Infinite Turns without a win condition

[Clariax]

The only possible way I can see winning in this situation is if you explain to your judge that you are going to attempt to deck your opponent.  You would have to convince him that you are confident your opponent is unable to win if you can assemble 7 counters in hand, and that you will deck him by using Vault to skip enough turns such that your opponent will run out of cards first.

Just to point out really quick (and avoid any confusion, again) you can only skip a turn via time vault if it is tapped when you would start your turn.  Sure, there are ways to get it tapped without taking an extra turn, but you can't just arbitrarily skip a bunch of turns with it by itself.

However if you present a valid path to victory, I don't believe the judge can stop you from attempting it.  I could be wrong though. 

If you're actually playing to some end and not just wasting time to run out the clock, you're not stalling.  The situation presented involved cycling through your deck and twisting over and over while taking infinite turns for the purpose of running out the clock and forcing a draw.  "I'm trying to deck my opponent" is very much different from that.  Of course, if your plan is to deck your opponent you'll probably need to let him take some turns (so he can draw cards) and stop twisting (so you don't replenish his library).

[Rico Suave]

Yes.  To clarify what I said before, the "skip enough turns" would involve your opponent winning with, say, Dark Confidant.  If playing with Repeal or other bounce spells you can literally skip several turns, but the (legitimate) idea would be that Confidant would do a lot of the work in decking your opponent.

It's quite possible that your opponent would need to draw along the lines of 40 cards in his deck to achieve enough counters to force through a Confidant.  At that point, with less than 20 cards remaining in his deck, a lone Confidant will actually deck his user before it can swing 10 times to deal 20 damage. 

Of course this is a relatively fruitless act if your opponent has the means to overcome your counters.  Nevertheless it's still possible that your opponents counters could be on the bottom 5 cards of your opponent's library.

However it gets a little sketchy, since even if you offer the plan of decking your opponent, the simple act of Timetwistering a couple times will eat up a large amount of the match time even if it is done quickly and efficiently, which in the end achieves the purpose of taking chunks of time off the clock.

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[Diakonov]

However it gets a little sketchy, since even if you offer the plan of decking your opponent, the simple act of Timetwistering a couple times will eat up a large amount of the match time even if it is done quickly and efficiently, which in the end achieves the purpose of taking chunks of time off the clock.

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However, couldn't you argue that it isn't stalling on the basis that you are still "advancing the game state" by trying to set up a situation where your opponent will inevitably deck himself?  Sure, it might take awhile, but anyone could sit and watch you and agree that you are trying to construct an impenetrable hand in an effort towards achieving this win condition.  Not to mention that if you use a few counters and are worried your opponent might be able to break through, wouldn't it be a reasonable decision to reengage the Time Vault recursion to eventually refill your hand with counters (as opposed to the purpose being only to kill time)?

[Godder]

Although the ultimate aim of the game is to win, is it not legitimate to not lose as well? In this situation, it's not like someone is trying to abuse the clock to draw a game that he would otherwise lose - he's in a situation where he can't lose no matter how long the game goes for.

[Norm4eva]

As an opponent, if I can still draw cards and say go, I'm not convinced that the game is over.  I'm not sure why I don't have the right to fake an answer, whether it's Fire//Ice or Shock or Lava Dart or 1996 World Champion or whatever the relevant technology is.  Hell if I'm playing 9-land Stompy and my opponent's at 2, I should be able to fake Unyaro Bee Sting.  There's what now, 12000+ cards in Magic?  You shouldn't know what my decklist is, even in obscurities like having a judicial appraisal which results in "No, he's got no answer.  He's stalling."

When it comes to bluffing/pretending you have cards in your deck that you don't, yes, you can definitely bluff.  What I mentioned was in talking to the judge.  Bluffing to your opponent and lying to the judge are two very different things.  And there's no reason why any information the judge requires you to divulge to him need be divulged to your opponent as well.  What's more, if ever a judge asks you a question during a match that you don't think your opponent should be hearing the answer to, just ask the judge if you can step away from the table, and talk to him privately.  (Judges are human, it's possible he may ask a question publicly he should ask privately, yes)

Well okay, but the higher issue here IMO is what the result of talking to the judge is, whether or not there's any trickery in-game.

I mean, forget about this specific Twister-laden example for a minute, is there ever another situation where you'd actually do a decklist check when one guy says, "Look, here's my lock, yet Opponent isn't doing anything but drawing cards, I want to go to game 3", and Opponent says, "I'm waiting until I draw my answer or he actually kills me, no dice" to see if this putative answer is in fact in the deck?  Does it really make a difference whether or not the game has 20 minutes left, 10 minutes, 5 minutes?  5 turns?  Because honestly, if someone's trying to win on the assumption that I'm going to scoop to their version of inevitability, that's bogus.  And if they're going to look to the judge to see if I'm being a prick in claiming I've got an answer to their 'non-kill condition' when I don't, that's just as bad as sitting on the clock, isn't it?

[meadbert]

So if my sole remaining win condition is Dark Confidant, but I fear to play it because of life loss is it considering stalling if I keep defending and passing the turn with Dark Confidant sitting dead in my hand?

[Clariax]

I mean, forget about this specific Twister-laden example for a minute, is there ever another situation where you'd actually do a decklist check when one guy says, "Look, here's my lock, yet Opponent isn't doing anything but drawing cards, I want to go to game 3", and Opponent says, "I'm waiting until I draw my answer or he actually kills me, no dice" to see if this putative answer is in fact in the deck?  Does it really make a difference whether or not the game has 20 minutes left, 10 minutes, 5 minutes?  5 turns?  Because honestly, if someone's trying to win on the assumption that I'm going to scoop to their version of inevitability, that's bogus.  And if they're going to look to the judge to see if I'm being a prick in claiming I've got an answer to their 'non-kill condition' when I don't, that's just as bad as sitting on the clock, isn't it?

So if my sole remaining win condition is Dark Confidant, but I fear to play it because of life loss is it considering stalling if I keep defending and passing the turn with Dark Confidant sitting dead in my hand?

As I've already stated, no, you're not required to concede.  Even if you have nothing you can do, you're not required to concede.  I never once said anything to the effect that you are required to concede, so would greatly appreciate it if people dropped this line of questioning (as this is now the second time I'm covering it).  You don't have to scoop, you don't have to play a Dark Confidant that might kill you.  Whether you have some answer you can draw or not, you can still sit there and wait for your opponent to kill you.

What you cannot do is waste time in the process.  Spending a while after every card you draw "thinking" (some people believe, erroneously, that they're entitled to a set amount of time each turn) to kill the clock is definitely stalling.  Actually thinking is perfectly fine and not stalling (if excessive it could be slow play, though).  Even pretending to think in order to bluff (make your opponent think you have something when you're really holding lands) can be acceptable.  But doing nothing to waste time is definitely not.  And before anyone tries to suggest it, wasting time "thinking" while claiming you're just doing it to bluff your opponent out doesn't work either (I've seen this more than once).  What matters is the reason you're actually doing it, not whatever you might want to claim is the reason.


To reiterate, one last time, you are never required to concede, you're not required to play something.  You can always just sit there passing over and over waiting for your opponent to kill you, whether you might have an out or not.

I very much hope this clears it all up, and any further posts in this thread questioning being required to concede or play something that might harm you will be deleted.