Board and Card Games

4:18 AM

@murgatroid99 I unfortunately don't have the rep to suggest tag synonyms. I had thought they had some way of creating a synonym, then all old questions automatically get migrated to the new one.

But I can retag them all if desired. That would have twelve questions being bumped to the front page. Are we okay with that?

Rainbolt

7:45 PM

@murgatroid99 Are you writing an answer to they requirements/restriction question?

I was halfway done and then you said it way better than I could have

Now I want to either stop and let you, or steal what you wrote

murgatroid99

I just wrote it up as an answer

And deleted my comment

murgatroid99

7:59 PM

Hmm, I think there's something wrong with my answer. If you remove the Pacifism and do the same math, you might conclude that the only legal attack is one where both creatures attack, because it's the only one that obeys one requirement.

I think you might have to consider the previous sentence and divide the possible declarations based on which requirements are actually active.

I'll try to fix it after I eat lunch.

Rainbolt

@murgatroid99 That's interesting. I guess it really isn't as straightforward as I thought it was. +1 to the question haha

I think I misread your comment

diego

8:23 PM

@murgatroid99 I'm pretty sure the reason you can choose not to attack with anything is that the line from 508.1d '[...] If the number of requirements that are being obeyed is fewer than the maximum possible number of requirements that could be obeyed without disobeying any restrictions, the declaration of attackers is illegal. [...]' is checked for the given game-state, not any possible game-state.

So with no Pacifism if neither creature attacks all 0 of the requirements have been met so this is legal. If the non-Cyclopse attacks 0 of 1 requirements has been met so this is not legal. If both creatures attack 1 or 1 requirement has been met so it is legal

Rainbolt

The problem is that we are trying to evaluate an if statement to a 0 or a 1, and you can't really do that

murgatroid99

@diego Right, that's what I was trying to say: that you have to split the cases based on which requirements are available to be obeyed

But that brings up another question for me: what if the Pacifism is replaced with a Silent Arbiter. Can you still attack with just the vanilla creature?

diego

@murgatroid99 I'm pretty sure the answer is no

murgatroid99

One alternate interpretation I'm thinking of is that the Ekundu Cyclops' ability should be interpreted as a logical if: it's obeyed if you attack with Ekundu Cyclops or you don't attack with any other creatures

diego

Since if you attack with the vanilla you have 0 of 1 requirements being met, and there aren't any restrictions that allows you to ignore the requirement. You just have a static ability that changes the rules of the game.

murgatroid99

8:32 PM

@diego But requirements aren't tied to specific restrictions that allow you to ignore that one requirement

You just have to obey the "maximum number" of restrictions without disobeying any requirements

Actually, with the "logical if" interpretation, you actually can't attack with the vanilla creature in the original example, because you could obey the requirement by not attacking with it

diego

@murgatroid99 And if you attack with the vanilla you haven't obeyed the maximum number of restrictions

You have to attack with just the Cyclops or not at all

murgatroid99

@diego But with Silent Arbiter, you still can only ever obey 0 requirements

diego

@murgatroid99 Not if you attack with just the Cyclops, then you have 1 requirement and you fulfill it

So you either have to fulfill 0/0 by not attacking or 1/1 by attacking with the Cyclops

murgatroid99

Oh, I misread the cyclops' ability

Or, misremembered it. I thought it said "another"

diego

@murgatroid99 It doesn't really matter if it did say 'another' though. The legal attacks are still just the Cyclops or not attacking at all

murgatroid99

8:41 PM

@diego If it said "another", you would have no requirements when attacking with just the Cyclops, so that case would also be 0/0

diego

@murgatroid99 Exactly so you have no requirements, and no restrictions being violated so it is a legal attack

murgatroid99

The point is that, if it said "another", every possible attack, even the one with just the vanilla creature, would only obey 0 requirements, so they would all be legal

diego

@murgatroid99 Except the attack with the vanilla would actually have a requirement that needs to be fulfilled, and since 0 are being met it is an illegal attack

murgatroid99

@diego But in that case, 0 would be the maximum number of possible requirements that could be met, among the cases with that requirement

diego

The rule isn't the number of requirements met has to be the max, it is you have to obey as many as possible without violating restrictions

So 0/0 and 1/1 are both fine but 0/1 is not

murgatroid99

8:48 PM

> If the number of requirements that are being obeyed is fewer than the maximum possible number of requirements that could be obeyed without disobeying any restrictions, the declaration of attackers is illegal.

diego

@murgatroid99 And 0 is less than 1, so attacking with the vanilla is illegal

murgatroid99

You seem to have misunderstood something. We're talking about a variant of the original situation where the Cyclops ability says "If another creature you control attacks, Ekundu Cyclops also attacks if able."

diego

No, I am with you on that scenario

You attack with the vanilla, the game checks your requirements, it sees the Cyclops has one, it checks if it is being met, it isn't, therefore the attack is illegal

murgatroid99

In that case, you have 3 attack declarations: 1) No creatures attack. You are obeying 0/0 requirements. 2) The Cyclops attacks. You are obeying 0/0 requirements. 3) The vanilla creature attacks. You are obeying 0/1 requirements.

The maximum number of requirements you can obey without disobeying any restrictions is 0, so all attacks are legal

diego

@murgatroid99 The first two are fine since the 'number of requirements that are being obeyed is fewer than the maximum possible number of requirements' is not being violated

The second one the 'number of requirements that are being obeyed is fewer than the maximum possible number of requirements' is being violated so it is illegal

murgatroid99

8:54 PM

But it's not possible to obey 1 requirement, so the maximum possible is still 0

diego

@murgatroid99 But it isn't impossible because of a restriction, and that is the only thing that allows you to ignore requirements

murgatroid99

It is impossible because of a restriction. The restriction imposed by Silent Arbiter

There are no attack declarations that both obey that requirement and obey the restrictions imposed by Silent Arbiter

diego

@murgatroid99 That isn't a restriction, restrictions are 'effects that say a creature can’t attack, or that it can’t attack unless some condition is met'

murgatroid99

It's clearly not a requirement

diego

It's just a change to the rules of the game

murgatroid99

8:58 PM

blogs.magicjudges.org/rulestips/2011/08/…

Here is an example where maximizing requirements can take away some of your choices when declaring attackers. If you controller a Silent Arbiter and an Ulamog’s Crusher, you would have to attack with the Crusher as that way you are fulfilling the Crusher’s requirement and not violating the restriction created by the Arbiter.

diego

@murgatroid99 Ok, I will cede that point.

murgatroid99

Anyway, I'm still not entirely sure that we shouldn't interpret the actual Cyclops's ability as logically equivalent to "This requirement is obeyed if the Cyclops attacks or if no creatures attack"

It would simplify the logic to say that requirements are always "active", but it would also make the conclusion a little less intuitive

diego

I still feel like the vanilla can't attack alone, but I no longer have a good reason...

murgatroid99

@diego The alternate interpretation I just mentioned would create a reason for that again

Because then the number of requirements to be obeyed would always be 1, and the only declaration that wouldn't obey it would be the one with the vanilla creature attacking alone.

But on the other hand, under that interpretation, in the original question, you also can't attack with the vanilla creature, for the same reason

murgatroid99

9:26 PM

I asked the magicjudge tumblr

Rainbolt

10:57 PM

@murgatroid99 Do you mind if we continue in here?

murgatroid99

@Rainbolt That's fine, but not immediately. I have a meeting.

Rainbolt

Okay, whenever you get back is fine.

Rainbolt

11:12 PM

First scenario:
Cyclops is enchanted by Pacifism which restricts it from attacking. There are no options here. Cyclops is simply not able to attack.

Second scenario:
Crusher can attack if Arbiter does not. Crusher cannot attack if Arbiter does. There are two possible scenarios here, and in at least one of these scenarios, Crusher is able to attack. There's no clause in the restriction that says "if able". It just says "if able".

Able doesn't mean "actually happened", and I think that's where you confusion is coming from. Let's illustrate with a simpler situation. You have two options: run…

I won't see any response until tomorrow so ping @Rainbolt (and actually I have an all day meeting, followed by the weekend, so it will be a long while before I see anything)

murgatroid99

11:24 PM

@Rainbolt I think there's been a miscommunication. In your first comment you mentioned my "second list". I interpreted that to be referring to the 3-item list I have after the horizontal line in my answer.

That list is describing the outcome of a variant scenario, where the relevant attacking restriction is provided by a Silent Arbiter instead of a Pacifism

It was that scenario that I considered to be functionally equivalent to the Ulamog's Crusher + Silent Arbiter scenario in the ruling I linked to

It looks like some part of that wasn't very clear, so I'll try to distinguish in my answer between the two scenarios more clearly

I was trying to use that variation as an example of a case where there is a declaration of attacks that obeys all restrictions but is invalid because of disobeying a requirement.

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Board and Card Games