Most Ridiculous MTG Game Caught on Camera 

"I play magic ... you play hearthstone" ... EMOTIONAL DAMAGE !!!

Friend of mine had a moment like this which was, understandably, while he was still relatively new to the game. For him, the card was Mindbreak Trap. He tried to use it to exile my entire board (other than lands, of course) because everything in play "was a spell." I had to explain how they're only spells when they're cast and on the stack, once they're in play, they're permanents and aren't spells anymore. At first he thought that was stupid, but when I told him that a 0 mana "exile everything" card would be absolutely busted he realized his mistake.

When the world needed him the most, he returned

Yep, cards were definitely played. Also, the way LE bends his cards is painful

"He hasn't read his card!" Me, a Yugioh player: "Now where have I heard that one before?"

This reminds me of the time someone path to exiled a creature that was still being cast. It was zacama, and they were going to win if it was cast. No one had a counter spell, so the player decided to remove it while it was on the stack so that the etb effect wouldn't happen. We all looked at him and told him that's not how that worked. He called a judge to tell us it was get. When nothing happened besides the judge reinstating that we where correct he left screaming that no one knew how to play magic. It was a casual game of comander we decided to play waiting for the tournament to start

I totally get why judges didn't interrupt. Assuming both players didn't know Subtle could not target Teferi, and considering Subtle never did get to target Teferi, judges interrupting would mean giving information to players they were not aware of. But being aware of that information is part of the player's skill, meaning if they interrupt they could benefit one of the players with outside information. That is why I believe judges only interrupt on illegal plays that DID occur, never on illegal plays that COULD occur even if there is intention/tries to make then. (as long they believe it is an honest mistake, because if they believe the Subtle player KNOWS about their illegal move attempt, in that case Subtle player is inducing the other player to mistake by quickly targeting Teferi).

They probably just missed the "spell" part of the text.

What happened here, is that the Living End player played Subtlety and then proposes a shortcut of sorts, playing it and doing what they think is a legal play of targeting the Teferi in effectively the same moment. The control player of course has a chance to respond to the cast, declines the shortcut that would be an illegal play, and counters the Subtlety, which is a legal play. Magic, and especially pro magic is full of shortcuts similar to this. A similar example would be if there were more than one artifact or enchantment on the field when Foundation Breaker was played. They could cast it and point at one of the legal targets, proposing a shortcut that implies what he'll do if it resolves. If the control player doesn't counter it, the Living End player would not be able to change their target after it resolved.

Yup, that's the correct non-call. Combo player TRIED to shortcut subtlety resolving by declaring his intention to target teferi. If control player allowed subtlety to resolve, combo would normally be held to that choice (although, in this case, would be a warning for illegal target). But since control player didn't allow the spell to resolve, there was no illegal target. All that said, I could see some judges stepping in as soon as the combo player announced his intention to target teferi, since he was proposing an illegal shortcut.

The hardest part for me to watch was the living end player bending the shit out of all his cards.

Combo player also missed the other commonly ignored feature of the elementals - you can, in fact, cast them for their mana cost, lol. Imo, he should have just played Subtlety as a creature and started hitting Teferi...

"what turn is it?" "2 subtleties"

So, there's a very important point to be made: You can choose to give away information if you want, such as what targets you're going to choose for an ETB trigger on a permanent spell you're casting. A lot of players would do something like "Subtlety targetting Teferi" as a shorthand, assuming that the Subtlety will resolve, but technically, they're giving away information they don't need to give away. What I'm saying: Always, *always* cast your permanent spells with ETB triggers without declaring your choice of targets. It can and has won games.

I can feel the nightmare panic in their play. Imagine having multiple high level judges staring you down, in addition to know over 1000 people are waiting for You to get done. Edit: also as a control player in the past, you really gotta move faster. You don’t need time to honestly think. It’s like chess, you make your move, hit the timer clock and go-go-go.

Dude, I think you'd be one of the top MTG youtubers if you only used 1 channel. You fall out of my algorithm all the time because there are so many channels you post on.

I'm not making this up. Khans of Tarkir prerelease, I played against a guy who had Ashcloud Phoenix in his deck (it has morph [4RR] and "when it dies return it to the battlefield face down"). So when his morphed Ashcloud Phoenix died, he said "when a morph dies, one has to turn it face up and reveal it. So the phoenix triggers and returns to the battlefield face down". He literally thought the card returns to the battlefield and deals 2dmg when it dies no matter what. Worst of all, the guy was a judge himself at other prereleases and fnms.

I had a wild streak of this sorta stuff in my first modern rcq I went to last year. I’ll try to condense them. I was playing jund goblins… In no particular order, first offense was against UW control game 2. At some point in the game he played dress down, and with dress down out he evokes Solitude. This was my first RCQ and I’m way better with rules now but I wasn’t sure how evoke worked with dress down. I thought it was a delayed trigger like Ragavan Dash (which loses haste/abilities but still gets returned to hand), so I called the judge. The HEAD judge comes up and literally looks up a Reddit post that says evoke is a delayed trigger, and Tl;dr it gets sac’d. Player was extremely pissed off because he disagreed with the judge and basically 3 for 0’d himself and he just scooped on the spot. Later find out that evoke is a keyword that actually checks on ETB, so the player wouldn’t have had to sac, but could still cast with evoke cost. Next game was my friend on Creativity vs UW Control. Game 2 as well but it was almost time cause lol control, so players are playing fast. There comes a point where my friend plays a teferi, which gets countered, and friend responds with a mystical dispute, which resolves and Teferi comes out. Except he only had one blue source and couldn’t actually pay for dispute. Asked if he had a treasure and pointed it out, judge was called, and he ended up losing that game. Later apologized but he said it was fine since he fetched wrong cause he was in a rush. I made top 8 and my friend made 9th (sorry!) and I was against murktide. Fast forward it’s game 3 and I have a bunch of goblin tokens plus kiki jiki and mogg war Marshall out. I actually ran out of goblin tokens so I just used a spare “copy” token to represent one of the regular goblin tokens. Our match was the last one to finish so everyone is watching, including the judge, and they mistake the copy token for an actual kiki copy that needed to be sac’d when I passed the turn. Keep in mind this was like 10 hours into the day so I didn’t want to argue and we’d already split the top 8 money, so I just sac‘d it and moved on. Next turn I was short 1 for lethal and died to murktide. He later won the RCQ haha but I wasn’t salty at all, the pro tour was for STANDARD and there’s zero percent chance I’m traveling to play standard. Had a great time and great games but it inspired me to be the rules lawyer that I’ve now become so I’ll take it If anyone is still reading I hope you enjoyed!!

When I started playing living end back in 2013 (the deck was very different at the time), my biggest misunderstanding was that I could cast Demonic Dread without needing a target creature because it didn't matter for the cascade. I was doing that in nearly every round of my first PTQ with the deck until I was finally stopped by my fifth round opponent who (with the help of a judge) explained to me I still needed a creature to target to legally cast DD and get the cascade trigger. I've misunderstood a lot of cards in my mtg career but this moment stuck with me the longest.

Those Living End foils are curled af. The judges should have probably said something about that.

Love this kinda content. Don't play Magic but going over stuff like this is entertaining.

10:49 that's a pretty mess. what's tapped? what isn't? what are the judges doing?

That Living End player probably thought it was a cast trigger not an ETB trigger along with him not realizing he couldn't target the already resolved T3feri on the field. Or maybe he just jump the gun in saying his target before he needed to. Also that control player just wasting counterspells on stuff he didn't need to was just bad.

I would like to say, I never actually realized that’s how Subtlety worked. I thought it was like Venser Shaper Savant and could bounce the spells being cast or permanents. That explains why it’s the worst of the cycle.

The living end player in a short time frame - tried to cast subtelty when he couldnt and was reminded he couldn't so he didnt do it. -cast grief for its evoke cost and had to be reminded he was supposed to sac it. -tried to subtlety his opponents teferi twice. Its hard to not look at these "mistakes" and assume it wasnt him trying to get away with something.

It takes a real Subtle player to counter unnecessarily.

The living end player playing with a can of pringles lmao

Reading what the card actually says has saved me a few times. People that play often often skip over what's happening (fetch lands are a good example), I always slow them down to tell me what they're doing.

I remember at my school's Magic Club, at one point I think somebody tried to play a Terror on their opponent's Plated Slagwurm, Slagwurm player tries to Reroute the Terror and I'm like "Hold the fuck up, we need to rewind cause like 7 illegal things just happened."

We lack audio in the tournament video. The key thing is communication - if both players verbally say how the stack resolves - this is good. If both of them say nothing and just play cards pointing - everything is still on the stack unless shown otherwise. Example: both players play silently pointing on cards when needed. Player A casts Demigod of Revenge and player B plays counter. Player A puts Demigod into graveyard and then immediately returns it into play. (That's legal)

This was great thanks for finding this. KEEP STAYING PAWZITIVE NIKACHU along with 3 judges lol

I waited 5 months for this, loved every minute!!! ❤❤

You are allowed to have 2 of the same planeswalker in play at the same time now? When did that change?

Loving the subtle Mario music in the background... Works perfectly lol

Dam every new video you put out is a treat. Thanks Nikachu!

Doesn't UW control play Subtlety too? Modern is in such a good place right now he said sarcastically.

This video reminds me of Rimmer when he is explaining a game of Risk played like 20 years ago to Lister. Lister starts rolling his eyes and tries to fall asleep.

Definitely a dominance flex. He was using counters just cuz he had them. It's just coincidence that nothing illegal happened

That Living End player has a blinged out holographic deck and handles it like he's playing Alpha without sleeves but still has them in sleeves. The pringles. The bending. It hurts!!!!

In in fairness these guys where probably absolutely exhausted

This game was unhinged. How those guys got matched up can only be a gift from the magic gods to us.

Hope all is well! Glad to see a new video of yours!

I once saw Kenny beat Slaughter House. It was total mayhem.

Technically it isn't illegal unless they proceed to resolve the card. If the judges intervened and told a player that the resolution of their card was an illegal target prior to it attempting to resolve, that would technically be coaching and it's a big no no for judges to do that.

Another great video ! Was a mess all throughout.

I think the 2nd attempt at casting subtlety (with evoke) was just the living end player saying something like "evoke subtlety targeting your teferi" which is a reasonable shortcut (assuming it was a valid target for the triggered ability). You don't _have_ to announce the target before it has entered the battlefield but it's not illegal to talk ahead like that, and with this much pressure on them I can't really fault him for trying to speed things up as much as possible. What I'm saying is I think it's not that weird that a finger was pointed and then the spell countered

I’ve had to step away from Magic to be financially sane and catch up on real life that just poured on unforeseen financial debt earlier this year, so seeing this upload helped me to shake some of the rules dust off. Thank you for making my day as you do, reminding me that one day soon I’ll be back at this game and that I really hadn’t forgotten as much as I thought I had thankfully. You’re the best!

I didn't watch it from the sideline. When I was about 13 or 14 I played against another boy from the town. It was the time when old Kamigawa released and I played the rat ninjutsu deck. He tried so hard to convince me he could block a creature I played with ninjutsu I was doubting myself. Luckily a friend walked in who told us I was right and declaration of blockers was over.

Yay! Glad you’re back!

Huh wasn’t expecting a nikochu video

The Donkey Kong/Mario background music was a nice touch 😄👍

Ngl i did not know Subtlety could only target a spell being cast, but now i do haha

Return of the king

Oh my god, the Great Teacher Onizuka clip, love it

Yeeeeessss you are back :) i love these videos

Your super Nintendo background music is such a nice touch. 👍

My favorite judge interaction was at a tournament I was working as an L1. Player A and player B for a reason neither could understand or explain in the middle of the game shuffled their hands and graveyard into their libraries effectively restarting the game. After a 52 minute time extension no penalties were issued as nobody could explain what caused it or who was at fault.

9:24 I am new to Magic. What are these players writing down? They are allowed to take notes or something? 🧐

Holy cow this was an eye opener. If this was played online would the system know that this would be an illegal play? Great video!

Well,welcome back Legend!

I never thought I’d say this, but watching this makes me grateful for the time rules we have here on the YuGiOh side

"It's fine..." while the room is on fire haha

Want a current modern update!!!!!

That Donkey Kong Country music fits so perfectly it's uncanny

The advice on the low blood sugar is completely true! The brain uses enormous amounts of energy just to read and stay concentrated!

please do more videos like these i love them i love magic and i love seeing dumb tournament plays like these

I know what happened (aside from them not knowing how Subtlety works) Its simple, control player knows he has Archmages charm in his hand, so he's already poised to bounce....he may not understand that Subtlety wont do anything, but being prepared to counterspell was how his mind was working probably.

I can totally understand mistaking that _Subtlety_ can hit permanents because when they already have the gist of the card people typically only really look for types of targets in the card text and gloss over the rest, so that seems plausible, but Charm's first ability is so short and concise Idk how anyone would mistake it 🤷🏽

Its usually not you not knowing what your cards do, its your openents not knowing what your cards do. Its why commander is a nightmare now.

"But judge, I have a Platinum Angel."

I actually had an opponent RECENTLY make that same Subtlety fumble with his U/B Control deck. Granted, he did hard cast it so he still got his nice 3/3 flyer but still.

i feel like this is what happens when someone pickups a decklist from a website and says yeah this looks good and doesn't understand how the deck/cards play.

Oddly enough, that is sort of how most judging has to be done, unless something blatantly illegal happens, a judge can't step in, unless a player calls for one, since judges are technically there to solve issues, not police games, granted, had the subtlety resolved wrongly, a judge would have jumped in to prevent the illegal move, it's a dumb distinction but sort of important, since judges can't be seen favoring one player over the other.

Nice to see you posting again.

Your videos are very fun, Nikachu! Cool!

Back in my day (when I just started playing), I guy tried to Disenchant a Disenchant (we only had instructions in english and we weren't good at it)

It’s just the way he plays his cards, the card bending, no! XD

I think all this confusion would be solved if the card text added "on the stack". Reminds me of return to zero.

Great video, more like this!

The donkey Kong music in the background is perfect

Nice to see you man. It's been way too long!

They needed to counterspell the judges 😂😂

One judge is like "Ho..." Other judge puts their hand on judges chest, and just sliently shakes their head slowly left and right. It dawns on the first judge, and they hang back. After the second time, they're like "let it play out, let it play out."

You’re like Jim Carrey meets Magic meets Matt Dillon. I just subscribed.

Players made 3 lefts, judges not obligated to say just go right 😂😂

Recently, I accidentally drew a revealed nonland card from a goblin guide trigger. Attack, flip the card over. Its an orcish bowmasters. As he says pass, draw it, draw for turn. Another orcish bowmasters. At this point, both myself and a spectator go 'uhhh' and realize the error. Judge is called and it was a relatively easy fix with a warning. Pretty dumb mistake though!

Looking at this version of Subtlety they used, the line "creature spell or planeswalker spell" cuts to another line right after "planeswalker". It's easy to understand how you could miss the "spell" part at a glance

The minute I saw the subtlety, I knew he had misplayed it. Then he tried to misplay it again.

"When your opponent makes a mistake don't correct them." When you and your opponent make a mistake, nobody correct us, I guess.

7:49 -8:19 I just realized who your voice reminds me of 🤔 You sound like John Mulaney 😮

It’s insane that someone can build a deck, buy foils and sleeve them up, spend mana to cast them and still not know what the cards do.

"Hey buddy ever play MTG?" "No" "Me either! Lets play U/w control and a combo deck in modern at the local tournament, how hard can it be?" - Those guys, probably.

Where have you been??? I missed these videos! Great.

I'm just so shocked by the lack of comprehensive reading skills, especially the guy with Subtlety 🤦‍♂

Another important rule in a tournament is to not day drink! I did that at the last RCQ I went to although things did get better after so maybe DO day drink?

Dont forget, both players have a responsibility to maintain the integrity of the game state, which didnt happen after subtlety was played. But im more amazed that 2 judges allowed 2 cards to be played incorrectly. And then im totally astonished that according to another judge nothing illegal happened. 1) if you are choosing targets for a spell, the spell is resolved. You dont choose targets until spell resolution. 2) subtlety player chose an ILLEGAL TARGET. The new judge system is really working let me tell ya

As the Professor loves to say, "Reading the card explains the card"

Ah yes The classic play that every new player tries to make with spell queller Attempting to exile a permanent

Welcome back Sir!!!

I love how the azorious player is countering spells that have already been resolved