I had an interesting case come up when judging a 2HG tournament at PAXEast this weekend. Here is what I overheard:

“I cast Hold at Bay on both of us, as one player,” (points to himself and his teammate) “to prevent 7 damage from your attacking creatures.”

How would you respond to that play?

Edited Eli Meyer (April 14, 2014 04:23:35 PM)

I'd start with pointing that Hold at Bay requires you to target a player, so you have to pick one head. You can't get both.

Inevitably there will be follow up questions which you'll have to deal with as they arise. What they clearly want to do is prevent themselves from taking damage. What they don't know is that the attacking team gets to decide which head takes the combat damage, so Hold at Bay is useless if the attackers know what they're doing.

I would be careful not to give such tactical advice away. I'd stay with them to answer questions as best I can, and then observe combat to make sure nothing goes wrong.

As it's Regular though, there is flexibility in how to answer it. For example, if it was a local event and the two teams were very competitive players, I would give minimal assistance, and only answer questions I was asked. If however it was two teams of very new players, I might give them a little more info on how 2HG works and see if they piece it together themselves.