Hypothetical: Your opponent sits down, you shuffle up, and he plays a foreign but iconic land (like a foreign black-bordered Underground Sea), and then starts casting recognizable but foreign cards (like a foreign Ponder, Preordain, etc). What do you do?
Personally, I'd call a judge, ask for an Oracle wording on EVERY SINGLE SPELL MY OPPONENT PLAYS, and hope that I win the match because my opponent is a huge douche. Sure, I know what Brainstorm does, but Preordain? That card seems extremely limited eternal play. Ok, Preordain, sure, how about Ill-Gotten Gains? Does Diminishing Returns shuffle graveyards and hands into your deck, or only one or the other or neither? What about Coralhelm Commander, half of the Elves deck, and Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur?
It's one thing to be familiar with all of the decks in Legacy, how they work, and their key cards. It's quite another thing to bet the match that you have a perfect memory of the Oracle wording of every card in an opponent's deck when all you get is art, cost, and power/toughness. (Oh, and if an opponent plays an altered-art card in a foreign language, I'll first comment on how cool it is, and then call a Judge).
I understand running a deck with black-bordered duals (so that there are no white-bordered cards in the deck), but a 75-card foreign deck really Angers me. Am I being unreasonable? Do other people feel this way?
InfoNinjas
No, I think you're being unreasonable. If you feel the need to ask a judge for oracle wording on *everything*, you're wasting your time, wasting your opponent's time and wasting the judge's time. If you end up getting an extension because of your own ass-hattery, you're wasting everyone's time at the tournament. And you say he's being a douche?
Angry is one thing. I can understand a bit of frustration, maybe. But acting like that would be completely unreasonable.
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Thank you for understanding.
If your opponent plays an archetype like Elves, are you confident that you know the full Oracle wording for every single card he plays? Of course, these cards see play in no other archetypes besides Elves!. The same can be said for Mud and modern Affinity lists. Mistaking Signal Pest and Memnite, for example, could easily lose you the game, but both are in the new frame and from relatively recent sets. The same is true for many of the 1cc elves in Elves!, except the iconic ones like Llanowar Elves.Originally Posted by puppektion
InfoNinjas
Man I hope I never play you in a tournament.
Matt Bevenour in real life
I just find it incredibly obnoxious when my opponent sits down with 75 cards that he knows I cannot read. I don't think that's unreasonable.
Sure, I'll recognize the dual lands and most cards like Brainstorm, Force of Will, Counterbalance, Top, Goyf, Tombstalker, etc. But the cards that only see play in an archetype like Enchantress, Lands, Elves!, new Mud Lists, etc. are simple obnoxious. I don't think it's a stretch to assume that newer players are even more frustrated than I am, and older players are slightly less frustrated.
InfoNinjas
I'd say I'm 99% confident about most cards that are going to see play, just off image, casting cost, P/T. If I'm stumped on and the english name that I'd ask my opponent for didn't trigger anything, yeah, I'd call the judge, but doing that for *every card* is ridiculous.
And seriously? If you can't tell something like Signal Pest from Memnite, or Quirion Ranger from Birchlore Rangers, where have you been? Maybe it's just me, but it's *really* not that hard to distinguish between them.
I see your post in the altered art thread may have triggered this. Really? Altered tarmogoyfs? If you can't distinguish an altered-art goyf from Spellwilde Ouphe or Thornweald Archer (the only other future-shifted green creatures at CMC 2, printed at uncommon and common respectively), there might be an issue :P
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Thank you for understanding.
You are entirely correct about those particular Tarmogoyfs, but what do you do when the altered card is something less iconic in Legacy? A casting cost ofand 1/1 power/toughness tells you nothing when you play elves. Sure, it's a Noble Hierarch when you play Bant and you recognize it's art...but what about a foreign blue spell that costs
with anime art and Asian text? It tells you nothing.
Although I believe that I can identify almost every single legacy playable card by it's art, I'm not willing to bet a match on it. I'm certainly not willing to bet a match on it when it is round 5, I'm tired, and my opponent plays a Preordain. Or possibly a Serum Visions. Or was it a Portent? Sure, all of those cards have distinctive art, but none of them see mainstream play, they all do similar things, and they are all different.
I recall Kai Budde once got a game loss for confusing two cards with similar art. Kai Budde is undoubtedly a better player than I am, and if he screwed that up with cards in his own language in his own deck, it is perfectly reasonable for me to worry about making game-losing mistakes against cards that I cannot read. Can any judge fault me for this? Can any other players? Can my opponent, with his 75-card unreadable deck?
InfoNinjas
Somewhat of a contradiction here. Also, why are you playing legacy if you haven't memorized every card?
Not everyone speaks English, not all cards are English. Many old cards that are written in English might as well be a different language due to the changes in oracle text. Call a judge if you want. Your opponent isn't the douche, you are.
if you play against deck and not know what many the cards are then you should be happy you playing tier 2 or tier 3 deck and probably will win. agree with what everyone else said not even a small deal.
Now, this might be douche-y, but in my example I cited playing against a deck like Storm. If I'm playing the mirror match, I doubt a judge would take my side if I ask for the Oracle wording of a card I'm playing with recognizable art. A little bit of hyperbole obviously went too far here.
However, if I'm playing Team America against Enchantress or Lands, there is a very good chance that no non-land cards in our decks will overlap, and a pretty good chance that no other archetype uses any of those cards. Against Storm, many of the cards will be obvious, but some may not be.
As I said (but then contradicted with hyperbole) in my opening post, I wouldn't call for a judge when my opponent cast Brainstorm. But all of those playable-in-specific-decks cards that see no Legacy play besides that archetype are very frustrating to play against.
By a similar extension...have you ever tried to play EDH against a deck that's been "pimped out" in a foreign language?
InfoNinjas
Damn it, this here's AMURICA, and in AMURICA, we speak ENGLISH.
AMURICA: love it or leave it.
Oh wait, foreign cards. I saw "foreign" and thought this thread was about Mexicans and liberals.
I fail to see how calling a judge frequently makes you any better than the opponent; in most cases, it will probably annoy the hell out of the judge, and "unsportsmanlike conduct" is a violation of tournament rules. It's also what you're proposing. Now, if there's a fringe card whose text you legitimately don't know, calling a judge is fine, but it's another to get back at your opponent by calling for an Oracle wording every time he passes priority. And how many of those players have Asian'd out their decks because they're scummy enough to try to get an edge by hoping their opponents haven't been playing Legacy very long, and how many of them think the script looks cool and Asian cards are pimp? Even in the former case, nickel and diming someone with judge calls is just getting revenge on them for doing something you dislike, which hardly makes you the better human being; in the latter case, it makes you come off as spiteful and jealous.
tl;dr keep your stewing to yourself/the internet and don't try to get back at the other guy because he's got them funny foreign words on his cardboard.
This can be an issue with English cards as well as foreign cards. Card text and Oracle text don't always coincide at all.
In addition, if you're going to attempt to monopolize any judge's time like that, you're going to be the one penalized. Sure, asking for Oracle text on a couple of cards is reasonable, but once you start asking for every card your opponent plays, they're going to realize you're either fishing or just being a dick, and either way they will tell you to give it a rest.
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So what's the policy on someone who actually does have a deck full of virtually unknown and obscure cards in a language the opponent doesn't know? It may seem bad, but I am notorious for playing with crap to see how far I can get for fun. I don't use foreign stuff, but if I did, it would be one hell of a confusing match. You'd practically have to have a judge sitting there to explain some of those dumb decks I have and I bet he'd have to ask what some of them are.
This thread makes me want to play a Foreign Licid deck. :(
If you called a judge on me asking for Oracle text on every foreign card (including ones you know) I'd report you to the same judge for stalling. Not knowing things like Diminishing Returns and Ill-Gotten Gains is fine, but Coralhelm Commander? Unless you just started playing Legacy there's no excuse not to know that one since its played in almost every Fish deck.
There's also things like this:
Not even the English version matters when there's oracle changes like the above. If I had the English version of Waterfront Bouncer, would you know it was a Merfolk just by looking at it?
It's a bouncer that's a bouncer. Get it? And obviously it's a merfolk because it's at the waterfront.
Basically, all you will accomplish is to piss the head judge off, and guess what, you will be getting no easy wins.
Btw, in this scenario, you're the douche. You're talking as if the deck were in English, you'd have to ask to read every one of your opponent's cards. How about just ask for the oracle text of the few cards you don't know, instead of bugging a judge all the time? Grow the hell up please.
So are all non-english speakers "huge douches" or just the ones that play magic?
Are you actually trolling here (as your name suggests) or are you that stereotypical a Texan?
Phoenix Ignition got serious with the last part.
I for one and new to the legacy portion, but when i enter a legacy tourney against some people playing rogue decks, foreign or not. I can usually tell what a card is by the set, pic, and cost. even if it's a test of endurance that's foreign and been scribbled on.
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