The Line Between Confusion and Cheating - Ep. 124

Magic can be tough. Trying to understand the board state is a challenge. Battling the noise of the venue and navigating an unknown city on little sleep can keep you disoriented and overwhelmed but at least you're playing Magic. Eventually you locate your name on the pairings board and find your way to your chair. Your opponent is friendly. They ask where you're from, how long you've been playing, and are you on Twitter. You exchange socials and play your match.

You trade creatures. Counter spells counter. The battlefield whittles away until you're left on empty. You draw an Expressive Iteration and reload next turn for a huge next turn. Your opponent draws a Underworld Breach and suddenly their Mishra's Bauble makes trip after trip from the graveyard to the battlefield and back again. You opponent ends the turn with 5 new cards in hand and easily wins the game from there.

You're upset you lost but you're okay with the game. You replay it to see if there's anything you could have improved upon. Maybe a more aggressive attack on turn 3. Using Unholy Heat instead of Lightning Bolt would have been relevant. If only you could have emptied the graveyards.

Then you realize: you did empty the graveyard! Your Relic emptied everything on turn 5 or 6. Right? Was that last game? At the very least, your opponent exiled the cards. They at least touched the cards. The more you review the story in your mind, the more difficult it is to remember the specifics. By the time the next round starts, you're still not sure if the game ended the way it was supposed to end.

This week Billy and Mapson discuss how large of a role miscommunication plays in Magic, how it can border on cheating, and what you can do to prevent less than savory situations from happening in your games.

Dawn's SCG Indy Judge Call - https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1ss8392