Welcome to Personal Tutor, where we learn how to maximize our opportunities for education. Our goal is to transcend the basic answer to create an informative answer that the players will really remember and teaches them something about the rules, rather than just resolving this ruling. You may even find this process helps you come to a better understanding of the rules yourself.

Here's this month's scenario:

You are judging a Magic Origins sealed PPTQ when Allowance calls you over to the table. She says "So I've got this Akroan Jailer, plus an Infectious Bloodlust on my Bonded Construct. I have to attack either with both or with neither, right?"

The short answer here is “No. Always both.” But we don't think that's the best answer for educating players, which is an important task for a judge! So tell us: how would you answer this question?

As usual, we ask that you to provide an actual quote from yourself in this situation, rather than a general description.

L1s and Judge Candidates, feel free to give your answers immediately. L2s, please wait a day to add your input. L3+, please wait two days.

I would explain that the only time the creature doesn't have to attack is if there is an additional cost to be paid (such as ghostly prison) but sending an additional creature into combat does not qualify as a cost to be paid. Bonded Construct must attack, and to satisfy the requirement for him to attack they must also attack with another creature.

"The reason is because you must satisfy as many requirements as possible in this situation. You have the ability to satisfy both Bonded Construct's requirement to not attack alone, and Infectious Bloodlust's requirement for attacking as long as there is another legal attacker, which in this case is Akroan Jailer."

My goals in this explanation are threefold.

A) I want to explain how we must fulfill as many requirements as possible, which is to have both Akroan Jailer and Bonded Construct attack.
B) I must avoid giving advice as to how Allowance can avoid attacking if she does not want to (by activating Akroan Jailer's ability and making it a non-legal attacker).
C) I want to use the present board state as a visible example, so it is clearer to the player. If I were to create a hypothetical example, it might not be as clear.

Adam, may I point out that the Bonded Construct has a restriction printed on it, and not a requirement? How would that change your answer?

The rules say that you must fulfill every possible requirement while breaking as few restrictions as possible. Since Infectious Bloodlust has a requirement and Bonded Construct has a restriction, in order to fulfill both of these at the same time, you must attack with both creatures every combat step. If you don't, then there is a requirement that you could be fulfilling, but aren't, which the rules do not allow for.

I would try to keep the answer as simple and jargon free as possible, unless a player asks for more clarification after the simple answer. Here I would just walk through the logic of requirements and restrictions without actually saying any of those words. It takes about 30 seconds in my head: “Because of Infectious Bloodlust's second line of text, the Bonded Construct must attack, but its own effect states it can't attack alone…therefore both the jailer and the construct must attack.” If either player then follows up with a question or there is some hesitation in their reaction, then I would follow with some more detail.

“Whenever you declare attackers, the game checks to see if there is a different set of attackers that better confirms to the rules of the game. If you try to attack with neither creature, then you're not following the instructions on infectious bloodlust. The game sees that you can do better by attacking with two creatures, so not attacking is not allowed.

If there is an effect that says something can't happen, and another effect that says something must happen, the can't effect wins, so you're not allowed to attack with only the bonded construct.”

I see no reason to bring up costs unless the players ask about it themselves. That is a corner case that will likely only confuse matters. If it does come up, I'll make sure to mention that it's a can't effect (can't attack unless).

I would like to include general information about costs and restrictions/requirements as well, as I always want the players to learn the more general rules. I think that helps us to avoid strategic advice as well, by just answering as clear and generally as we can on the relevant rules, without focusing too much on the current game state. It might help them, but game rules are derived information after all, and they asked us about it for a reason, we can't hold back just because they can benefit from it (but we shouldn't say too much just to help more obviously).

I would probably say: “Actually not. When you declare attackers or blockers, you have to fulfill as many requirements as you can, without breaking any restrictions. The game rules cannot force you to pay any costs to do so, but it can otherwise force you to attack or block. This means that if you are able to attack with the construct and another creature, you must do so.”

I wrote my quote, then realized it was about three words off Elliot's. Funny how judges who spent a bunch of time with the same mentor and in the same shop have the same reaction?

Regardless, we want to emphasize (from a rules perspective) that the players have to fulfill as many REQUIREMENTS as possible, even if additional restrictions would make doing so unprofitable in a strategic sense.

“Generally speaking, there are two things that can muck up combat: things that you must do, and things that you can't do. The rule is that your attacks must accomplish as many of the things that you must do as possible without doing any of the things you can't do. Since you can attack with both creatures and not violate any of the things you can't do, you have to attack with both.”

Edited Darcy Alemany (Dec. 7, 2015 04:08:53 AM)

Looking back over this thread as we prepare to launch the next Personal Tutor scenario next week, we realized that this one was never wrapped up! So we're going to fix that today.

The main point you need to convey is that the Allowance needs to do everything she must without doing anything she can't. There was some division on whether or not to use the words “requirements” and “restrictions.” We believe that you can give a good response either way. However, if you choose to use rules jargon, you need to explain it in your ruling. Since Darcy gave a great jargon-free answer, we will present one with the technical terms included.

In combat, there are things you must do, called requirements. And things you can't do, called restrictions. You have to do as many of the requirements as you can without breaking any of the restrictions.

So, you are required to try to attack with Bonded Construct because Infectious Bloodlust says so. And since the only way that doesn't break the Construct's restriction about attacking alone is to attack with Jailer too, that's what you need to do.

Thanks to everyone who participated this time. We'll be back next week for Personal Tutor 23. Until then, if you would like to join the Person Tutor team or you have a scenario or rule you think would make a good topic for discussion, please send me an email through my Judge Apps profile.