drawing Extra Cards

All of these scenarios popped up on Sunday during the Legacy Open. First, I got a call and came over to the table and one player says, “My opponent had two islands in play and now he only has one.” Interesting….. Turns out, the opponent had returned an island to his hand when his opponent cast Daze. (They were both playing blue decks.) Unfortunately, they didn’t realize it until over a turn later. So, that player received a Game Loss due to Drawing Extra Cards. Why you ask? Because he had a card in his hand that wasn’t supposed to be there and at that point in the game we can’t just place the land back on the battlefield.
Next, I had a player on Charbelcher and he drew a card then played the Manamorphose in his hand that would allow him to draw a card. Some might think this could be considered out of order sequencing but that is not the case. The problem here is that he drew a card before he was supposed to. This is just Drawing Extra Cards and he was issued a Game Loss. He appealed my decision and tried to argue with the Head Judge that since he had the Turn 1 win he didn’t need that card anyways. The board state doesn’t matter in this situation because the simple fact of the matter is that he drew a card before he was supposed to and there is serious potential for abuse.

Additional Costs

Oh, Thalia and Defense Grid! These two are the cause of many a judge call. He is what you need to know about additional costs. You always have to pay them! If you cascade into a spell, you have to pay. Used an Omniscience to cast a spell? You have to pay. Cast a Force of Will or Daze using if alternative casting cost? That’s right you have to pay. Oh, and don’t forget about Dream Halls. If you forget to pay additional costs then you will receive a Warning for a Game Rule Violation for paying an incorrect mana cost to cast a spell. Trinisphere works similarly. Basically if you paid less than three mana to cast a spell you now have to pay 3 mana total.

Derived Information

I wanted to take just a minute and discuss the difference in derived information at Reg REL and Comp. REL. First, derived information is information that is dependent on other cards or objects in the game. (i.e. Tarmogoyf’s P/T.) At Regular REL, all derived information is free information. (i.e. How big your Tarmogoyf is free information.) At Competitive REL, derived information is not considered free information. So if you are at a competitive tournament and someone asks how big is your Tarmogoyf you don’t have to provide an answer. You can also give a partial answer, providing that there is nothing false about your answer. The best thing to do is check all players’ graveyards and figure out on your own how big that Tarmogoyf is. The only free information in this example are the names of the cards in the graveyards.

That’s all for this week, may your next tournament be free of penalties! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop me a line.

Jonathan Holland
Jonathandholland21@gmail.com
@urzaru