Almost infinite loop, and the 50 minutes

[Thegreatgonzo]

I have a question

It’s my turn. My opponent is tapped out, with no relevant cards in hand, and 50 cards left in his library. My board is Tidespout tyrant, Mox sapphire, and my hand is Mox jet, Brain freeze, Ancestral recall. (Sounds nice doesn’t it?  )
Everything should be fine, but I know my opponent have a Gaea’s blessing in his library.

A.)Since I can generate as many storm as I want, can I declare I go infinite? Or do I have to decide a number?
 
 B.)Can I declare I stack my brainfreeze copies by packs of 16, and that I wait for Gaea’s blessing not to show up in the first 48   cards so that I can play Ancestral recall? And most important of all, since we just have 50 minutes to play the match, can I just declare I do that, or do I have to play it out, since there’s a tiny chance I will run out of time before this happens?

Thanks for answering.

[Tareth]

A.) You must declare a number. There is no such thing as "infinite" in Magic. You can declare a really, really large number though.
 
B.) You can make an absurd amount of copies of Brain Freeze and resolve them however you want, since they go on the stack and each one resolves separately. As for the second part of your question, if your opponent wants you to play it out, then you must. If they just concedes, then you can move on.

[Godder]

This exact topic has been covered here, with rules and stacks of math to go with it. A particularly useful point is that with one Blessing, you don't actually need a terribly high storm count to reach a ~99% chance of the desired result.

[Clariax]

Simply put, you cannot shortcut to a point where opponent has 2 cards in library, one being gaea's blessing.  As the number of Brain Freeze copies approaches infinity, the chances of the library reaching that configuration approaches 100%.  However, there can never be an infinite number of brain freeze copies, so the odds of the blessing being in the last 2 cards will never actually be 100%.  So, as stated, since it's not definite (regardless of how likely it may be) that the game state will ever reach that point, you cannot shortcut to that point.

[Aardshark]

Related question.

With painter's servant naming blue in play I activate grindstone targeting my opponent.  In the course of milling I flip darksteel colossus.  Is it a permissible shortcut in tournament play to set aside colossus until either either the entire deck is milled, or another triggered effect stops the loop (e.g. a second colossus drawing the game, or a gaea's blessing).

At first blush this seems like exactly the same situation as above, but is slightly distinguished in that here neither player will receive priority before the inevitable end result is reached. 

A local judge indicated that he'd permit (and might even require) this shortcut were it to come up in a tournament.  This makes total sense to me, but seems contrary to this principle.

(Edited for accuracy--colussus is a replacement effect, and blessing will not stop the loop.)

[Clariax]

Once a DSC has been revealed, it's 100% definite the library will be continually milled until only the DSC remains, and if there are 2 or more DSCs/Serra Avatars/Legacy Weapons, the game will be a draw, so it seems a perfectly acceptable shortcut.  But as with any case, if you and your opponent cannot agree on a shortcut, call a judge.

[Gexzilla10]

Another related question based on the original topic:

Assuming your opponent wants you to play it out until one of the last two cards is a Gaea's Blessing, and you've named a large number for Storm, when and how do you reshuffle you graveyard into your deck? I know Blessing triggers once it's milled but what if your opponent's deck has, say 49 cards, so it doesn't mesh with the 3-card-packet that Brain Freeze mills. So you mill 48, then what? Do you mill the last one, reshuffle then mill two or set the graveyard aside, mill the last one and then mill two?

I realize this is largely hypothetical but I'm just curious. Thanks!

[Clariax]

Each instance of Brain Freeze is a separate spell.  So, you mill 3 cards for each one.  If, during the resolution of one of them, something triggers (i.e. Gaea's Blessing), that trigger will go on the top of the stack after the currently resolving Brain Freeze finishes, so the trigger will resolve before any additional copies of Brain Freeze.

Another related question based on the original topic:

Assuming your opponent wants you to play it out until one of the last two cards is a Gaea's Blessing, and you've named a large number for Storm, when and how do you reshuffle you graveyard into your deck? I know Blessing triggers once it's milled but what if your opponent's deck has, say 49 cards, so it doesn't mesh with the 3-card-packet that Brain Freeze mills. So you mill 48, then what? Do you mill the last one, reshuffle then mill two or set the graveyard aside, mill the last one and then mill two?

I realize this is largely hypothetical but I'm just curious. Thanks!

[c dizzle]

Let's say someone decides to be silly and play it out in a tournament. Assume it's the first game and 10 trillion copies of Brain Freeze are on the stack waiting to resolve. What do you do, as a judge, when time is called? Assume that there are 9,999.999.999,952 copies still to resolve.

Here's what I would do:

I would ask how many copies of Gaea's Blessing are in the deck to determine if the game could mathematically be won by the Oath player.

I would rule out all auto-draw situations:

1. If there are four Gaea's Blessing in the deck, the game has to be a draw.
2. If there are three Gaea's Blessing in the deck, and the number of cards left in the library + the number of cards in the graveyard is not evenly divisible by three, the game has to be a draw.

For all other situations, there is a remote possibility that it can be won by the Oath player. Since there is no time left, I would propose the following shortcut: The non-Oath player would be given a D20 to roll five times. If that player rolled 20 each time (a .00065% likelihood of occurring) I would say that they beat the odds and avoided fate and declare the game/match a draw (this method is heavily skewed in the non-Oath player's favor). If not, I would say that the near-inevitable statistics prevailed and that the Oath player won the game/match.

Could this fly in a sanctioned tourney or, more pointedly, if a subordinate judge made this call would you overturn it?

[Clariax]

This is what we call an extreme corner case.  And this corner case in particular people like to discuss it far far far far more than it actually comes up.  I've seen many discussions on it, I've never heard of an actual tournament situation where it came up.  As for how I would deal with it were it to come up, I don't know.  If/when it comes up, I'll worry about it then.  This also isn't a good forum for discussing possible ways to deal with it.  (No, I don't know what is a good forum, but don't do it here.)

Let's say someone decides to be silly and play it out in a tournament. Assume it's the first game and 10 trillion copies of Brain Freeze are on the stack waiting to resolve. What do you do, as a judge, when time is called? Assume that there are 9,999.999.999,952 copies still to resolve.

Here's what I would do:

I would ask how many copies of Gaea's Blessing are in the deck to determine if the game could mathematically be won by the Oath player.

I would rule out all auto-draw situations:

1. If there are four Gaea's Blessing in the deck, the game has to be a draw.
2. If there are three Gaea's Blessing in the deck, and the number of cards left in the library + the number of cards in the graveyard is not evenly divisible by three, the game has to be a draw.

For all other situations, there is a remote possibility that it can be won by the Oath player. Since there is no time left, I would propose the following shortcut: The non-Oath player would be given a D20 to roll five times. If that player rolled 20 each time (a .00065% likelihood of occurring) I would say that they beat the odds and avoided fate and declare the game/match a draw (this method is heavily skewed in the non-Oath player's favor). If not, I would say that the near-inevitable statistics prevailed and that the Oath player won the game/match.

Could this fly in a sanctioned tourney or, more pointedly, if a subordinate judge made this call would you overturn it?

[Godder]

If anyone wants to discuss this issue some more, read the thread that was started with this issue in mind:

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35530

If that's not enough, start a new thread in Community and we can discuss it some more in a more appropriate forum.

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