I don't know whether this belongs here or in the QA section. If it is inappropriate here it would be great if somebody could move it.

Situation 1:

Norbert controls Stasis, Chronatog and The Rack and Alfred controls Island Sanctuary and no other meaningful permanents. Since Alfred can't play any spells and would die to The Rack if he draws cards, he chooses to skip every draw step, while Norbert skips all of his turns by activating Chronatog in each of Alfred's end steps. Is this an example of a non-mandatory loop as described in CPR 716.3 even tough multiple turns are involved? Does Alfred therefore have to choose to draw cards in order to break it, as he is always the active player?

716.3: Sometimes a loop can be fragmented, meaning that each player involved in the loop performs an independent action that results in the same game state being reached multiple times. If that happens, the active player (or, if the active player is not involved in the loop, the first player in turn order who is involved) must then make a different game choice so the loop does not continue.

Situation 2:

Alex and Nightingale both control Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, Viscera Seer and Nightingale also controls Kitchen Finks. Nightingale is at arbitrarily large amounts of life. Alex also plays a Kitchen Finks and a Blood Artist from his hand. He then announces that he puts a number of Blood Artist triggers onto the stack greater than the life total of Nightingale. Nightingale responds by putting an equal number of Kitchen Finks triggers onto the stack. As far as I know this is a non-mandatory loop and Alex must break it, which results in both player being at arbitrarily large amounts of life, as Nightingale loses as much life as she gets (2 Blood Artist triggers per Kitchen Finks trigger). Now Alex passes the turn, Nightingale draws Murderous Redcap, plays it and targets Alex's Viscera Seer. In response Alex puts enough Blood Artist triggers onto the stack to kill Nightingale to which Nightingale again responds with an equal amount of Kitchen Finks triggers. Does the breaking of the loop result in Nightingale losing the game, or in the death of Viscera Seer? In other words: Can Alex put enough triggers onto the stack to kill Nightingale before she has to take a different game action (Nightingale dies as she has to stop putting Kitchen Finks triggers on the stack), or is he obliged to break down the loop to an individual game action and only put a single trigger on the stack (Viscera Seer dies since Nightingale has to much life)?

Edit: Formatting.

Edited Konrad Eibl (Feb. 29, 2016 09:10:13 AM)

OK, now I've had a few minutes to read and understand these questions … a few minutes of my life I'll never get back. :p

Seriously, if you have to work this hard to concoct a scenario, that's an indication that the question isn't appropriate for a forum that serves thousands of Judges, all over the world, with information they actually need while judging.

The first situation - you quoted the appropriate rule.

The second situation - remember also that, whenever a loop shortcut is proposed, the player initiating the loop (the player with priority, not necessarily the Active Player) proposes a number of iterations of the loop; each other player may accept that number, or shorten it by stating when they will interrupt the sequence by making a different choice. This is all covered in CR 716.2.

Of course, those answers are never enough for these mythical scenarios (yes, I know that either are “possible” situations), because there's always mitigating factors - like one player would lose if their loop is interrupted, or … well, we've seen a plethora of odd circumstances.

I would now like to apply the philosophy of the loop rules, and propose a shortcut where no one ever asks another convoluted loop question, esp. not while I'm out of town.
Story time: the first few times I had the audacity to leave town after assuming the role of NetRep (back in Nov 2004!), an endless loop discussion would crop up on the Judge List, and whoever I had suckered into covering the list in my stead would try, and try, and try, to break that discussion loop. Since then, I don't recall more than one loop discussion that occurred while I was resting comfortably by my forum moderation console…

d:^D

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

OK, now I've had a few minutes to read and understand these questions … a few minutes of my life I'll never get back. :p

Sorry. :)

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

Seriously, if you have to work this hard to concoct a scenario, that's an indication that the question isn't appropriate for a forum that serves thousands of Judges, all over the world, with information they actually need while judging.

The first scenario was discussed on reddit and I was quite sure that the loop rules apply but since other people I talked to disagreed, I wanted to ask. And I was actually confronted with exactly the second scenario during the last modern tournament I judged. I decided that Viscera Seer dies, but I was not quite sure if that was correct till now.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

The second situation - remember also that, whenever a loop shortcut is proposed, the player initiating the loop (the player with priority, not necessarily the Active Player) proposes a number of iterations of the loop; each other player may accept that number, or shorten it by stating when they will interrupt the sequence by making a different choice. This is all covered in CR 716.2.

That is a great point I did not think about and it solves my problem. Thanks!

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

Of course, those answers are never enough for these mythical scenarios (yes, I know that either are “possible” situations), because there's always mitigating factors - like one player would lose if their loop is interrupted, or … well, we've seen a plethora of odd circumstances.

See above.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

I would now like to apply the philosophy of the loop rules, and propose a shortcut where no one ever asks another convoluted loop question, esp. not while I'm out of town.
Story time: the first few times I had the audacity to leave town after assuming the role of NetRep (back in Nov 2004!), an endless loop discussion would crop up on the Judge List, and whoever I had suckered into covering the list in my stead would try, and try, and try, to break that discussion loop. Since then, I don't recall more than one loop discussion that occurred while I was resting comfortably by my forum moderation console…

d:^D

The loop rules seem to be kind of confusing to some people. :rolleyes:

Edited Konrad Eibl (March 1, 2016 01:51:16 PM)