MtG: FNM Draft

= MtG: FNM, Shards block Draft.
= Friday, June 19th, 2009

Eight players were ready to draft in our once-a-month draft night for FNM. We drafted Shards block. We progressed through the rounds at a breakneck speed, which is not typical for sealed decks. We easily finished early despite starting a little on the late side.

Picture: Aron (right) and Kevin play out game one of the finals. Aron goes on to win that match 2-0.

As a side note there were two interesting rules questions that occurred outside the draft tournament.

(1) Most people who play magic know that if a spell is cast, but its target moves to a different zone before it resolves, then the spell is countered. This is not the case for spells that use the word ‘target’ more than once. They are only countered if ALL targets become illegal [CR 413.2a]. If only one target becomes illegal, such spells still have their effects on the remaining legal targets.

This presents an interesting situation with Cryptic Command. Should a player choose ‘return target permanent to owner’s hand’ and ‘counter target spell’ and the opponent say sacrifices the target permanent, cryptic is not countered and the target spell is still countered.

Conversely, if a player should choose say ‘return target permanent to owner’s hand’ and ‘draw a card’ and the opponent sacrifices the target permanent, cryptic IS countered and a card is not drawn.

(2) The other (hypothetical) question was if a player could redirect the damage they are taking from a Volcanic Fallout that they control, to a planeswalker they control. CR 212.9g states “If noncombat damage would be dealt to a player by a source controlled by an opponent, that opponent may have that source deal that damage to a planeswalker the first player controls instead.”

Due to the ‘controlled by an opponent’ wording, A player cannot redirect non-combat damage from any source they control to a planeswalker they control.