Most people in this thread so far have expressed the view that Cassandra did accomplish something.
The thing is, though, if I put myself in Cassandra's shoes, if I were Cassandra, regardless of the year of time I bought for everybody, I know I would feel like a total failure for being unable to ultimately avert doomsday.
When you know a format is really dead: when the format's entire MTGSalvation forum, which used to be one of the main headings, gets moved/categorized down under "Other Official Casual Formats."
Speaking of shortcuts, though, what about Player A's contention that even if his play skipped over a step of the rules, it was still a legitimate tournament shortcut (after all, other shortcuts listed in the MTR also gloss over steps in the rules), given that there was no ambiguity or decision-making in which mana was floated? (The floating mana could only be U, so no ambiguity regarding color, and Banneret's ability is mandatory, so it must have taken effect.)
Suppose there is a game with a large, complicated board (say, around 20 creatures on the board).
Player A has 7 total lands, all Islands. Among Player A's many creatures is a Stonybrook Banneret. Player A taps 5 of his Islands, leaving 2 Islands untapped, and casts a Silvergill Adept, without saying anything about the single floating U mana in his mana pool.
Player B tries to counter Silvergill Adept with Mana Leak. Player A then taps his last 2 Islands and combines it with his floating U to pay for the Mana Leak.
Player B calls for a judge, saying that he did not notice the Banneret's cost reduction and had no idea that the Adept cost only 4 mana, and that Player A violated the rules by not announcing what floating mana he had.
(That Player A broke the rules is true:
Quote from Comprehensive Rules »
106.4a If a player passes priority (see rule 116) while there is mana in his or her mana pool, that player announces what mana is there. If any mana remains in a player’s mana pool after he or she spends mana to pay a cost, that player announces what mana is still there.
)
Player A says that he didn't know there was any such rule, that he believed he was playing within the rules of the game, that he believed he had no responsibility to point out the mana remaining in his mana pool since there was no ambiguity (it could only be U, so no ambiguity regarding color, and Banneret's ability is mandatory, so it must have taken effect) so this was a legitimate tournament shortcut, and that it was Player B's responsibility to be aware of the Banneret.
(It is certainly possible that Player A was not aware of the rule, considering that not only is the rule not particularly well-known, but also that the rule was added fairly recently, in July 2009, and veteran players might not have been aware of the recent change:
Quote from July 2009 Update Bulletin »
106: This is a new section about mana. [...] Additionally, each time a player passes priority or spends mana, if any mana remains in that player's mana pool, he or she must announce what mana is still there.
)
What should the judge do? Would it make any difference if the board had been much simpler, with only, say, around 3 creatures on the board?
Your opponent is allowed to respond to every action you take unless something states otherwise.
Akratch's answer is misleading; your opponent is allowed to respond to everything you put on the stack, but when the stack is cleared, the active player has initial priority.
Thus, the OP's opponent is correct: when Spikeshot Elder enters the battlefield, you have priority to sac it to a Goblin Grenade.
That would go against the policy that MaRo or Tom LaPille or someone mentioned in one of the articles when Commander was released though.
No, it wouldn't. What R&D said was that they don't want to create NEW cards that are only available as hard-to-get promos, like Mana Crypt (because then only a few people would be able to play the card). They're perfectly fine with hard-to-get REPRINTS (because you could just play with the regular version instead of the rare version); for example, there are many rare, hard-to-get alt-art or full-art reprints out there, available only for people in certain regions or positions (East Asia, judges, etc.). The press release specifically says these will be alt-art cards, so WotC is fine with making them hard-to-get, by for instance only making them available with wrapped variant issues or something like that.
Why where the pro's not packing hate. Have the pros not realised what the people on these forums knew that Ghost Quarter Is almost a auto include in every deck.
Um, they WERE packing hate for 12post, and effective hate at that.
Is there no live coverage? GGslive has nothing on their stream and there's nothing on the Wizards site besides stupid Rich Hagon talking about nothing.
Well, the PT's only just started. Feature match coverage articles and deck tech videos will go up throughout the day.
The thing is, though, if I put myself in Cassandra's shoes, if I were Cassandra, regardless of the year of time I bought for everybody, I know I would feel like a total failure for being unable to ultimately avert doomsday.
Since this is a thread about misspellings, after all: they're cue cards, not "que" cards.
Those already have a name; they were named by WotC R&D as "sleeping enchantments".
(Has a better cadence than "manartifacts".)
Speaking of shortcuts, though, what about Player A's contention that even if his play skipped over a step of the rules, it was still a legitimate tournament shortcut (after all, other shortcuts listed in the MTR also gloss over steps in the rules), given that there was no ambiguity or decision-making in which mana was floated? (The floating mana could only be U, so no ambiguity regarding color, and Banneret's ability is mandatory, so it must have taken effect.)
Player A has 7 total lands, all Islands. Among Player A's many creatures is a Stonybrook Banneret. Player A taps 5 of his Islands, leaving 2 Islands untapped, and casts a Silvergill Adept, without saying anything about the single floating U mana in his mana pool.
Player B tries to counter Silvergill Adept with Mana Leak. Player A then taps his last 2 Islands and combines it with his floating U to pay for the Mana Leak.
Player B calls for a judge, saying that he did not notice the Banneret's cost reduction and had no idea that the Adept cost only 4 mana, and that Player A violated the rules by not announcing what floating mana he had.
(That Player A broke the rules is true:
)
Player A says that he didn't know there was any such rule, that he believed he was playing within the rules of the game, that he believed he had no responsibility to point out the mana remaining in his mana pool since there was no ambiguity (it could only be U, so no ambiguity regarding color, and Banneret's ability is mandatory, so it must have taken effect) so this was a legitimate tournament shortcut, and that it was Player B's responsibility to be aware of the Banneret.
(It is certainly possible that Player A was not aware of the rule, considering that not only is the rule not particularly well-known, but also that the rule was added fairly recently, in July 2009, and veteran players might not have been aware of the recent change:
)
What should the judge do? Would it make any difference if the board had been much simpler, with only, say, around 3 creatures on the board?
Akratch's answer is misleading; your opponent is allowed to respond to everything you put on the stack, but when the stack is cleared, the active player has initial priority.
Thus, the OP's opponent is correct: when Spikeshot Elder enters the battlefield, you have priority to sac it to a Goblin Grenade.
This is just like after casting Jace, the Mind Sculptor, you can use its +2 ability before your opponent can Lightning Bolt it.
No, it wouldn't. What R&D said was that they don't want to create NEW cards that are only available as hard-to-get promos, like Mana Crypt (because then only a few people would be able to play the card). They're perfectly fine with hard-to-get REPRINTS (because you could just play with the regular version instead of the rare version); for example, there are many rare, hard-to-get alt-art or full-art reprints out there, available only for people in certain regions or positions (East Asia, judges, etc.). The press release specifically says these will be alt-art cards, so WotC is fine with making them hard-to-get, by for instance only making them available with wrapped variant issues or something like that.
Um, they WERE packing hate for 12post, and effective hate at that.
Hence 12post's horrible (among the worst of the major decks) success rate at the PT: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/ptphi11/metagame2. Twin, Zoo, Raffinity, Ascension, Infect, and Storm all did much better.
That is, the perfect decks on Day 1 are:
Twin
Twin
Zoo
Zoo
Zoo
Storm
Storm
Affinity
Twelvepost
Twelvepost
Ascension
Melira
Death Cloud Rock
At a comic book store.
Well, the PT's only just started. Feature match coverage articles and deck tech videos will go up throughout the day.