A player has in play 1 thopter Foundry, 1 Sword of the Meek, 1 Time Sieve and 5 mana sources that can produce any color . In the deck are alot of cards including 2 mox Opal, 1 Academy Ruins and 1 engineered explosives.
This player wants to take enough turns to draw the entire deck (by making 5 thopter tokens which he sacrefices to gain an extra turn and repeating this proces). After drawing the deck the player can take infinite turns by looping 2 mox opals on the top of the deck with Academy Ruins.
After making 2000 tokens in play the player wants to loop Engineered explosives to be able to destroy the entire board of his opponent. Engineered explosives on 2 will also destroy the Time Sieve, but by putting it back on top and having enough thopter tokens to keep gaining turns he can bring back all artifacts that were destroyed in the proces of clearing everything from mana cost 0-5. Now the board is clear he wants to attack with all his thopters reducing his opponent to 0 life and winning the game.
…..
All this is explained by the player, not wanting to waste too much time going through all the motions that will have no other outcome than is presented in his demonstration. The towards it however is full of variance and in some way uncertainties.
Most of the problem can be resolved by splitting all of this is several different shortcuts and loops.
1. Demonstrate I can take enough turns to draw my deck.
2. Demonstrate that i can take infinite then with Ruins and Opal.
3. Demonstrate I can make as many thopters as I want by having 1 or more extra mana to make spare thopters that I don't sacrefice.
4. Demonstrate that I can take enough turns even witboht making more thopters to bring any amount of artifacts from my graveyard to my hand, eventually in play and using their ability.
5. Demonstrate that I can now attack for lethal.
Sounds pretty good.
However there is a problem. The player cannot simply draw his whole deck at once. These are multiple turns, so the player should have to discard. Also he can play lands, making more than 5 thopters a turn with the mana produced by these lands. How do we handle this shortcut when the outcome is clear, but the way to get there is always different and full of choices that are unknown by the player demonstrating the loop (the player does not know when to draw lands, so he cannot say beforehand when to make what amount of thopters for instance. Maybe the player wants to play more permanents as well, but doesn't know when he will draw them.
Lastly there is the problem with the life total. When looping the last card of the deck the player has played all his lands. Let's say 20 and can thus create a netto of 15 thopters a turn, gaining 20 life. If he wants to loop until he had X thopters on the field. He will gain X+Y*5 life where X is the amount of thopters in play and Y the amount of turns to get this amount (since you have to sacrefice 5 thopters a turn). This is not an easy formula but doable when the amount of lands is known and is constant. With 7 lands the player would gain 2 thopters a turn and 7 life. Making 2000 thopters will result in 1000 turns so 2000+1000*5=7000 life. Pretty easy. But over the course of getting to the point of having a stable amount of lands on which we can project this formula (once all cards are drawn and all lands are in play) we have used the loop many times with having 8 lands in play and 9 and 10.
Because the player cannot predict when to have what amount of lands in play during the shortcut to get to the inevatable end (whole library drawn), the exact amount of life is not calculateable (is that a word? :p).
From what I read, the rules are not particularly clear on this. It is a loop, but it is not, since there are alot of “if this, than that” but there is a clear end state where the library is empty and the hand contains X cards and the rest is either on the field of GY. Which cards are where are however not determined when the shortcut began.
How do we handle this problem? In the end it is irrelevant since the player dies win the game, no matter how the card are stacked in the deck. The outcome is essence always the same and always result in ending the game.. Can the opponent demand clarification which makes the loop impossible, or does this fall under stalling since the outcome in the end is clear and the side effects are mere details? How does this work?
I hope to get some explanation on how this works and especially how the player should communicate this to his opponent in a legal way, because this can easily be seen as an impossible shortcut, but it does int hero result in very clear stages of the game and eventually a clear end to the game. What must that player do? (for instance discard a card every turn when drawing a card over his max hands size this way 'looting through the deck as some sort of compromise of shortcut ring but keeping the game state legal? (this is an example, maybe there are more things that make this short cut doable?)
Thank you!
Selene
Edited Selene Bergers (Oct. 3, 2018 01:42:17 PM)