An interesting potential angle shooting example Aspiringspike mentioned on his stream: He was at a Standard tournament. He had no blockers on board, so his opponent declared an attack with a 1/1. Spike had a flash creature in hand and wanted to ambush block with it, so he leaned forward in his seat and grabbed the card in hand to play it. Before he could take it from his hand and reveal it, his opponent immediately said he changed his mind and wasn't attacking. Spike called a judge, who said that changing your mind on attacks is legal, and no new information was officially revealed, so it was allowed.
Yeah, this is where you *don't* want to shortcut the order. "Are you done declaring attackers?" "Yes" "I flash in..." That's MtG's policy. You can even do this without the flash, if you're worried asking would make it obvious. Interestingly, other games might choose differently. From what I understand of Yugioh's for example, they have a strict position that 'outside game information is prohibited to be acted upon' and players 'need to have a mindset of not angleshooting.' Funnily enough, strictly reading that policy means the exact opposite, where after declaring an attack, as soon as your opponent reacts (before any gamestate actions) your attack is *already* locked in - and actually, trying to insinuate you *could* have a response when you don't would be considered illegal.
So the solution is to stay silent until opponent specifically says they pass or tries to shortcut to something past that, like damage? I'd be tempted to say something in response to "I attack with the 1/1" just to acknowledge that I heard them, but wouldn't want that to be misinterpreted as passing to/past declare blockers.
@ I guess that works too, wait until they say "blockers?" or "damage" If you playing a deck w flash and have the open mana though, should get into the habit of asking "move to blockers?" or "done declaring attackers?" even if you don't intend to flash in to block.
Thanks judge Dave for helping magic players (you mean they aren’t adept at social interaction? 😱) navigate difficult social situations. I hadn’t heard the phrase before, so that’s something I learned
At the kitchen table there is a self-regulation mechanism, as you just stop inviting players that you don't enjoy playing with. At the gamestore, extreme cases usually get adressed, as toxic players are bad for business. We are pretty direct when it comes to telling people that they are behaving like a jerk where I live.
2:51 I absolutely love this expression "simple, but not easy" applies to so many things And the first time I saw it used that was/with those words was in the Boom! MtG comics of all placesn Garruk knows a simple way of letting them talk to a dead person who died in a plane they cannot access anymoren it almost kills most in the group
For the Harrow example: Technically Nick is in the wrong even if MTR 4.3 didn't exist because she never shuffled her deck. Thus she never finished resolving the spell. Even if you choose to not find any lands the shuffling is mandatory.
Good to be honest and up-front about what social skills Magic players often have. I'm much more confident reading the CR than reading the room! So yeah, relying on someone like me picking up on hints is not a winning strat.
The angle shooting examples called out here are extremely egregious. I sometimes feel like the asshole at a casual commander tbale because I'm pointing out stuff like indestructible creatures not dieing to a wrath, 10 different upkeep triggers being missed etc.
it's called "maintaining the game state" and at Competitive or Professional you're actually *required* to do it (to an extent - missed triggers is a whole other ballgame but indestructible not dying to Wrath is clear). No need to feel bad at all :)
If you have a strong grasp of the rules, or even just a better understanding than the other players, don't feel bad about explaining how the game works. "Up The Beanstalk is a cast trigger, so you draw before your Psychosis Crawler resolves" is not malicious, it's correct and clarifying. Players open to learning the game better will appreciate this, especially if you have the social skills to make it accessible/polite, and if you are fairly enforcing your own mistakes too.
I have a totally unrelated question and I don't know where to post it. I have Volo, guide to the monsters in play and I cast colossal dreadmaw, making a token as well. Then I cast mockingbird for one mana. Can I copy my big dino twice with the bird(s)? To rephrase: does the token that come from a copy of a creature spell have a mana cost? Sorry for my poor English btw :x
Great examples when it comes to angle shooting! They made it clear what the exact "angle" the player was trying to shoot at in order to gain advantages. However, I do wish you would have included some examples in a more casual format of what would be approperiate verses what should be left up to the pod to discuss and approve/deny; such as takebacks. I recently had a game where a player during their turn cast a Hullbreaker Horror, this triggered my Rhystic Study and I declined to draw, seeing that they had a smothering tithe in play and I had no way of paying for the draw. Afterwards, they cast another spell after the Hullbreaker Horror resolved, triggering my Rhystic again, to which I declined to draw again. After this, the player then decided take they needed to take back the Hullbreaker Horror cast as they ran out of mana to do their follow-up plays. I argued against this stating that too many game actions had occured and too much information had been gained. It's situations like the one above where I feel is the grey area when it comes to angle shooting; would I be the angle shooter because I'm choosing to follow set-in-stone rules or would the other player be the angle shooter, being that they are trying to use the "casual" environment to their advantage, stating that every casual game would allow a takeback like the one they wanted.
The nice thing about a casual four player commander game is that if a player wants to bend the rules like this, there are three opponents who can vote on what should happen. In this situation I would say that I don’t think they should take it back, but if both of our other opponents disagree and think it’s fine then I’ve been outvoted.
Generally for me, mostly playing casual commander, take-backsies are always allowed as long as nothing notable/game-changing has happened between a game action and a players regret of said action. Occasionally, I will allow smaller takebacks even though game-changing stuff has happened, if the game-action is very obviously incorrect had the player in question paid full attention. In your example however, I would insist he kept his mistake. In this scenario, it's pretty obvious he was hoping to take advantage of your greed for extra draws in order to fuel a stronger turn. A very legitimate play, but one that is clearly a gamble, hoping for a specific response from the table. This however, is clearly not a mistake, but rather an attempted option-select, which is not grounds for a takeback imo. Of course the angleshot could be even more subtle than your example, so the waters can be muddy. In such a case I would probably let it slide, unless it becomes a recognizable pattern, in which case I would simply oppose any and all takebacks of said player in future games and let him/her know why. If they can't use them without abusing them, they don't get them at all.
I might be the asshole here, but my opinion is that once the thing you want to take back isn't the last thing that happened I'm not letting you take it back. You want to take back your hullbreaker? Too bad, it's on the battlefield now. Someone could have countered it, would you also want to take it back then? It's the same opinion I've with ward, I'll let you take back a spell or ability if you tried to target a hexproof creature (because you can't do that in the first place), but if you targeted a permanent with ward and can't pay that spell is getting countered. Casual or not, please respect that we sat down to have a game. Pay attention to what you're doing.
@@Tekarusame Insisting on a "spiky" sort rules-enforcement doesn't make you an arsehole. It just tells me that you don't play much multiplayer with players less experienced than you.
@@Tekarusame Yes you kind of are because everybody knows perfectly that if the person knew the creature had a ward ability they wouldn't have targeted it at all in the first place. Magic is a complex game and especially in the current era the complexity just increases exponentially. You cannot, and should not expect people to always have all informations in mind. If you were to do that to me in a casual setting i would just hold my stance and argue with you until you let me have a takeback and if you don't, i would become toxic toward you in particular and would try to make you do a similar mistake and then not let take it back just like you did to me. Either you're their to play in good faith with friends or you're not. As for the OP exemple, it's more up to the group to decide because informations were revealed (the card draw) and therefore going back would involve multiple people. It would also be to avoid a situation where the guy would just do his thing to see if he gets enough treasures and then go back in time if he doesn't, which is not how you're supposed to play the game at all in a casual setting.
Someone tried to angle shoot me at an unaltered precons only tournament because my deck contained foils and EA versions of my Dr Who cards... like in front of the 2 other players.
No. Cerberus' ability phrasing is an example of an intervening-if clause, where a triggered ability that triggers from some event immediately follows that text with an "if" clause; with these abilities, that condition must be true at the time of the event in order to trigger at all. Since Ball Lightning isn't dead yet (nobody even has priority yet to put the triggered abilities on the stack, never mind resolve), Cerberus does not trigger. The question becomes more interesting if there weren't the intervening-if clause because then there are more complicated timing matters, but as-is this is straightforward.
Since you're skipping the entire upkeep phase, some information is being communicated (you/your opponent has no effects in upkeep) so I'd assume that's not fine.
You don't get to skip your untap step, even if you wanted to. If an opponent tried to tell you that you missed the chance to untap call a judge and they will tell you to untap.
It was the same as the Cranial extraction example except instead of cranial extraction and grizzly bears it was slaughter games and jace the mind sculptor.
Angle shooting refers to behaviors which are generally seen as unethical, but not against the rules. In a Magic context, this includes stuff like Nick's behavior in the examples starting around 7:15, but may also include things like rules lawyering (attempting to deny plays to your opponent based on technicalities or quibbles in the rules), adjusting your pace of play up or down in an attempt to get your opponent to make a mistake, or using other meta- or psychological tactics to gain an advantage rather than attempting to win purely through gameplay.
It refers to doing something that people generally assume you shouldn't do, but you have a "valid" reason for doing it. In this case, that reason would be, "It's in the MtG rules so I'm allowed to do it"
Are you allowed to misconstrue, lie by omission, or otherwise make use of some ones lack of magic knowledge to gain an upper hand in onboarding events such as a prelease? A common example I hear is a 4/4 deathtouch trampler attacking into a 2/2 only taking 2 damage instead of 3 to the face.
you don't need to tell them that they can it more optimally if thats how they assign their damage but you really aren't supposed to lie or mislead abour any game rules.
I mean, you could argue that *Amy* has game rule violation (for not shuffling the library before placing the Harrow in the graveyard), but I don't think that's the result that you are looking for...
Because some people want to like,bplqy the game as intended and have fun instead of having to worry about a bunch of people pushing up their glassee and going "erm actually" Because the CR is slow to patch up every loophole pointed out Like Pithing Needle and Barborygmos, when everyone knew they meant batborygmos enraged. Or the "Do you wanna go to combat? = You have missed your start of combat triggers sorry, because go to combat means shortcut to declare attackers.
“Magic is full of people with subpar social skills” he really be calling us out 😭😭
I mean... Well... I... But...
Ok, yeah, he's right. 😂😅
Any room full of people is full of people with subpar social skills. (Fixed it for you.)
An interesting potential angle shooting example Aspiringspike mentioned on his stream:
He was at a Standard tournament. He had no blockers on board, so his opponent declared an attack with a 1/1. Spike had a flash creature in hand and wanted to ambush block with it, so he leaned forward in his seat and grabbed the card in hand to play it. Before he could take it from his hand and reveal it, his opponent immediately said he changed his mind and wasn't attacking. Spike called a judge, who said that changing your mind on attacks is legal, and no new information was officially revealed, so it was allowed.
Yeah, this is where you *don't* want to shortcut the order. "Are you done declaring attackers?" "Yes" "I flash in..."
That's MtG's policy. You can even do this without the flash, if you're worried asking would make it obvious.
Interestingly, other games might choose differently. From what I understand of Yugioh's for example, they have a strict position that 'outside game information is prohibited to be acted upon' and players 'need to have a mindset of not angleshooting.'
Funnily enough, strictly reading that policy means the exact opposite, where after declaring an attack, as soon as your opponent reacts (before any gamestate actions) your attack is *already* locked in - and actually, trying to insinuate you *could* have a response when you don't would be considered illegal.
@@bluerendar2194 The chess equivalent of "you touched the piece so you have to move it"
I like faking I have flash creatures, so I used this "rule," as well. Bluffing a skill, but you do have be able to back it up.
So the solution is to stay silent until opponent specifically says they pass or tries to shortcut to something past that, like damage? I'd be tempted to say something in response to "I attack with the 1/1" just to acknowledge that I heard them, but wouldn't want that to be misinterpreted as passing to/past declare blockers.
@ I guess that works too, wait until they say "blockers?" or "damage"
If you playing a deck w flash and have the open mana though, should get into the habit of asking "move to blockers?" or "done declaring attackers?" even if you don't intend to flash in to block.
Thanks judge Dave for helping magic players (you mean they aren’t adept at social interaction? 😱) navigate difficult social situations. I hadn’t heard the phrase before, so that’s something I learned
At the kitchen table there is a self-regulation mechanism, as you just stop inviting players that you don't enjoy playing with.
At the gamestore, extreme cases usually get adressed, as toxic players are bad for business.
We are pretty direct when it comes to telling people that they are behaving like a jerk where I live.
2:51 I absolutely love this expression "simple, but not easy" applies to so many things
And the first time I saw it used that was/with those words was in the Boom! MtG comics of all placesn Garruk knows a simple way of letting them talk to a dead person who died in a plane they cannot access anymoren it almost kills most in the group
For the Harrow example: Technically Nick is in the wrong even if MTR 4.3 didn't exist because she never shuffled her deck. Thus she never finished resolving the spell. Even if you choose to not find any lands the shuffling is mandatory.
Took me until 6:45 to realize why the thumbnail made sense lmao
Good to be honest and up-front about what social skills Magic players often have. I'm much more confident reading the CR than reading the room! So yeah, relying on someone like me picking up on hints is not a winning strat.
The angle shooting examples called out here are extremely egregious. I sometimes feel like the asshole at a casual commander tbale because I'm pointing out stuff like indestructible creatures not dieing to a wrath, 10 different upkeep triggers being missed etc.
Pointing out thibgs that should happen is actually something that the whole table should keep. Don't feel like an ashole because of that
it's called "maintaining the game state" and at Competitive or Professional you're actually *required* to do it (to an extent - missed triggers is a whole other ballgame but indestructible not dying to Wrath is clear). No need to feel bad at all :)
If you have a strong grasp of the rules, or even just a better understanding than the other players, don't feel bad about explaining how the game works. "Up The Beanstalk is a cast trigger, so you draw before your Psychosis Crawler resolves" is not malicious, it's correct and clarifying. Players open to learning the game better will appreciate this, especially if you have the social skills to make it accessible/polite, and if you are fairly enforcing your own mistakes too.
I have a totally unrelated question and I don't know where to post it. I have Volo, guide to the monsters in play and I cast colossal dreadmaw, making a token as well. Then I cast mockingbird for one mana. Can I copy my big dino twice with the bird(s)?
To rephrase: does the token that come from a copy of a creature spell have a mana cost?
Sorry for my poor English btw :x
Great examples when it comes to angle shooting! They made it clear what the exact "angle" the player was trying to shoot at in order to gain advantages. However, I do wish you would have included some examples in a more casual format of what would be approperiate verses what should be left up to the pod to discuss and approve/deny; such as takebacks. I recently had a game where a player during their turn cast a Hullbreaker Horror, this triggered my Rhystic Study and I declined to draw, seeing that they had a smothering tithe in play and I had no way of paying for the draw. Afterwards, they cast another spell after the Hullbreaker Horror resolved, triggering my Rhystic again, to which I declined to draw again. After this, the player then decided take they needed to take back the Hullbreaker Horror cast as they ran out of mana to do their follow-up plays. I argued against this stating that too many game actions had occured and too much information had been gained.
It's situations like the one above where I feel is the grey area when it comes to angle shooting; would I be the angle shooter because I'm choosing to follow set-in-stone rules or would the other player be the angle shooter, being that they are trying to use the "casual" environment to their advantage, stating that every casual game would allow a takeback like the one they wanted.
The nice thing about a casual four player commander game is that if a player wants to bend the rules like this, there are three opponents who can vote on what should happen. In this situation I would say that I don’t think they should take it back, but if both of our other opponents disagree and think it’s fine then I’ve been outvoted.
Generally for me, mostly playing casual commander, take-backsies are always allowed as long as nothing notable/game-changing has happened between a game action and a players regret of said action. Occasionally, I will allow smaller takebacks even though game-changing stuff has happened, if the game-action is very obviously incorrect had the player in question paid full attention.
In your example however, I would insist he kept his mistake. In this scenario, it's pretty obvious he was hoping to take advantage of your greed for extra draws in order to fuel a stronger turn. A very legitimate play, but one that is clearly a gamble, hoping for a specific response from the table. This however, is clearly not a mistake, but rather an attempted option-select, which is not grounds for a takeback imo.
Of course the angleshot could be even more subtle than your example, so the waters can be muddy. In such a case I would probably let it slide, unless it becomes a recognizable pattern, in which case I would simply oppose any and all takebacks of said player in future games and let him/her know why.
If they can't use them without abusing them, they don't get them at all.
I might be the asshole here, but my opinion is that once the thing you want to take back isn't the last thing that happened I'm not letting you take it back. You want to take back your hullbreaker? Too bad, it's on the battlefield now. Someone could have countered it, would you also want to take it back then? It's the same opinion I've with ward, I'll let you take back a spell or ability if you tried to target a hexproof creature (because you can't do that in the first place), but if you targeted a permanent with ward and can't pay that spell is getting countered. Casual or not, please respect that we sat down to have a game. Pay attention to what you're doing.
@@Tekarusame Insisting on a "spiky" sort rules-enforcement doesn't make you an arsehole. It just tells me that you don't play much multiplayer with players less experienced than you.
@@Tekarusame Yes you kind of are because everybody knows perfectly that if the person knew the creature had a ward ability they wouldn't have targeted it at all in the first place. Magic is a complex game and especially in the current era the complexity just increases exponentially. You cannot, and should not expect people to always have all informations in mind.
If you were to do that to me in a casual setting i would just hold my stance and argue with you until you let me have a takeback and if you don't, i would become toxic toward you in particular and would try to make you do a similar mistake and then not let take it back just like you did to me.
Either you're their to play in good faith with friends or you're not.
As for the OP exemple, it's more up to the group to decide because informations were revealed (the card draw) and therefore going back would involve multiple people. It would also be to avoid a situation where the guy would just do his thing to see if he gets enough treasures and then go back in time if he doesn't, which is not how you're supposed to play the game at all in a casual setting.
Someone tried to angle shoot me at an unaltered precons only tournament because my deck contained foils and EA versions of my Dr Who cards... like in front of the 2 other players.
Does Ball Lightning dying at the beginning of the end step cause Slumbering Cerberus to untap?
No. Cerberus' ability phrasing is an example of an intervening-if clause, where a triggered ability that triggers from some event immediately follows that text with an "if" clause; with these abilities, that condition must be true at the time of the event in order to trigger at all. Since Ball Lightning isn't dead yet (nobody even has priority yet to put the triggered abilities on the stack, never mind resolve), Cerberus does not trigger.
The question becomes more interesting if there weren't the intervening-if clause because then there are more complicated timing matters, but as-is this is straightforward.
@Vulcapyro thanks for the thorough explanation. Appreciate it.
so my deck that baits people into rearranging their graveyard so I can call them out on a rules violation is bad mannered?
If I draw my card for the turn before I untap my permanents, can that be considered out of order sequencing? Would I be able to untap my permanents?
Since you're skipping the entire upkeep phase, some information is being communicated (you/your opponent has no effects in upkeep) so I'd assume that's not fine.
You don't get to skip your untap step, even if you wanted to. If an opponent tried to tell you that you missed the chance to untap call a judge and they will tell you to untap.
what was this slaughter game scenario again?
It was the same as the Cranial extraction example except instead of cranial extraction and grizzly bears it was slaughter games and jace the mind sculptor.
I looked but couldn't find it: do you have a video on Garth One eye?
I don't think he has a video focused on Garth, but whats your question? You never know when someone here on the comments can help
An international non-native English speaker here 🙋♂️. What is “angle shooting”?
As I understand it, trying to use every advantage within the rules, but in a deceptive or malicious way
Angle shooting refers to behaviors which are generally seen as unethical, but not against the rules. In a Magic context, this includes stuff like Nick's behavior in the examples starting around 7:15, but may also include things like rules lawyering (attempting to deny plays to your opponent based on technicalities or quibbles in the rules), adjusting your pace of play up or down in an attempt to get your opponent to make a mistake, or using other meta- or psychological tactics to gain an advantage rather than attempting to win purely through gameplay.
Using unethical means to take advantage of inexperienced opponents.
As a native English speaker, I also had no idea.
It refers to doing something that people generally assume you shouldn't do, but you have a "valid" reason for doing it. In this case, that reason would be, "It's in the MtG rules so I'm allowed to do it"
Are you allowed to misconstrue, lie by omission, or otherwise make use of some ones lack of magic knowledge to gain an upper hand in onboarding events such as a prelease? A common example I hear is a 4/4 deathtouch trampler attacking into a 2/2 only taking 2 damage instead of 3 to the face.
you don't need to tell them that they can it more optimally if thats how they assign their damage but you really aren't supposed to lie or mislead abour any game rules.
These sort of questions are answered in the communication policy video referenced in the description: ruclips.net/video/JmON1IjJBYY/видео.html
My gut tells me it would be dealt with differently if the new guy said trample 2 vs you leading him to trample 2
i can never remember if it's angle shooting or ankle shooting
Oh, there is an easy mnemonic rule: "If someone is angle shooting, you are allowed to do some ankle shooting".
But in the Harrow example, even without the Out-of-order clause, doesn't the "Shuffle your library" instruction invalidate Nick's argument?
I mean, you could argue that *Amy* has game rule violation (for not shuffling the library before placing the Harrow in the graveyard), but I don't think that's the result that you are looking for...
angler shooting
There, he said it. And it's true.
I don't understand why a player becomes problematic for understanding niche rules scenarios. Those are the rules..
Because some people want to like,bplqy the game as intended and have fun instead of having to worry about a bunch of people pushing up their glassee and going "erm actually" Because the CR is slow to patch up every loophole pointed out
Like Pithing Needle and Barborygmos, when everyone knew they meant batborygmos enraged.
Or the "Do you wanna go to combat? = You have missed your start of combat triggers sorry, because go to combat means shortcut to declare attackers.
It's called "rule sharking" not "angle shooting"