Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Genju of the Spires.

[savekeeper]

Here's what happend today at my instore pre-release:

Player A has a couple of land, a Kiki Jiki and a Genju of the Spires. He activates the Genju and then activates Kiki Jiki targeting the 6/1 mountain.

-Question 1: can he do this? Does player A get a 6/1 token?

Since both players thought everything was fine they continued playing. Player B spent several resources to stop the Kiki Jiki/Genju assault and afterter a few turns player B was turning the tables around and winning. Unfortunatly for him Player A got a burn spell of the top which was lethal.

At that point however a spectator said that the Kiki Jiki/Genju play from a few turns back was illegal. We called over our local judge who went searching for the awnser on the internet ( he didn;t know either). After a while he came back and said the play was indeed illegal, which then resulted in a game-loss for player A.

-Question 2: was this a correct ruling? Assuming the Kiki Jiki/Genju play was indeed illigal, did the judge make the correct discision by giving player A a game loss?

[Jebus]

*edit*Nothing to see here.

[combo_dude]

This has been answered elsewhere, I think - it only turns it into a Mountain, not a 6/1 Mountain, since the animated Mountain is still nonetheless a Mountain, albeit with additional abilities.

[Jebus]

BAKA!  I forgot about that.

It would just be a mountain.  And I've even answered this a million times before.  I'm going to go smash my head into a wall for a few hours.

[Toad]

Assuming the Kiki Jiki/Genju play was indeed illigal, did the judge make the correct discision by giving player A a game loss?

Depending on the situation and the player's justification (I don't want to get into this in details), I would have either gone for

* Procedural Error - Major, leading to a Warning upgraded to a Game Loss since the error can't be easily reverted.

or

* Procedural Error - Severe, leading to a Game Loss.

In both cases, GL.

[Nazdakka]

Assuming the Kiki Jiki/Genju play was indeed illigal, did the judge make the correct discision by giving player A a game loss?

Depending on the situation and the player's justification (I don't want to get into this in details), I would have either gone for

* Procedural Error - Major, leading to a Warning upgraded to a Game Loss since the error can't be easily reverted.

or

* Procedural Error - Severe, leading to a Game Loss.

In both cases, GL.

Seriously? That seems extremely harsh. If there was no malice intended by player A's action, it was simply a rules error for which player B was just as culpable as player A, and so I can't see a GL being justified at an 8K event. If it was suspected that player A was taking advantage of player B's lack of rules knowledge then I can see the reasoning, but it's a fairly obscure and non-intuitive ruling, so I would be likely to give the benefit of the doubt unless I strongly suspected foul play. Maybe the judge in question did see something dodgy.

[Toad]

Well, the sanction can sound harsh for a 8K event but :

* The error made Player B win a game he would probably not have won otherwise (sounds so to me when reading the initial post).
* The error can't be reverted (several turns have passed, including cards drawn).

You can't definitly let player B win because of his mistake. That's my reasonning behind the GL. I *know* It's rude for a 8K PR, but that's the sanction.

[epeeguy]

* Procedural Error - Major, leading to a Warning upgraded to a Game Loss since the error can't be easily reverted.

That, IMO, is not the conclusion that I would have come to.  There are a few things to consider here:

1.)  This is an REL1 event (as all PreRelease's are), which is really not more intensive than FNM.  The generally philosophy (from the L3s and fellow L2s that I've worked with) is to simply educate the player and fix the game state if possible.  If not, then you Caution or Warn the players as necessarily, and only in truly irrepairable games do you issue the Procedural Error - Severe (Game Loss) penalty.

2.)  The game was already over, and changing the results of the game (and match) is somewhat dubious.  Especially (based on the information given) when the mistake appears to be honest.  If shenanigans were afoot here, then perhaps the results of the game (and match) merit a change.

3.)  The rational for the upgrade from Proc. Error - Major from Warning to Game Loss is not in agreement with that stated in the Penalty Guidelines.  The only time such a penalty should be upgrade is if the game cannot be completed in the alloted time; not that the error can't be reverted (there are many times where judges never revert errors to the game state, because to do so would cause more damage to the game).

4.)  Why didn't the spectator call a judge earlier when they noticed this happening?  The spectator shouldn't have talked to the players, but he or she should have certainly mentioned this to a judge to ensure the problem didn't occur further.

Anyhow, I think that a Game Loss is too severe in this case; so, respectfully, I have to disagree with Toad's assessment in this case.  Proc Error Major (Warning) at the most, and a reminder (Caution) to the spectator who noticed this error about calling judges when they notice illegal actions.  Note: however, there is certainly room within the penalty guidelines to assess the higher penalty based on the judge addressing the situation.  It is simply that I, personally, would not go quite as far in my assessment.  At least based on the evidence presented.

[BigMac]

I have a question about all this. Genju states that the mountain becomes a 6/1 spirit creature. It also states it is still a land. To me after activation the mountain becomes a 6/1 spirit land creature.

Question 1: why cant kiki target this creature, as it is a creature (or do i go very wrong here)

Question 2: can engeneered plague, targetting spirit, kill the land before it can attack. Because if this is only a land, and not a creature, wouldnt this effect not affect the mountain with the genju upon it.

So basically, is this land becomming a creature as well as a land after activation. If yes, why couldnt Kiki be activated in this example.

[epeeguy]

Question 1: why cant kiki target this creature, as it is a creature (or do i go very wrong here)

The original question and answer were not very clear for this; but yes, Kiki-Jiki can target the Mountain that was animated by the Genju.  However, when Kiki-Jiki's ability resolves, it will only put a Land token into play (it will not be a Creature).  This is because copy abilities will not copy the effects that are affecting the object being copied.  This is also where the "problem" came in to account; the players were playing as if the token was a 6/1 creature and it shouldn't have been.

But to answer your question; yes, you can use Kiki-Jiki's ability to copy the now animated mountain.  But the ability will produce a non-animated mountain.

Question 2: can engeneered plague, targetting spirit, kill the land before it can attack. Because if this is only a land, and not a creature, wouldnt this effect not affect the mountain with the genju upon it.

Yes, it would kill the now animated land as a state-based effect.  This is because the ability of the Genju gives it the creature type "Spirit".  The creature would then get -1/-1 from the Engineered Plague, and is a 5/0 creature, which goes to the graveyard.

[BigMac]

ok thank you kindly

[Pern]

You could tap your mountain token for mana.
Funny.

[SliverKing]

I think the penalty here would depend highly on the REL of the event, however just because a situation is un-fixable does not necessarily equate to a game loss.  The real decision from the judges perspective is proc-error major or proc-error severe. UNLESS you suspect that this isnt confusion over the difficulty of the copy-rules, but instead intentional mis-representing what Kiki-Jiki can do to get extra 6/1's into play.  Which gets into cheating and thats a whole other can of worms.