How To Play Clean Magic: Or, How To Get Judges To Like You

This weekend, I’ll be a floor judge at MagicFest Austin, my first major event as a judge after a hiatus of over three months. I really miss the MagicFest circuit and I’m looking forward to the event, so I thought I’d write something, from a judge’s perspective, on playing “cleanly” in Magic.

This article mostly applies for Competitive and Professional REL. If you’re newer to the game, following all these guidelines will likely be quite difficult for you, and these guidelines are practically irrelevant if you’re playing casually (unless you want to train habits into yourself).

Why does it matter?

To be clear, judges generally won’t penalize you for not following these guidelines, unless you’re playing so sloppily that it becomes a problem. You’re allowed to play however you’d like as long as the game state is clear to everyone. But doing this will help immensely. If you do it often enough, if will become second nature, and judges are much more likely to agree with your version of events if you’re known as a clean player. Players who do this also make judging much easier.

I’ve been told by a lot of players that they tend to play sloppy because of time concerns. But honestly, this rings quite hollow. The clock should not be a problem if you’ve been making your decisions in an adequate amount of time throughout the match. I most often see this reason from players who have been playing slowly all match, but then suddenly and visibly speed up when they realize they’re solidly ahead and need to convert the win before time is called.

So, here we go!

1. Let your opponents have priority

Your opponent receives priority before any object on the stack can resolve. You should give them a chance to use it, even if you think they can’t take any relevant actions. People are generally good about this against blue decks that could have countermagic, but other decks can still take actions before the spell resolves, and you should let them take their actions instead of proceeding with your turn.

I’ve found that many players will not stop an opponent that blitzes out a series of game actions, but will still be thinking about responding to a particular stack object in that sequence. That player will still be able to respond to that earlier object, even if you’ve already cast other spells, unless you gave them a chance to respond at the time. Therefore, this stops you from leaking information as a bonus.

Personally, I take this one step further. If they think their opponent is likely to have effects in a certain step, they will pause in that step. For example, if my opponent passes the turn with a Mishra’s Bauble, I will pause in my upkeep step for them, since “upkeep bauble you” is a common play. If I think they’re passing with Vendilion Clique, I will stop in my draw step.

2. Be clear about what objects are on the stack

I greatly prefer representing spells still on the stack by putting them behind your lands, and then moving the permanent card to the “battlefield” area after the opponent makes some sort of visible confirmation, or moving the instant or sorcery to the graveyard after all the actions on the card only after all relevant players take the required action. I dislike players who cast permanents by just putting them into the “in play” area, or casting spells by immediately putting the card into the graveyard.

Not only will this make clear to your opponent that they have an opportunity to respond to the spell, it is also a reminder to you to finish resolving your spells. I’ve seen many players, in the middle of resolving a cantrip, just forget what they’re doing and pass the turn without finishing resolving their spell. This trick also works for removal spells, where you don’t move the spell to the graveyard until your opponent acknowledges it and moves their permanent to the graveyard. Playing this way also makes clearer to your opponent what you’re currently doing- if they have priority in response to your spell, if you’re currently resolving your cantrip, if you’re waiting for them to acknowledge their creature is dead, etc.

Besides, there are cases where this will measurably increase your winrate. If you cast a Blood Moon by slamming the card onto the table and passing, your opponent has quite a bit of time to respond- likely until they physically untap their permanents and draw a card- and sacrifice fetchlands or otherwise. But if you say “Blood Moon” and look at your opponent, and they agree, it would be very difficult for them to later say “actually I would like to crack this”.

3. Tap your mana

Whenever you take an action that requires you to spend mana, please actually turn your lands sideways. People are generally pretty good about doing this if they’re doing things on their main phase, but often skip this step when doing things on the opponent’s end step. This is incredibly sloppy and please stop doing this.

4. Graveyard order matters

According to the Magic Tournament Rules, players may rearrange their graveyards however they’d like in formats that do not include cards that care about graveyard order (Modern and later). However, I still believe in keeping your graveyard in order, because it greatly aids judges in rebuilding game states or trying to figure out what happened in previous turns. Obviously, if you’re playing Dredge, or some other heavy graveyard deck, it would be unreasonable to expect you to do this, since it’s likely a lot of effort. But otherwise, it helps greatly.

There’s a lot of edge cases here that players tend to miss. For example, if you fetch and then cast a spell, the spell is supposed to go on top of the fetchland, whereas many players put the spell in the graveyard first. If cards are put into the graveyard as part of the resolution of a spell, the spell goes on top of those cards.

Maintaining proper graveyard order is much easier if you’re in the habit of making clear what spell is currently on the stack, as mentioned before. The difference in the sequence of actions here may be minor, but it results in a different graveyard order, which means that if a problem comes up later, a judge is going to have an easier or harder time rebuilding the boardstate depending on if the graveyard is correct.

Examples

Wrong:

1. Put Faithless Looting in the graveyard.
2. Crack your fetchland, put it on top of Faithless Looting.
3. Draw two cards, discard two cards, putting them on top of your fetchland.

Right:

1. Crack your fetchland, put it in the graveyard.
2. Cast Faithless Looting, put it on the stack.
3. Draw two cards, discard two cards, putting them on top of your fetchland.
4. Move Faithless Looting into the graveyard.

Wrong:

1. Cast Supreme Verdict, putting it into your graveyard.
2. Move your Snapcaster Mage from your battlefield to the graveyard.

Right:

1. Cast Supreme Verdict, putting the spell on the stack.
2. Move your Snapcaster Mage from your battlefield to the graveyard.
3. Put Supreme Verdict in your graveyard on top of Snapcaster Mage.

Wrong:

1. Tap two lands.
2. Say “cast this” and put a Stony Silence into play.

Right:

1. Tap two lands.
2. Say “cast this”, put Stony Silence behind your lands, and look at your opponent.
3. Opponent acknowledges that the spell resolves in some way.
4. Move the Stony Silence to the “in play” area.

There’s plenty of other ways that players play sloppy, but these are some of the most common that I’ve witnessed. I hope that this gives you something to think about this weekend, or at future events. And if you’re going to Austin, I will see you there!