Welcome back, with GP London fast approaching I’d like to tackle the topic of making a judge call.

First let’s go over how to call a judge. It seems silly but it’s something some people get wrong. When you want to call a judge just put your hand in the air. Most of us aren’t psychic (only the L4+ judges are and they don’t normally walk the floor) so we need to tell where you are. Once  your hand is in the air shout “judge” and I mean shout (unless there is one basically next to your table). the hall of a GP can be a noisy place and you need us to be able to hear you.

Now lets cover what to do when you have a judge at the table:

When asking a rules question before you do something it’s important to remember that judges can only answer questions in a way that won’t give play advice and we can only answer the question that has been asked. This means that how you phrase your question is key. Take a couple of seconds and make sure you are asking the question that gets you the answer you want. A good example of a question that doesn’t get the required answer: Can I Spellskite my opponent’s God’s Willing? When wanting to know if you can redirect the God’s Willing, the answer would be “Yes”, but the ability wouldn’t have any effect. Typically you want to ask questions that don’t have a Yes or No answer ask “What happens if I…” rather than “Can I/Will it…”.

If you wish to ask a question but don’t want your opponent to hear what you have just asked you are free to request to ask it away from the table. Judges understand that your rules question may require asking about cards or interactions your opponent doesn’t know about yet, so we allow you to ask your questions away from the table if you wish.

It’s important to remember that judges can make mistakes. If a judge has made a ruling you believe to be wrong or you don’t understand, you have the right to get a ruling from the Head Judge. At smaller events it is possibly that the judge answering in the first place is the Head Judge, however at a GP this is unlikely. When you wish to appeal a ruling simply tell the judge that you wish to appeal and they will go and find either the Head Judge or an Appeals judge who will listen to the situation and give their ruling on it. This ruling is final and if you still don’t agree or understand, ask the judge who handled the appeal to talk about the situation after your match.

There will be times you find yourself in a situation where something has gone wrong. You fetched a forest with Polluted Delta or played Siege Rhino without access to white mana. In these situations the judge will try and get the game back to it’s most “correct” game state. To be able to do this they will need to ask you some questions about how the game got to where it was, while answering these question: tell the judge the truth, you might think that you can save yourself a penalty or something but getting caught lying to a judge will lead to you being disqualified from the event.

Lastly, during the whole process please be respectful, both to the judges involved but also your opponent. Just because your opponent calls a judge when something has gone wrong does not mean they think you are a cheater, unless of course they call you a dirty cheat but that might be a different problem. All it means is that they want to make sure that things were being fixed correctly.

Let’s recap:

● Make sure a judge can find you when you make a judge call

● Ask the question you want answering

● You can ask questions away from the table

● If you don’t agree with or don’t understand a ruling you can appeal to the Head Judge

● Don’t lie to a judge or any other tournament officials

● Be respectful

You are playing Abigail. You control Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy and have 4 cards in your graveyard. Abigail in her second main phase targets Jace with Hero’s Downfall, in response you choose to Jace’s ability. What happens as the stack resolves?

When the Jace’s looting ability resolves this will trigger his Spark to Ignite exiling him and returning him to the battlefield as a Planeswalker. When Hero’s Downfall resolves because Jace left the battlefield when he comes back he is a new object meaning he is no longer being targeted by Hero’s Downfall which will be countered upon resolution.

Due to the build up to GP London there is no rules question this time.