Counterbalance + Brainstorm ruling
Jax
matches:
<<
When Chapin attempted to play a Counterbalance of his own a turn
later, Carlos responded with Brainstorm. He reset the top three cards
of his deck, then attempted to reveal for his Counterbalance. That
prompted a judge call from Pat.
“If Counterbalance is a may trigger, does my opponent have to declare
it going on the stack before he Brainstorms?” The judge ruled in Pat’s
favor, meaning Irizarry couldn’t reveal from his Counterbalance.
>>
...wouldn't this ruling also affect Sensei's Divining Top? Meaning
that you had to declare whether or not you balance before you peek?
Which is, of course, assuming the judge didn't make a mistake and got
the ruling wrong...
bloodlineS
counterbalance trigger was resolved before continuing, nor did either say
they were passing priority in anyway* so it should be assumed they were
responding to the top action on the stack (the counterbalance trigger).
* - I'm assuming this, I didn't see the scene, I'm just going off what
you've told me of it.
Аркадий
> I just came across this ruling in one of the GP Chicago feature
> matches:
>
> <<
> When Chapin attempted to play a Counterbalance of his own a turn
> later, Carlos responded with Brainstorm. He reset the top three cards
> of his deck, then attempted to reveal for his Counterbalance. That
> prompted a judge call from Pat.
>
> “If Counterbalance is a may trigger, does my opponent have to declare
> it going on the stack before he Brainstorms?” The judge ruled in Pat’s
> favor, meaning Irizarry couldn’t reveal from his Counterbalance.
>
The default, which should be assumed by judges unless something was
specifically said otherwise, is that the player plays spells/abilities
at the earliest opportunity, meaning, in this case, that
Counterbalance trigger is still on the stack. It's akin to the ruling
of "countering Demigod of Revenge" - if you don't say "I let the
trigger resolve then play my Cryptic Command" the Demigod's trigger
will bring it back into play...
Zoe Stephenson
> I just came across this ruling in one of the GP Chicago feature
> matches:
> <<
> When Chapin attempted to play a Counterbalance of his own a turn
> later, Carlos responded with Brainstorm. He reset the top three cards
> of his deck, then attempted to reveal for his Counterbalance. That
> prompted a judge call from Pat.
> ?If Counterbalance is a may trigger, does my opponent have to declare
> it going on the stack before he Brainstorms?? The judge ruled in Pat?s
> favor, meaning Irizarry couldn?t reveal from his Counterbalance.
> >>
So, as I read the above, Irizarry has a Counterbalance in play and a
Brainstorm in hand, and Chapin is playing Counterbalance from his hand;
Irizarry wants to put the trigger from his Counterbalance on the stack,
then respond to it with the Brainstorm so that the top card of his
library has a good chance of having CMC 2 when the Counterbalance
trigger resolves.
Counterbalance {U}{U} Enchantment
/ Whenever an opponent plays a spell, you may reveal the top card of
your library. If you do, counter that spell if it has the same
converted mana cost as the revealed card.
There's nothing optional in the triggering of this ability. The
trigger event is 'an opponent plays a spell' so the triggered ability
had to go on the stack as soon as Chapin got priority back from playing
his own Counterbalance.
When that ability later resolves, that's the point at which Irizarry
has to decide whether to proceed with the part of the ability governed
by 'you may'.
So, the question from Chapin was misleading - the presence or absence
of 'may' in the triggered ability doesn't influence how the triggered
ability is announced. He may have been mixing it up with an
'intervening if', which does affect whether the ability goes onto the
stack, but that never refers to anything optional and I wouldn't
expect a player of Chapin's experience to make this kind of mistake.
The answer from the judge was also unfortunate. The players have
misread the triggered ability and need clarification on whether it
has triggered and when decisions are made for it.
The question may be read in a looser sense - would Irizarry have to
have said that he was responding to the Counterbalance trigger in order
for the Brainstorm that he's played to be considered as a response to
the Counterbalance triggered ability? Let's look at the stack in some
more detail:
Top: Counterbalance [I] trigger
Counterbalance [C] spell
Bottom:
Is it customary to consider that, when one jumps in with a response,
that one waits for some of the stack to resolve? No. I'd consider
that a response from Irizarry in this situation means 'OK, my
Counterbalance has to trigger first, so it does, then I'll play this
Brainstorm at the earliest opportunity'. So it's like this:
Top: Brainstorm spell
Counterbalance [I] trigger
Counterbalance [C] spell
Bottom:
I don't see a way for it to be more reasonable to consider that when
the Brainstorm is played, the Counterbalance trigger has resolved but
the Counterbalance spell hasn't. Of course, misunderstanding the fact
that the Counterbalance in play has to trigger, regardless, would
probably mean that one wouldn't even consider that these are the only
scenarios to deliberate over.
> ...wouldn't this ruling also affect Sensei's Divining Top? Meaning
> that you had to declare whether or not you balance before you peek?
> Which is, of course, assuming the judge didn't make a mistake and got
> the ruling wrong...
The original ruling applies just as much to Sensei's Divining Top as
it does to Brainstorm - i.e. not at all, in my opinion.
Looking at the coverage blog in question, I see the following note:
Editor's Note: After the match, the ruling regarding Counterbalance
was brought to the attention of head judge Jason Ness. He issued a
corrected version of the ruling that will allow players to trigger
their Counterbalance even if they've used abilities or played cards
in response to a spell without specifically pointing out that they're
leaving a Counterbalance trigger on the stack.
While the wording of this note leaves a lot to be desired (I wonder if
Jason used the right terms after all, and it's just the editing that's
using the wrong terms) it's essentially the right way to approach the
situation. You can still consider the Counterbalance triggered ability
not to have resolved, without specifically pointing out that you're
responding to it; just responding at all is enough for the
Counterbalance triggered ability to still be there on the stack.
--
-- Zoe Stephenson, NetRep rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules
Group FAQ: http://www.daeghnao.com/magic/faq/ --
--
bloodlineS
"Zoe Stephenson" <use...@daeghnao.com> wrote in message
news:gp0te6$2qs$2...@netty.york.ac.uk...
<snip>
> So, the question from Chapin was misleading - the presence or absence
> of 'may' in the triggered ability doesn't influence how the triggered
> ability is announced. He may have been mixing it up with an
> 'intervening if', which does affect whether the ability goes onto the
> stack, but that never refers to anything optional and I wouldn't
> expect a player of Chapin's experience to make this kind of mistake.
>
> The answer from the judge was also unfortunate. The players have
> misread the triggered ability and need clarification on whether it
> has triggered and when decisions are made for it.
>
As a local level 2 once told me, "90% of Judge questions are the player
actually asking 'I'd like to cheat now, let's see if you'll let me'".
Zoe Stephenson
Ah, well, that would then be a matter of whether the question was
intentionally misleading, in an effort to cheat, or unintentionally
misleading, due to perhaps misunderstanding of the rules, the card text
or from some language issue. You'd probably have to have been there to
make that call.
bloodlineS
Quite, but going off the information in the OP and some knowledge of Chapin
I'd be willing to guess Chapin was being cheeky as **** and trying to get a
freebie.
Speculation, of course :-)