Opponent forgot to untap with Ivorytusk Fortress and I had Force Away
Asked by GunsNBacon 9 years ago
So my opponent hits with his Abzan board and has an Ivorytusk Fortress. Both of us forgot it's effect and I had mana open for Force Away. He passes the turn to me and mentions later in my turn that his guys are supposed to be untapped. I respond by saying that I would've used Force Away on the Ivorytusk Fortress in response if I'd known that. Then he claims that that was supposed to happen last turn and that I'm too late now.Can I still have the Elephant be forced away and his creatures be tapped even though there was a misunderstanding? This is more a referee related Q rather than a rules related one.
GreatSword says... #2
If this happened at an event, you'd want to call a judge to sort it out.
If it's just a casual game though, you have a few options. You can rewind the game to his last turn with his creatures untapped, and then you can cast your bounce spell. But the simpler idea might be to just keep going with your turn, and learn not to make mistakes. Whatever you do, try to keep the game flowing as fairly as possible, and don't try to gain an advantage like in your proposed idea.
November 11, 2014 11:54 a.m.
BboyGeologic says... #3
Ivorytusk Fortress does not have a triggered ability, it has a static ability that untaps creatures with +1/+1 counters. You can't miss static abilities they same way you can miss triggered abilities. Also, since it's not a triggered ability its not something you can respond to.
The game play error occurred when they did not untap their creatures during your untap step and has nothing to do with their turn, so if there was a backup used it would never backup to their turn,it would only backup to your untap step. Just because you didn't know that their creatures will untap on your untap step would be your own fault because you have the responsibility to read the cards and understand the game state and your opponent has no obligation to point things out to you when the game doesn't require them to.
What happens in this situation really depends on where in the turn you are at and the REL of the event. Its really hard to write a straight forward answer because there is so many different questions and things to take into consideration when deciding what to do. In a competitive One person might even be disqualified depending on how some of my questions were answered.
One thing for sure that would not be happening is that you would not be able to go back to his turn and cast your Force Away.
November 11, 2014 12:45 p.m.
BboyGeologic says... #4
Edit:"In a competitive One person might even be disqualified depending on how some of my questions were answered. " is supposed to just say "One person might even be disqualified depending on how some of my questions were answered". We still DQ people at Regular REL for cheating.
November 11, 2014 12:48 p.m.
BboyGeologic says... #5
And to be clear, there are two possible outcomes for this: 1. We back the game up to the time of the infraction (untap step) 2. We do nothing and leave the game state as it is.
November 11, 2014 12:55 p.m.
filledelanuit says... #6
@BboyGeologic Let's be realistic. If both people just forgot then no one is going to be DQ'd or even get more than a warning.
It's hard to say if this would be backed up or not. Some judges would back this up to the beginning of the turn while some may not want to back it up through the card draw.
At FNM or something like that a judge would be able to rewind it if they felt it was correct or just leave the game state as it was. At FNM no one gets penalties for things like a game rules violation or failure to maintain game state.
At competitive REL you and your opponent would receive Failure to Maintain Game State warnings and the judge might rewind the game.
No matter what REL you were at you would not be able to bounce the Ivorytusk Fortress before its ability would untap your opponents creatures.
November 11, 2014 2:20 p.m.
BboyGeologic says... #7
lordoftheshadows I am being realistic. Like I said, what happens depends on the answers I would get. Just plain old we forget gets a FMGS warning in competitive or a be more careful at regular.
Now if the game were at the point where attackers had been declared and then the player with the Ivorytusk Fortress was saying that they get to untap their creatures and block with them, then I would have additional questions. If I asked why they didn't untap their creatures at the untap step and are now only pointing it out when they want to block and they were to say "So they would think I couldn't block, but now I can and kill all their creatures" then that would be cheating and that is a DQ even at regular. The same could happen with the other player: "Why didn't you point out that their creatures untapped? Well,judge, so they couldn't block when I attack". Again, that would be a DQ even at regular. You may think its unrealistic, but you would be surprised at the things people admit to and I've had people admit to stuff like that.
November 12, 2014 12:36 a.m.
I assume I'm the Head Judge at this situation, that this was an earnest mistake, and it's competitive (I'll cover Regular after this). If this just casual play then you can do whatever you want but he's right in that you would have used Force Away in his turn to stop the creatures from untapping.
The description of the event is vague so let's pose the two possible results given by IPG. First this is a Game play error - Game rules violation so that means that owner of Ivorytusk Fortress will receive warning for that, you will receive warning for GPE - Failure to maintain gamestate since both players are responsible for making sure that game rules are followed (unless it's a missed trigger).
We have two possible solutions and here's were the vagueness comes in. Depending on what happened before this point and on what phase we're in, if there hasn't been anything too complex going on we can back up the game to upkeep including reversing the Draw step (we either take a random card from active players hand or the correct card if the identity was known to both players). This will only happen if it's not too complex.
If I decide that rewinding the game is too complex then the game state stays as it is and nothing gets untapped. IPG does not allow for "partial fixes" in this case and untapping stuff without rewinding the game is a partial fix.
Short answer for Regular is that if we're really early on the turn or nothing has happened we back up to upkeep OR if the active player gives permission then we untap all creatures that should be untapped and continue from there. Furthermore I'll give a short verbal reminder to both players to be more careful in the future and remind myself to keep an eye for this situation later in the tournament. The main point on Regular is that everyone is enjoying their games and so we can make partial and ad hock fixes if it makes the play experience better for everyone.
In either case you can't Force Away the elephant before the situation has been resolved and your first instinct should be to call Judge as soon as the other player raises an issue with their card.
November 12, 2014 2:44 a.m.
Seriously, edit button :) My first paragraph should read "you should have used Force Away in his turn..."
GreenFlag says... #1
That's a failure to maintain game state, and it's up to a judge to determine how it should go. I'm not a judge, so read this bearing that in mind, but in my experience, when a player misses a trigger that isn't a "may" trigger from a source in a public zone, it's considered the fault of both players. Every time I've seen this at a sanctioned event, the judge did not correct the game state for missed triggers. He did, however, issue warnings to both players (for "Failure to Maintain Game State").
As regards the "it's too late now" argument, I would say yes, it's too late now. It's also too late for your opponent to untap his creatures, so the answer is "Yes,, your creatures were supposed to be untapped, but they aren't, and will stay that way."
See this article for some (possibly wildly outdated) references:
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=judge/article/20070316a
November 11, 2014 11:49 a.m.